Members of Congress Pen Letter on Women’s Rights in Egypt

Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-MO), Christopher Murphy (D-CT), and twelve other co-signers issued a letter to Egypt’s Ambassador Sameh Shoukry today, stressing their concerns about the treatment of women in Egypt after the January 25 revolution. In the letter the congressmen stated that “we are extremely disturbed by violent scenes of soldiers’ abuse against women activists”, and that “events of the last month are only the latest in a string of developments which have alerted the international community to the rights and role of women in post-revolutionary Egypt”. Women in Egypt were at the forefront of the peaceful demonstrations which brought down the regime of former President Hosni Mubarak, the congressmen wrote, but a precedent is being set that excludes women from the important developments in Egypt’s transition: no women were included on the Constitutional Committee which issued the interim constitution, nor were any put in winnable positions on political party lists, and the abolition of the quota in parliament means that Egypt’s next legislature will have the fewest number of women representatives in decades.

For the full text of the letter, click here.