Raping the women of Tahrir

"I cannot possibly imagine what kind of joy a man can get out of taking a girl’s virginity with a knife, along with a mob of three hundred people,” said Hussein el-Shafie, regarding the events of January 25, 2013. In a scene repeated many times that night, hundreds of men in Tahrir Square, many bearing knives and clubs, swarmed around a victim. One man lit a can of butane to push back the attackers and make space for the rescue team to get in and extract a girl from the center of the crowd. The mob pulled off her clothes, violated her with their hands and turned on the rescuers, trapping them for two hours before police dispersed the melee with tear gas.  On the 2nd anniversary of the Egyptian Revolution, activists from Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment (OpAntiSH) reported 19 cases of mob assaults, and of those cases, six required surgical