'Please God, make it stop!' British female journalist, 21, describes horrific sexual assault in Egypt's Tahrir Square after election result
It may be old news now but this is how to celebrate the announcement Mohammed Morsi would be the nation's first democratically elected leader to help create a strongly religious country
Now lets hope with the Army taking over these so called peaceful supporters end up in jail
Now lets hope with the Army taking over these so called peaceful supporters end up in jail
- Natasha Smith attacked by a 'group of animals' who stripped her naked
- Only escaped after she was handed a burka and men's clothes
- 'I was tossed around like fresh meat among starving lions'
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A British journalist was brutally sexually assaulted in Cairo's Tahrir Square as thousands of Egyptians gathered to celebrate the nation's presidential election results.
Natasha Smith, 21, has detailed how she was violently attacked by a 'group of animals' who stripped her naked, scratched and clenched her breasts and 'forced their fingers inside her'.
She only escaped by donning men's clothes and a burka and being whisked away to safety by two other men.
Assaulted: Natasha Smith has written about her horrific ordeal in Tahrir Square on her blog
Mixed: Tahrir Square was a scene of celebration, but also of a horror, as Natasha Smith was assaulted
Brutal: Smith was attacked as thousands celebrated the victory of the Muslim Brotherhood's candidate as the new president
Writing on her blog, she said: 'All I could see was leering faces, more and more faces sneering and jeering as I was tossed around like fresh meat among starving lions.'
The incident occured on Sunday when Egyptians flooded the area celebrating the announcement Mohammed Morsi would be the nation's first democratically elected leader.
Smith, who will graduate with an MA in International Journalism from University College Falmouth in August, was in Tahrir to film the crowd for a documentary on women's rights.
But the initial 'atmosphere of jubilation, excitement, and happiness', quickly turned against her.
She said: 'Just as I realised I had reached the end of the bridge, I noticed the crowd became thicker, and decided immediately to turn around to avoid Tahrir Square.
'My friends and I tried to leave. I tried to put my camera back in my rucksack. But in a split second, everything changed.
Accidental leader: Mohammed Morsi waves to the crowd during a presidential campaign rally
Rammed: Tahrir Square has become a focus point for the Arab Spring
'Men had been groping me for a while, but suddenly, something shifted. I found myself being dragged from my male friend, groped all over, with increasing force and aggression.
'I screamed. I could see what was happening and I saw that I was powerless to stop it. I couldn't believe I had got into this situation.'
The former Weymouth College and University of Nottingham student said she was then stripped naked and assaulted.
Attacked: CBS reporter Lara Logan moments before she was assaulted in February 2011
She wrote: 'I began to think, 'maybe this is just it. Maybe this is how I go, how I die. I’ve had a good life. Whether I live or die, this will all be over soon.'
A friend eventually reached her and managed to guide her to a medical tent. Local women helped protect her as she put on the burka and clothes.
She said: 'The men outside remained thirsty for blood; their prey had been cruelly snatched from their grasp.
'They peered in, so I had to duck down and hide. They attempted to attack the tent, and those inside began making a barricade out of chairs. They wanted my blood.'
She then escaped by posing as a stranger's wife and walking out hand-in-hand with the man.
She added: 'The women told me the attack was motivated by rumours spread by trouble-making thugs that I was a foreign spy.
'But if that was the cause, it was only really used as a pretext, an excuse, to molest and violate a blonde young Western girl.'
Smith is not the first western woman to be assaulted while working in Egypt. CBS News' Lara Logan was attacked during the 2011 revolution. She said 'men in the crowd had raped me with their hands'.
Egyptian journalist Mona Eltahawy was also assaulted by Egyptian security forces in November.
And Smith has vowed that the abuse would not stop her from exposing the wider issue of sexual assault in the country.
Broken and battered: Mona Tahawy was brutally assaulted last year
She said: 'I will overcome this and come back stronger and wiser. My documentary will be fuelled by my passion to help make people aware of just how serious this issue is.
'It's not just a passing news story that briefly gets people’s attention then is forgotten. This is a consistent trend and it has to stop.
'Arab women, western women – there are so many sufferers.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2165445/British-journalist-Natasha-Smith-22-recalls-horrific-sexual-assault-Egypts-Tahrir-Square.html#ixzz2igFb3P9K
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The attack occurred in the same place where "60 Minutes" correspondent Lara Logan was similarly victimized.
A journalist from the Netherlands has been raped by a group of men while covering the uprisings in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the same location where CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Loganwas sexually assaulted and beaten by protesters in 2011, shortly after the fall of President Hosni Mubarak.
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The attack was confirmed by the Dutch embassy in Cairo, whoissued a statement reading, "A Dutch woman of 22 was attacked in Tahrir Square on Friday evening. The Netherlands Embassy has assisted the victim, and after receiving emergency treatment in a Cairo hospital she was repatriated to the Netherlands in the company of family. The victim has cooperated with an investigation started by the Egyptian authorities. In the interest of the privacy of the victim, no further information will be given."
The chaotic moments leading up to the attack were reportedly captured in a video currently posted online [warning: graphic content], in which a blond woman is seen being overpowered by a swarm of male protesters. Millions had gathered in the public space to demand the removal of Mohamed Morsias Egypt's president.
News of the violent sexual assault that followed was first reported by Dina Zakaria, a journalist for Egypt 25 news channel. Writing on her Facebook page, Zakaria said that the woman "was raped by men who dub themselves revolutionists" and that her "condition is severe and she is hospitalized."
Logan broke her silence about her life-threatening sexual assault in May 2011, telling CBS' 60 Minutes, "Before I even knew what was happening, I feel hands grabbing my breasts, grabbing my crotch, grabbing me from behind. It's not one person and it stops -- it's one person and another person and another person. I'm screaming, thinking if they hear me scream, they'll stop. ... And it was the opposite. The more I screamed, the more it turned them into a frenzy."
After one protester shouted that Logan was an Israeli (she isn't), Logan felt her clothes being literally torn off her body. Cell phone camera flashes went off as the frenzied crowd took photos of her naked body. "I didn't even know they were beating me with flags and sticks because the sexual assault was all I could feel," Logan said. "I thought, 'I'm going to die here.'"
A group of female protesters ultimately closed ranks around Logan, holding back the mob until soldiers could carry her to safety. She spent four days recovering in a hospital before returning to the U.S.
"Sexual violence is a way of denying women journalists access to the story in Egypt," Logan told theNew York Daily News after her assault. "It's not accidental. It's by design."
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