Attack on Egyptian women protesters sparks uproar

By Dina Zayed

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian activist Ghada Kamal was grabbed, slapped and beaten by an army officer this week during five days of violent demonstrations demanding an end to military rule.

Battered and bruised, the 28-year-old was released hours later, after she said she was threatened and told "tonight, you're mine". But instead of going home, she walked right into a television studio.

"How can the same person who attacks an unarmed woman protect the nation? I was dragged and pulled from my hair. They hit me with batons in my stomach and my chest," Kamal, a member of the youth group April 6, told viewers of a popular chat show.

Images of women often in a lead role during the uprising that ousted President Hosni Mubarak in February resonated across the Arab world. Now women say they are being targeted; pictures of them being molested have fuelled anger at home and abroad.

In one video that has in the days since it was shot come to symbolise the abuse, army officers were shown dragging a woman by her black robe, worn by conservative Muslims, as she lay on the ground, revealing her blue bra. Then she was repeatedly kicked and clubbed. The image has gone viral on the Internet.

In response, thousands of women surrounded by men pledging to protect them demonstrated in Tahrir on Tuesday. "The women of Egypt are a red line!" they chanted, vowing to return this Friday for a mass demonstration.

Ordinary Egyptians and commentators have been outraged, piling pressure on the army and encouraging calls for it to hand power to an elected president sooner than June, when it has now pledged to hold the vote.

Equally worrying for the army, it has drawn a stinging rebuke from the United States, which gives $1.3 billion a year in military aid to Egypt.