Journalist Raped in Tahrir Square

‘Taliban Woman’ Causes Terror Alert In Yerushalayim

Yeshiva World

A women dressed in the latest burka fashion sparked a terrorist alert in downtown Yerushalayim today, 25 Cheshvan. The incident occurred on King George Street, as security guards spotted the person in the hooded garb and feared the worst, while passersby distanced themselves from the presumed female, fearing a suicide bomber, in downtown Jerusalem. Alarmed citizens summoned police.
A team of motorcycle commandos arrived, but the suspected terrorist had already walked into an alley, but police followed and ordered the person to remove her head piece. The Gideon commandos learned it was a journalist working undercover, literally, seeking to examine the response of the general public to the new fashion statement appearing in a small sector of the chareidi community.
Needless to say the journalist did not hesitate to comply with orders of the commandos who had weapons drawn and appeared to be in no mode for hesitation or non-compliance. Baruch Hashem for their superior training, which permitted them to act as they did without opening fire and chas v’sholom wounding or killing an innocent person as persons in the area were panicking.

It can be assumed that the incident will spark an outcry of concern regarding those women who today dress this way regularly and the concerns of police and other security agencies.

Time Tested Interrogation Technique ... Sexual Assault

Mona Eltahawy is a US-based Egyptian journalist. Photograph: Observer

Journalist Mona Eltahawy alleges sexual assault in Egypt detention

The Guardian
The US-based Egyptian journalist Mona Eltahawy has been released, according to her personal Twitter account, after 12 hours in detention at the hands of Cairo security forces. A later tweet from the account @monaeltahawy said that she was sexually and physically assaulted while being held inside the interior ministry in Cairo, in the early hours of Thursday morning.

A US embassy representative in Cairo told the Guardian that the reports of her detention were "very concerning" and that "US embassy consulate officers are engaging Egyptian authorities".

At 10:30am on Thursday, the former Reuters Middle East correspondent who has been lauded for her recent coverage of the Egyptian uprising, began tweeting that she had spent 12 hours in detention under the authority of interior ministry and military intelligence officials and that she had suffered a serious sexual assault by up to half a dozen members of the Egyptian security forces. She also said that she had been kept blindfolded for hours and also posted a picture of her severely bruised hand and then both her arms in casts.

She also thanked supporters after #freemona began trending around the world on Twitter.

In a series of tweets on Wednesday night, Eltahaway who is a columnist for various papers including the Toronto Star, the Jerusalem Report and Denmark's Politiken, and has also written for the Guardian, described scenes in and around Tahrir Square including news that a family friend of hers had been killed. She ended the message by damning the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (Scaf) who have control overEgypt's transition.

At approximately 11pm GMT she wrote "Pitch black, only flashing ambulance lights and air thick with gas Mohamed Mahmoud #Tahrir". At around the same time she then described the violence occurring around the gates of the American University in Cairo of which she is an alumnus.

"Across street from AUC gate I used to enter every day Mohamed Mansour. Can't believe it. A cacophony sirens, horns, flashing ambulance lights" In a penultimate tweet she appeared to write "Beaten arrested in interior ministry".

Other journalists are also thought to have been detained on Wednesday night. Eltahawy last wrote for the Guardian on Friday about a young Egyptian female blogger who had decided to post a naked photo of herself on her blog in an act of defiance.

The 44-year-old was born in Port Said, but later lived in the UK, Saudi Arabia and Israel, settling in the US in 2000.

In 2009, the European Union awarded her its Samir Kassir prize for Freedom of the Press, and last year she was awarded the Anna Lindh Foundation's special prize for Outstanding Contribution to Journalism.

The Egyptian embassy in London has yet to comment on her detention.