Cairo: Al Azhar, Egypt’s influential Islamic seat of learning, has fully backed campaigns against sexual harassment, a major problem in the country in recent years. The leading institution condemned verbal and physical harassment as a “sinful and deviant act” prohibited by all religious codes.
“Criminalising harassment and the harasser should be all-out and unconditional,” Al Azhar said in a statement published on Tuesday. “Blaming harassment on the behaviour or clothes of the girl reflects a wrong way of thinking because harassment constitutes an assault on the woman’s privacy, freedom and dignity,” added the centre, an advocate of moderate Islam.
Conservatives usually blame victims for harassment, prompting many of them to shun reporting the offence to authorities for fear of social disgrace.
“The laws criminalising harassment should take effect. The media should also avoid broadcasting any material that promotes harassment or shows the harasser in a way that encourages others to imitate him,” Al Azhar said in the statement.
The institution’s remarks come days after a man was killed in the Egyptian Mediterranean city of Alexandria allegedly while defending his wife against harassment. The city’s police arrested the 39-year-old suspect purportedly for having fatally stabbed the woman’s husband at a beach this week. The incident triggered an outcry in Egypt.
A 2013 UN report found that 99.3 per cent of women in Egypt have experienced some form of sexual harassment.
In recent years, Egyptian authorities and civil society groups have stepped up efforts to combat the offence. Under recent legal amendments, sexual harassment in Egypt is punishable by jail terms of up to 10 years.
Egyptian courts have recently issued tough jail sentences in different cases of sex assaults. The verdicts were passed following a short number of hearings. Previously, such cases took long years before a ruling was delivered.
