Banat mist khat ahmar! (‘The Girls of Egypt are a red line’) was the catchcry of the protesters on December 20, 2011.
That day marked the largest women-led uprising that the country had witnesed since 19191 when women staged demonstrations against British colonial rule. The 2011 protests erupted days afer soldiers had stripped a woman protester in Tahrir Squae. They had ripped her long black ‘abayya (a thick, loose and often black robe that covers the entire body down to one’s ankles), dragging her by her hair across the street.
From the video footage she because known inernationally as the ‘blue bra woman’ (on account of he exposure of her undergaments. The video of her assault went viral, and it showed another soldier about to stomp on her bare stomach as she lay on the ground.
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