March to highlight marginalisation of women marred by shouting match with men

EGYPT:EGYPT'S MILLION Woman March yesterday descended into a shouting match between women calling for equal rights and men demanding that women accept that their place is at home.

Organisers used Twitter and Facebook to call for a protest over the marginalisation of women in the post-Mubarak era, but failed to convince more than the 1,000 women and men who attended the demonstration in Tahrir (Liberation) Square in central Cairo on the occasion of International Women’s Day.

Organisers focused on the failure of the military to appoint a woman to the panel that drew up amendments to the constitution, and of the new government to include new women ministers. The administration contains only one woman, minister of international co-operation Fayza Abu Naga, a holdover from the ousted regime.

Tens of thousands of women had braved pro-regime thugs, tear gas and harassment to take part in the countrywide protests that brought down the president, Hosni Mubarak, on February 11th. “When we were in Tahrir as citizens, we as women did not have to think about voicing our rights because we were living our rights,” organiser Yasmine Khalifa said. “After the resignation, that’s when things started to shift in the other direction.” There is concern that the collapse of the event could undermine gains made by women during the uprising.

Part of the reason the women’s march failed was that many decided to participate in a sit-in staged by Coptic Christians in front of the radio and television building, a few hundred metres from the square. The Copts are protesting the burning of a church in Helwan province during a Christian-Muslim clash over a romance between a Christian man and a Muslim woman, and are urging army protection for Copts who fled the village but seek to return.

Women are not alone in criticising the new government. Questions have appeared on Facebook and Twitter about the retention by prime minister Essam Sharaf of Sayed Meshaal as minister of military industries, and Maged George as minister of environment.

Mr Meshaal was accused of forging votes to secure an assembly seat in last year’s flawed parliamentary election, while workers criticise factories under his supervision for poor conditions and oppression. Mr George, a former army officer, has been castigated for failing to lower Cairo’s pollution levels.

Meanwhile, a Cairo court has rejected an appeal by Mr Mubarak and his family against the freezing of their assets until investigations into their multimillion-dollar fortunes are completed.