Egypt: Revolution's women participate in a march against "sectarian strife"

A large number of Egyptian women participated in a march entitled "No to sectarian strife" which appeared with its ugly face in the district of Imbaba. They participated in this march to stress the values of citizenship and tolerance and to prevent the strife that has been witnessed in the district and in many different places in Egypt after the revolution. The Egyptian Center for Women's Rights affirms that the incidents that happened between Muslims and Christians are a clear attempt to abort the 25th of January revolution through the use of women to fuel strife.

ECWR praises women who participated in this march: they included women from all political sides and also from the district of Imbaba. The women participants in this march were from all categories: housewives, employees, female Muslims carrying the cross and female Christians affirming the values of full citizenship with their chants. ECWR thought that women's participation in this march came to affirm their refusal to be used, and to affirm their refusal to use the religion in their name in terms of trading with religion by the two sides.

The Egyptian Center for Women's Rights calls on the Armed Council to act, not to confront the crisis by preserving negative neutrality and not simply to use the conventional methods in dealing with incidents of strife. It should apply the laws to save the nation. ECWR had affirmed in its annual report 2010 on Egyptian women's status its "refusal of forced disappearances of women and restrictions of their freedom of religion, pointing out that 1demonstrations are only using the issue for political and sectarian reasons.

In the meantime, tens of thousands of girls suffer from living in the streets as "street girls and mothers", or those women whose houses collapsed, have to stay in the streets and are exposed to humanitarian, institutional and sexual violations.” However, none of the parties who claimed that they speak in the name of women cared about those female children or women.

(Cairo, May 10, 2011)