Samira Ibrahim ( ar, سميرة إبراهيم, ) (born
c. 1987) is an Egyptian activist who came to prominence during the Egyptian revolution.
Tahrir sit-in and aftermath
On March 9, 2011, she participated in a sit-in at
Tahrir Square
Tahrir Square ( ar, ميدان التحرير ', , English: Liberation Square), also known as "Martyr Square", is a major public town square in downtown Cairo, Egypt. The square has been the location and focus for political demonstrations in Ca ...
in
Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo met ...
. The military violently dispersed protest participants, and Samira and other women were beaten, given electric shocks,
strip search
A strip search is a practice of search of persons, searching a person for weapons or other contraband suspected of being hidden on their body or inside their clothing, and not found by performing a frisking, frisk search, but by requiring the p ...
ed, and videotaped by the soldiers. They were also subjected to
virginity test
A virginity test is the practice and process of determining whether a girl or woman is a virgin; i.e., to determine that she has never engaged in, or been subjected to, sexual intercourse. The test typically involves a check for the presence of a ...
s. The tests were allegedly carried out to protect the soldiers from claims of rape.
After succeeding in placing the case in front of a civilian court, a
court order
A court order is an official proclamation by a judge (or panel of judges) that defines the legal relationships between the parties to a hearing, a trial, an appeal or other court proceedings. Such ruling requires or authorizes the carrying out ...
was issued in December 2011 to stop the practice of “virginity tests”. However, in March 2012, a
military court
A court-martial or court martial (plural ''courts-martial'' or ''courts martial'', as "martial" is a postpositive adjective) is a military court or a trial conducted in such a court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of mem ...
exonerated
Exoneration occurs when the conviction for a crime is reversed, either through demonstration of innocence, a flaw in the conviction, or otherwise. Attempts to exonerate convicts are particularly controversial in death penalty cases, especially ...
Dr. Adel El Mogy from charges laid in connection with the virginity testing of Ibrahim.
Ibrahim vowed to take her case to the international courts.
2013 Twitter allegations
In early March 2013, Ibrahim came under criticism after
Samuel Tadros
Samuel ''Šəmūʾēl'', Tiberian: ''Šămūʾēl''; ar, شموئيل or صموئيل '; el, Σαμουήλ ''Samouḗl''; la, Samūēl is a figure who, in the narratives of the Hebrew Bible, plays a key role in the transition from the bi ...
, writing in ''
The Weekly Standard
''The Weekly Standard'' was an American neoconservative political magazine of news, analysis and commentary, published 48 times per year. Originally edited by founders Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes, the ''Standard'' had been described as a "r ...
'', accused her of posting
anti-Semitic
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
and
anti-American
Anti-Americanism (also called anti-American sentiment) is prejudice, fear, or hatred of the United States, its government, its foreign policy, or Americans in general.
Political scientist Brendon O'Connor at the United States Studies Centr ...
statements on her
Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
account. These statements included quoting
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
, writing: "I have discovered with the passage of days, that no act contrary to morality, no crime against society, takes place, except with the Jews having a hand in it. Hitler.” In reaction to a
suicide bombing
A suicide attack is any violent attack, usually entailing the attacker detonating an explosive, where the attacker has accepted their own death as a direct result of the attacking method used. Suicide attacks have occurred throughout history ...
of a bus of Israelis in Bulgaria, she wrote "Today is a very sweet day with a lot of very sweet news.”
In 2012 on the anniversary of the
September 11 terrorist attack
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commerci ...
s, she tweeted "Today is the anniversary of
9/11. May every year come with America burning".
The American State Department subsequently announced that it will not be giving the ''International Women of Courage Award'' to her in light of these comments.
Initially, Ibrahim claimed that her Twitter account had been "previously stolen" and that "any tweet on racism and hatred is not me”.
[ However, she later stated "I refuse to apologize to the ]Zionist
Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in J ...
lobby in America regarding my previous anti-Zionist statements under pressure from American government therefore they withdrew the award." The U.S. State Department later stated that Ibrahim had since left the United States to return to Egypt.
On March 8, 2013, a spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department stated that "Upon further review, the department has decided not to present her with the award" as American officials "didn't consider some of the public statements that she had made appropriate. They didn't comport with our values" while adding that "There were obviously some problems in our review process, and we're going to do some forensics on how that happened."
Awards and recognitions
* Rank 20, 2012 Time 100
''Time'' 100 (often stylized as ''TIME'' 100) is an annual listicle of the 100 most influential people in the world, assembled by the American news magazine ''Time''. First published in 1999 as the result of a debate among American academics, p ...
See also
*
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ibrahim, Samira
1987 births
Living people
Egyptian feminists
Egyptian women's rights activists
Feminist bloggers
Proponents of Islamic feminism
People of the Egyptian revolution of 2011
Victims of human rights abuses
Violence against women in Egypt
20th-century Egyptian women
20th-century Egyptian people
21st-century Egyptian women
21st-century Egyptian people
Date of birth missing (living people)
Place of birth missing (living people)