Al-Arabiya news
written by Diana Moukalled
Friday October 5, 2012
A Tunisian girl was raped by two policemen, a disturbing story in a country still trying to find its way after inaugurating the Arab revolutions.
But, instead of arresting the perpetrators and taking legal actions against them, things have taken a different course, and the trial went in another direction. Instead of being treated as a rape victim, the girl is facing accusations of violating indecency laws and being engaged in immoral behavior. .. Wasn’t she late at night in a car with a young man when the police patrol attacked them and threatened the man who was with her?!
It is sufficient to have such a hypothesis to promote indulgence towards security officials and create doubts against the girl’s behavior and accuse her, turn the whole issue upside down, and manipulate it in front the public opinion, questioning her behavior and holding her responsible.
The issue is not anymore one of raping a girl and abusing the basic role of the state, which is providing protection and security, and it became a tiny detail that two policemen took the girl in a police car and raped her!
The fact of the rape and sexual aggression was diluted by the fact that the girl was with a young man, and this detail became the foundation of the case and the center of the fierce campaign led by some official Tunisian entities in order to confront the public uproar against the official handling of the girl’s issue.
Even the civil online campaign, which targeted the website of the Tunisian ministry of interior in protest against the accusation of the girl, is considered as “media exploitation” by an official press release from the ministry, hiding an implicit induction against the girl by using words hinting that she committed adultery. These words echo perfectly among many in the Tunisian community, especially the hardliners and conservatives.
Don’t we live in the era of the rise of the political Islamic movements who find in the women a mandatory entrance to control the society and redefine it through their own chain of values and their views towards life and the universe… In fact, the sexual aggression of the Tunisian girl by the policemen is not the only cause of fear and concern.
The Egyptian women fear all types of sexual abuse, morally and physically, and they don’t feel safe at all when some lawmakers promoting young girls’ marriage, while the Tunisian women fear of losing some of the vested rights they acquired under the previous regime, and the Libyan and Yemeni women aren’t very optimist.
It is a long list of concerns haunting the Arab women, who were and still are at the forefront of the Arab movement, and are surprised to be set aside in the aftermath of the revolutions. Didn’t some of the winners who assumed power announce openly that this phase’s priorities do not have enough space for women’s rights?!
We don’t live in illusions, and we know that the debate about women’s rights will not be resolved soon, and no solution is to be expected unless the new constitutions, and those who are under revision, will have explicit rights and clear guarantees for our freedom as women and individuals.
A few days ago, the Syrian activist Razan Zaitouneh received Ibn Rishd award, in recognition of her efforts in observing and reporting human rights violations before and during the revolution.
I wonder, just wonder, if someone will tell us in the future that Razan Zaitouneh does not deserve to be part of the team who will draft the new constitution of Syria.
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