The Broken Bones of Mona Eltahawy

Mona Eltahawy, recovering from her broken bones. Photo Credit: Dan Callister for the Guardian

I met Egyptian-American writer and activist Mona Eltahawy last summer at the annual conference called the Personal Democracy Forum. She impressed me enormously then, speaking with great passion about the promise of the ongoing revolution in Egypt, and what it could mean for the whole society, especially women. I soon after began following her on Twitter and so was alarmed on November 23 when I read this frightening tweet, “Beaten arrested in interior ministry”. Among her thousands of followers the word of her uncertain fate rang far and wide over her handle @monaeltahawy and a campaign demanding her safe release quickly gathered steam. The quick response may have helped, because she did not fall into a police state black hole, emerging free about 12 hours later, with fractures to her left arm and right hand, and a horrifying tale of sexual battery by her captors. Beating a writer’s hands and arms is almost like crushing the fingers of a pianist, and she believes the assault on her limbs was no accident. As she points out in this essay for the Guardian, her first extended article since Nov. 23, “Bashar al-Assad’s henchmen stomped on the hands of famed Syrian cartoonist Ali Farzat. Our dictators tailor wounds to suit their victims’ occupations.” In one of her first tweets after she gained her freedom, Mona wrote, “The whole time I was thinking about article I would write; just you fuckers wait”. Here it is then. I urge you to read Ms. Eltahawy’s essay and follow her on Twitter. Hers is a brilliant, brave voice.