The brave women of the Middle East: Female protesters brutally beaten with metal poles as vicious soldiers drag girls through streets by their hair in day of shame
By Inderdeep Bains18th December 2011
After being viciously beaten by a 10-strong mob of Egyptian male soldiers, this woman lies helplessly on the ground as her shirt is ripped from her body and a man kicks her with full force in her exposed chest.
Moments earlier she had been struck countless times in the head and body with metal batons, not content with the brutal beating delivered by his fellow soldier, one man stamped on her head repeatedly.
She feebly tried to shield her head from the relentless blows with her hands.
Brutal: This shocking image shows Egyptian army soldiers dragging this helpless woman on the ground and kicking her hard in the chest after ripping her clothes from her body
Outnumbered: This woman screams in pain as she is surrounded by five male soldiers during protests in the Egyptian capital and beaten with poles
Before she was set upon by the guards, three men appeared to carry her as they tried to flee the approaching military.
But they were too slow and the soldiers caught up with them, capturing the women and knocking one of the men to the ground.
The two other men were forced to abandoned their fellow protestors and continued running, looking helplessly back at the two they left behind being relentlessly attacked as they lay on the ground.
This is just one of the hundreds of shameful injustices seen in Cairo's Tahrir Square where Egypt's military took a dramatically heavy hand on Saturday to crush protests against its rule.
Aya Emad told the AP that troops dragged her by her headscarf and hair into the Cabinet headquarters. The 24-year-old said soldiers kicked her on the ground, an officer shocked her with an electrical prod and another slapped her on the face, leaving her nose broken and her arm in a sling.
Mona Seif, an activist who was briefly detained Friday, said she saw an officer repeatedly slapping a detained old woman in the face.
'It was a humiliating scene,' Seif told the private TV network Al-Nahar. 'I have never seen this in my life.'
Brutally injured: This woman is left barely conscious and splattered in blood after being beaten the military in violent clashes between rock-throwing protesters and military police
Shameless: Egyptian army soldiers use brutal force to arrest this female protester and drag her by her hair during clashes with military police near Cairo's Tahrir Square
Violent: The heavy handed Egyptian army soldiers drag the arrested a woman protester off by her hair
Police fired teargas to break up a demonstration by several hundred people on the outskirts of the capital, Manama where several women staged a sit-in protest trying to block a main road.
After nearly 48 hours of continuous fighting in Egypt's capital more than 300 were left injured and nine dead, many of them shot dead.
The most sustained crackdown yet is likely a sign that the generals who took power after the February ouster of Hosni Mubarak are confident that the Egyptian public is on its side after two rounds of widely acclaimed parliament elections, that Islamist parties winning the vote will stay out of the fight while pro-democracy protesters become more isolated.
Still, the generals risk turning more Egyptians against them, especially from outrage over the abuse of women.
'Do they think this is manly?' Toqa Nosseir, a 19-year old student, said of the attacks on women. 'Where is the dignity?'
Man-handled: Egyptian soldiers clash with this female protester and two male protestors near Cairo's Tahrir Square
Protection: A female and two male Egyptian protester use a metal sheet as a shield as they throw rocks at military police, unseen, behind the gates and inside the Parliament building near Cairo's Tahrir Square
Brave: Two women join protesters as they shout anti-military council slogans near the cabinet in Cairo
'No one can approve or accept what is happening here,' she said.
'The military council wants to silence all criticism. They want to hold on power ... I will not accept this humiliation just for the sake of stability.'
Nearby in Tahrir, protesters held up newspapers with the image of the half-stripped woman on the front page to passing cars, shouting sarcastically, 'This is the army that is protecting us!'
'No one can approve or accept what is happening here,' she said.
'The military council wants to silence all criticism. They want to hold on power ... I will not accept this humiliation just for the sake of stability.'
Nearby in Tahrir, protesters held up newspapers with the image of the half-stripped woman on the front page to passing cars, shouting sarcastically, 'This is the army that is protecting us!'
Grief: A woman mourns slain Egyptian protesters who were killed during the latest clashes with Egyptian soldiers, while they wait to receive their bodies in front of the morgue in Cairo
Under-fire: Pro-reform female protesters run for cover as heavy-handed police try to disperse them with tear-gas, in Abu Seba village, north of Manama, Bahrain
Egypt's new, military-appointed interim prime minister defended the military, denying it shot protesters. He said gunshot deaths were caused by other attackers he didn't identify.
He accused the protesters of being 'anti-revolution.'
The main street between Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the anti-Mubarak protests, and the parliament and Cabinet buildings where the clashes began early the previous morning looked like a war zone on Saturday.
Military police on rooftops pelting protesters below with stones and firebombs and launched truncheon-swinging assaults to drive the crowds back.
Young activists put helmets or buckets on their heads or grabbed sheets of concrete and even satellite dishes as protection against the stones hailing down from the roofs.
The streets were strewn with chunks of concrete, stones ,broken glass, burned furniture and peddlers' carts as clashes continued to rage after nightfall Saturday.
Detained: Activist Zainab al-Khawaja (Right) screams while being arrested during a protest in Abu Seba village, north of Manama
Heavy-handed: A Bahraini policewoman drags activist Zainab al-Khawaja across the floor after arresting her fo taking part in sit-in protest
More than a week of heavy fighting erupted in November, leaving more than 40 dead – but that was largely between police and protesters, with the military keeping a low profile.
In the afternoon, military police charged into Tahrir, swinging truncheons and long sticks, briefly chasing out protesters and setting fire to their tents.
They trashed a field hospital set up by protesters, swept into buildings where television crews were filming and briefly detained journalists. They tossed the camera and equipment of an Al-Jazeera TV crew off the balcony of a building.
A journalist who was briefly detained told The Associated Press that he was beaten up with sticks and fists while being led to into the parliament building. Inside, he saw a group of detained young men and one woman.
Each was surrounded by six or seven soldiers beating him or her with sticks or steel bars or giving electrical shocks with prods.
'Blood covered the floor, and an officer was telling the soldiers to wipe the blood,' said the journalist
Defiant: A brave woman shouts anti-government slogans as she stands amidst tear gas fired by riot police to disperse a sit-in at a roundabout on Budaiya Highway, west of Manama
In Bahrain, Zainab al-Khawaja, 27, was arrested and dragged across the floor by her handcuffs after police fired teargas to break up a demonstration by several hundred people on the outskirts of the capital, Manama.
Ms al-Khawaja and several other women staged a sit-in protest trying to block a main road. The other women fled the scene but Ms al-Khawaja refused.
Riot police fired tear-gas at the women, with dozens requiring hospital treatment after the incident.
A report by a panel of human rights experts in November found that Bahraini security forces had used excessive forces and carried out the systematic abuse of prisoners, including torture, when the regime sent in troops to crush the uprising in March.
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