"Blame the Muslims": Violence Against Women in Egypt

As soon as CBS announced yesterday that correspondent Lara Logan had been sexually assaulted while covering the Egyptian protests, the media sprang alive in search of a scapegoat. Two disturbing lines of commentary have emerged: one that cites irrelevant details about Logan's beauty or her past sexual history, the other blaming Muslims or Egyptian culture for the assault. In the Washington Post, Alexandra Petri noted that this happened to a "known, blonde white woman." And on her blog, Debbie Schlussel wrote that "she should have known what Islam is all about." "This never happened to her or any other mainstream media reporter when Mubarak was allowed to treat his country of savages in the only way they can be controlled," opined Schlussel.

But we would be wrong to assume that in controlling Egyptians, Mubarak somehow also kept women safe. In fact, state-sanctioned violence against women was widespread and well documented. For years Egypt has been cited by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International for using rape, torture, and sexual assault to threaten and intimidate female activists who criticized the regime. These tactics were also used against female family members of dissidents. There is also considerable evidence that members of Mubarak's security forces ordered the assault of female protesters during the recent demonstrations.

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