“All I remember is hands all over my body, grabbing under the layers of pullovers I was wearing, touching my breasts, opening my bra. More hands on my back and legs, my pants being pulled down. I tried to see the end of circle of men, but saw rows of men surrounding me, all pushing towards me. One man moved towards me in the middle of maybe forty men. When I could reach his hand, I just hugged the stranger and told him to help me. We moved further into the square and the man started moving faster. At that point I was not sure anymore whether he would help me or whether he was collaborating with the rest of the men. I panicked. I looked for other people to help. I saw a guy wearing one of the Operation Anti Sexual Harassment t-shirts and I started shouting louder. Luckily he saw me and made his way towards me. He grabbed me and held me and told me he would help me. I fell, the guy helped me up and I got up and was surrounded by women and men of the Anti Harassment group.” Read more or join the discussion.
Submitted by Howaida Kamel — Mon, 08/12/2013 – 00:00
“كل ال ان فكراه إن كان فيه أيادي مسكاني من كل حتة في جسمي، أيادي بتحاول تفك حمالة صدري و بتفعص صدري من تحت البلوفر ال أنا كنت ارتديه. بقية الأيادي كانت مسكاني من ظهري و رجليا، و حسيت ببنطلوني بيتشد لتحت. حاولت أنظر حوالية عشان أشوف دائرة الرجال دي بتنتهي فين، لكن وجدت صفوف من الرجل محيطة بي، وكلهم بيزقو تجاهي.”
Submitted by Howaida Kamel — Mon, 08/12/2013 – 00:00
في يوم ٢٢ يونيو من هذا العام تحدثت مع الدكتورة سحر عطية، الرئيسة الجديدة لقسم الهندسة المعمارية في كلية الهندسة بجامعة القاهرة. قدمت الدكتورة سحر نظرة ثاقبة لقضايا التخطيط الحضري في القاهرة الكبرى و الأساليب التي يتم استخدامها لتوفير الخدمات لسكان هذه المنطقة.
Submitted by Howaida Kamel — Mon, 07/22/2013 – 00:00
On June 22, I spoke with Dr. Sahar Attia, the new Chair of the Department of Architecture at the Faculty of Engineering at Cairo University. Dr. Sahar provided insight into issues of urban planning in Greater Cairo Region (GCR) and the methods used to provide services to Cairenes. Read more or join the discussion.
Submitted by Howaida Kamel — Mon, 07/22/2013 – 00:00
I managed to drive across Kasr el Nile bridge at 8:30am to find people already on the streets, cleaning up after four days of protests. I passed the Constitutional Court, where police forces had secured the area so that Judge Adly Mansour, the new interim President, could take his oath. What became publicized rather quickly was the coincidence that Judge Mansour was appointed the Head of the Constitutional Court on June 30, after his predecessor’s term had ended. While some suspect that this might be foul play, he has served on the Constitutional Court since 1992 and has held the position of Vice-President until appointed as the leader by former President Mohamed Morsi. Read more.
Submitted by Howaida Kamel — Thu, 07/04/2013 – 09:57
The entire country waited in apprehension for the 48-hour ultimatum to end. Local media had placed a countdown timer on the screen while showing the live feed of Tahrir, Itahedaya, and other major squares around the country. Large numbers of protesters started taking the streets around 3:30pm, waiting for the 4:30pm mark. With the Muslim Brotherhood supporters occupying the square at Cairo University, I stayed in the suburb of Maadi rather than go to Tahrir, especially considering the rumors that they had stopped traffic on all major bridges. Read more.
Submitted by Howaida Kamel — Thu, 07/04/2013 – 09:50
In the early afternoon, the army released the aerial footage that they captured above Itahadeya and Tahrir on June 30. This was a political move used to show the huge amount of people that had came out against Morsi, and to show that the army is dedicated to following the will of the people. Read more.
Submitted by Howaida Kamel — Wed, 07/03/2013 – 15:47
We woke up the next morning to find that those in Moqattam had stormed the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters to find rooms filled with Molotov cocktails and other types of weapons. Six were killed in the struggle. Read more.
Submitted by Howaida Kamel — Wed, 07/03/2013 – 13:57
The protests against President Mohamed Morsi started on June 30th: Egyptians all over the country took to the streets to mark the one-year anniversary of the Muslim Brotherhood in power. The Tamarud “rebellion” campaign has been working for the past three months to collect signatures for their petition calling for the President’s immediate resignation; the group recently announced that it had collected 22,134,465 signatures. Media estimates claim that up to 33 million people stood in squares all over the country, in what BBC has titled the largest number of people to partake in a political protest ever. Read more.
Submitted by Howaida Kamel — Wed, 07/03/2013 – 10:18
On July 13, 2010, approximately 15 buildings in the areas of Establ Antar and Ezbet Khairallah were demolished. As written in the 2011 Amnesty International report, families in these buildings were forced to remove their personal possessions and pay 200 LE (approximately $36 USD) for truck to take their belongings to alternative housing units in 6th of October City. Once the demolition began, security forces at the scene began to offload the belongings of 21 families, claiming that they were trying to cheat the enumeration process for free housing and they weren’t residents of the area. These families were then told that by paying 5000 LE ($890 USD) to a middle-man, they could be placed on the enumeration list. Read more or join the discussion.
Submitted by Howaida Kamel — Mon, 07/01/2013 – 00:00