Assaults on Women in Cairo Exposes Deeper Problems.

By now most of you have heard about the horrifying attacks on women in Cairo. I am following as closely as I can with the help of many excellent bloggers in Egypt. I am moved by the concern for the women, despite what is being said about the police inaction. Maybe the Egyptian press wanted to cover it all up, but bloggers like Big Pharaoh and ordinary citizens took photos that captured the disturbing scenes. I don't read arabic, but you can get a sense of the event from some of the pictures from Wael Abbas who, according to this report at Forsoothsayer.blog was actually threatened at the scene by a POLICE OFFICER at gunpoint to STOP taking PICTURES.

True, we had a similar mob attack at one of the Puerto Rican Day Parades here in New York, but at least the police tried to do something. Unfortunately from the reports, the attackers in Cairo appeared to be much larger in number. The idea that Egyptian police stood by is deeply frightening. From the article here by Karim El-Khashad I am drawing another insight. Where a professor of political sociology Saed Mostafa Sadek says, "he believes this is a reflection of the retreat of the state at a time when Egypt is facing the worst social situation in its history." Also a shopkeeper said this happens frequently, but this time it got people's attention.

Here is an interesting article written by Dr. Elham Manea entitled, Diary of an Arab Woman For a Humanistic Islam.

I'd much rather like to think of life in Egypt as being more like this instead of like the photos shown below..

UPDATE: A woman who was there has started her own blog. See the photos and video.

Also, Rantings of a Sandmonkey blog has further coverage.