gisw13_chapters

EgyptGender and civil rights: How effective is women’s online activism?ArabDevLeila Hassaninwww.arabdev.orgIntroductionICTs were and continue to be an important tool forpolitical resistance for Egyptian women. Egyptianwomen have used Web 2.0 channels for online disobedience,sabotage and resistance. There are manyexamples of women activists working online. Thisshort report lists only a handful.Women’s rights activists working onlineIsraa Abdel-Fattah co-founded the April 6th YouthMovement, 1 an activist group supporting industrialworkers in the town of El Mahalla El Kubra. Themovement created a Facebook page calling for apeaceful civil strike on 6 April 2008, asking Egyptiansto wear black and abstain from public life thatday. The strike included a wider protest against thegeneral political and social degeneration in Egypt,including police tyranny and torture, political,judiciary and social injustice, and wide income disparitiesand illegal wealth. The strike call-out wasalso announced through Twitter, blogs and Flickrand gained mass popularity.Israa Abdel-Fattah was arrested by the Egyptiansecurity forces after the 6 April strike and kept indetention for two weeks. Despite the arrest, shecontinued her political participation and was an activeprotestor in the 25 January Revolution of 2011,where she communicated events on the ground viaFacebook, Twitter and Al Jazeera.Tens of thousands of youth members joined theApril 6th Movement through its Facebook presenceand it soon became the nucleus of youth activismagainst the Mubarak regime. They organised ralliesand were a permanent target of police surveillanceand repression.Asmaa Mahfouz, a young woman, posted aYouTube message 2 urging people to protest Mubarak’scorrupt government by rallying in Tahrir Squareon 25 January. Her plea for participation was made1 www.6april.org/2 www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgjIgMdsEukout of personal frustration after the lack of demonstratorsat a rally just days before. Mahfouz usedthe patriarchal Egyptian stereotype of the vulnerableunmarried woman, the virgin, 3 to spur moreparticipation in peaceful street rallies. She said: “I,a girl, 4 am going down to Tahrir Square, and I willstand alone. And I will hold up a banner. Perhapspeople will show that they have some gumption. 5Don’t think you can be safe anymore. None of usis. Come down with us and demand your rights, myrights, your family’s rights. I am going down on 25January and will say no to corruption, no to this regime.”The shaming technique worked, especiallyas it coincided with a boost to national pride afterthe ouster of the Tunisian president through a popularmass uprising.Gigi Ibrahim 6 was a Twitter pioneer at the 25January Revolution. She was one of the most outspokenEgyptian women right from the start, withan accurate vision predicting the end of the Mubarakregime. It should be noted, however, that sheis an Egyptian who was raised in the United Statesand came back to Egypt as a university student.Using ICTs for protestCurrent Egyptian women’s activism is nearlysynonymous with the use of information and communicationstechnologies (ICTs). Most activists useat least one platform, or a combination of mobilecommunication, email and social networks, includingTwitter. ICTs played a major role in exchange,with information being shared quickly, points of viewbeing discussed, and actions organised throughoutthe Egyptian revolution and its aftermath. Forwomen, the internet, especially the social networksand Twitter, were a convenient way to express theiropinions, call for national and international alerts tosexual attacks and harassment, call for rallies andboycotts, voice their opposing points of view, anduncover and warn about attacks and dangers.3 Which is a very real vulnerability in light of the constantharassment that women, especially young ones, face on thestreets of Egypt.4 A “girl” means an unmarried woman, aka virgin, in colloquialArabic.5 Here she used shaming as she was especially addressing men, asin, “If a ‘girl’ can do this, where are you?”6 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gihan_Ibrahim122 / Global Information Society Watch