1 Oct 2019; MEMO: Egypt has detained over 83 women in September alone, according to figures compiled by the rights group We Record.
The arrests are part of a widescale crackdown in Egypt in September as the government moves to curb protests which have swept across the country for two weeks in a row calling on President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi to stand down.
Demonstrators responded to a call to take to the streets by the former Egyptian army contractor Mohamed Ali who confirmed that corruption was taking place in the top ranks of the Egyptian regime, the army and within Al-Sisi’s family.
Last week the Arabic hashtag “Enough Al-Sisi” was trending worldwide with over one million tweets.
Over 2,350 people including activists, journalists and former detainees have been arrested in the space of two weeks, according to the Egyptian Coordination for Rights and Freedoms.
The fact that so many women have been caught up in this dragnet is unprecedented as the arrest of women was considered a red line by previous regimes.
However, since the coup in the summer of 2013, 2,762 women have been arrested in the country.
The government is also forcibly disappearing women, including Nariman Eid Suleiman, who was last seen on the 22 August this year.
The government is using women to get to their relatives. Aisha Al-Shater, the daughter of Khairat Al-Shater, a top figure within the Muslim Brotherhood, arrested in November 2018 without an arrest warrant and forcibly disappeared for 28 days.
In June this year Aisha told an Egyptian court that she used her pocket as a toilet in an admission that underscored the harrowing conditions detainees are kept in and the lack of amenities they have access to.
Aisha went on hunger strike on 18 September before she was taken to hospital when her health deteriorated. Prison authorities offered to allow her children and family to visit, take her out of solitary confinement and give her more time out of her cell if she stopped striking.
She agreed, but when she returned to her cell none of these concessions materialised so she resumed the hunger strike which today has reached its 14th day.
