Year: 2007
Type: article
Abstract: Just after midnight on Wednesday October 25 2006, Malek Mostafa published a post on his blog malek-x.net entitled Downtown’s Sexual Rabies. Little did he know that his post would prove a blogging sensation and send shockwaves through Egypt’s independent media. Eliciting some 750 comments—a massive jump from the average 30 comments Malek receives—the post broke a story which Egypt’s state-run media were either unwilling or unable to report: the sexual harassment of women in Downtown Cairo during the Islamic post-Ramadan feast holiday Eid in October 2006. The post comprised an eye-witness account of what happened backed up by photographs taken by journalist and fellow blogger Wael Abbas. A total of 60,000 people read the post and for a week, Malek’s site was getting some 8,000 visitors a day. “One of the things I believe bloggers like me have achieved,” says Malek, “is create a new breed of citizen journalists who communicate what they witness like any correspondent.” That night Malek, Wael (misrdigital.blogspirit.com), another blogger Mohammed El Sharkawy (speaksfreely.net) and Reuters stringer photographer Abdel Nasser Nouri had the opportunity to put their reporting skills to the test. They were sitting at a Downtown café when a friend came over and told them about the mass harassment of girls near the Metro Cinema where the celebrity belly-dancer Dina was attending the premiere of her Eid film. From what they were told, Dina had started dancing in the street causing a crowd to gather round her. The bloggers rushed to the scene to find hundreds of young men surrounding a handful of women—veiled, unveiled young and old—grabbing them and tearing off their clothes.
Source: Arab Media and Society.
DOI: 10.70090/ram07rce
Author: Rania Al Malky
Language: English
Topic: Journalism and Media Studies
Subfield: Communication
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4403083962