By Mark Ellis —
During a televised debate about a proposed bill that would toughen anti-prostitution laws in Egypt, a prominent lawyer, Nabih Wahsh, caused an uproar when he stated the following:
“Are you happy when you see a girl walking down the street with half of her behind showing?” he asked the audience on Al-Assema TV, October 19th.
“I say that when a girl walks about like that, it is a patriotic duty to sexually harass her and a national duty to rape her. What she allows herself to do constitutes depravity.”
Wahsh is not alone in his sentiments, which appear to be shared by many conservative Muslims – and some have acted upon their views.
On February 11, 2011 CBS News Correspondent Lara Logan was sexually assaulted by 200 men in Tahrir Square as she covered the toppling of President Hosni Mubarak. They stripped, raped, and beat the hapless reporter for 40 minutes before she was rescued by some Burka-clad women who also managed to summon police.
A correspondent for France 24 TV was ‘‘savagely attacked’’ at the same square after being seized by a crowd in October, 2012. Sonia Dridi was attacked after a live broadcast covering a protest and was later rescued by a colleague and other witnesses.
These gang rape attacks even have a name in Arabic, “Taharrush Jamai,” which involves a sexual assault by a large group of men under the protection provided by large crowd.
In some men’s twisted imaginations, it is a pre-planned gang rape “game.”
“Predominant in Egypt and parts of the Arabic world, these crimes go unreported where thousands of women have been molested , raped and abused by the young men in these places,” notes Garima Tyagi, writing for Life Crust.
The incidents also spread to Europe following the influx of refugees from the Middle East and North Africa.
During the 2015 and 2016 New Year’s Eve celebrations, there were mass sexual assaults, including 24 alleged rapes in Cologne, Germany.
There were similar incidents reported at New Year gatherings in Hamburg, Dortmund, Düsseldorf, Stuttgart and Bielefeld.
The staggering tally in Germany included 1,200 women sexually assaulted, with some 2,000 men involved, acting in groups.
Tyagi describes the rape “game” in which men in the inner circle assault the victim while men in a second concentric circle attempt to fight their way in, with an outer circle distracting the crowd.
