New leader Sisi orders action to tackle sex attacks on women in Egypt
Rights advocates welcome Egyptian leader's gesture, but says it does not go far enough
Spurred by a video said to show a sex assault on a woman by a mob in Tahrir Square, President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi has pledged to take "all necessary measures" to combat attacks.
He has ordered vigorous enforcement of a new law that for the first time criminalises sexual harassment.
Rights advocates welcomed Tuesday's gesture, but said the new measures did not go far enough. The failure of successive governments to take the issue seriously has pushed sexual violence to endemic levels in Egypt, they said.
Advocacy groups and the prosecutor's office reported a series of mob assaults had taken place in the square in recent days as Sisi backers hailed his victory in last month's presidential election. The attack that was captured on video occurred on Sunday night as crowds gathered in the square to celebrate the new president's inauguration.
Egypt's prosecutor general released details of an assault on a mother and her teenage daughter without specifying whether the attack was the same one depicted in the video, although the sequence of events appeared to match.
The statement said the two were surrounded by a mob and the mother was violently stripped of her clothing, then seriously burned when the scuffle overturned a tea vendor's pot of scalding water.
