THREAD: I’m sure you may have seen the hashtag #حق_منه_عبد_العزيز and wonder what is going on. I’m hoping this thread will shine a light on a significant problem in Egypt and hopefully bring about some kind of change.

So. Here goes. #JusticeForMena

This is Mena Abdel-Aziz. Just like tons of people her age, Mena is a 17-year old who’s active on social media, most notably TikTok. Before we get into the events of the last couple of days, I just want to briefly highlight the atmosphere in Egypt to the best of my ability.

In Egypt, TikTok—and most notably female TikTok content creators—have been targeted by the Egyptian government for so-called moral indecency. The propaganda there has been strong, claiming that the spike in “moral degradation” has been as a result of content made by Egyptians.

Here’s an article from just this past month: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200428-calls-in-egypt-for-censored-social-media-after-arrests-of-tiktok-star-belly-dancer/

This—along with the strong and ethically bankrupt idea that women are only as good as their virginity—has put us in this situation. Before I explain this in further detail, let’s talk about the situation with Mena.

Just last night, a live instagram video surfaced of Mena calling for help from anyone, saying that she’s been raped and that someone, anyone, needs to get justice for her. She further claims that her friends pinned her down and that a guy friend, Mazen, raped her.

Here’s the video for context:

Shortly thereafter, one of Mena’s supposed friends—Shaima—came out with a video assumingely confessing to the crime, berating and insulting Mena, and saying that she was indeed raped and that she deserved it. Here’s the video for context:

A couple hours later, another video surfaced. This time, her rapist—Mazen—came out to say that he did not rape her. He didn’t “lay a finger or a hand on her”. Remember this. Here’s the video for context:

GRAPHIC: Around the same time, a video surfaced of what appears to be post-incident, where you can see Mazen clearly continuing to abuse her.

Roughly six hours before this thread was posted, a new video surfaced of both Mena and Mazen claiming that nothing serious happened and that she was just frustrated, and that the internet blew this whole thing out of proportion:

https://twitter.com/egyptianweeknd/status/1264220777483730944?s=21 https://twitter.com/egyptianweeknd/status/1264220777483730944

Granted at that point, I really thought we got played. It didn’t come to my mind whatsoever that this could have been set up. That is until another video that was posted about an hour later. This one clearly shows that she’s under some kind of pressure:

https://twitter.com/egyptianweeknd/status/1264224380021858304?s=21 https://twitter.com/egyptianweeknd/status/1264224380021858304

Not even an hour later, a similar video comes out, this time with Mazen and others who were there during the crime. She continues to claim that nothing happened and that he “just hit her, it was normal”. “They’re my older brothers, everything’s fine”:

https://twitter.com/egyptianweeknd/status/1264256931818078208?s=21 https://twitter.com/egyptianweeknd/status/1264256931818078208

Remember he said he didn’t lay a finger on her.

And notice throughout this whole time, she clearly has signs of abuse. Her face is still bruised from the night before. Her arms are either erratically moving or hugging herself, a clear sign that she’s being coerced.

Then just about an hour ago, another video surfaced of Mena as she’s being interviewed by what appears to be a government official in an office. She’s being asked what happened and of course, at this point she’s denying ANYTHING happened:

https://twitter.com/egyptianweeknd/status/1264269318075940866?s=21 https://twitter.com/egyptianweeknd/status/1264269318075940866

You can clearly hear at the end of that video this official says “bravo”, as if someone’s feeding her lines and that she’s done what she was asked.

And now you’re caught up. I’ll keep updating this thread if anything else comes to light.

At the end of the day, I’m not going to be the one to judge anyone’s character. All I can say is no matter what a person’s actions are, there’s no doctrine, no religious creed, no rule of law that states anyone deserves to be raped because of what they wear or how they act.

It seems clear to me, and to other people, that Mena is in serious trouble. She has no parents to defend her, nor any real friends, nor family to back her. The government already has a clear stance against “moral degradation” and will silence her if it means keeping stability.

Hopefully this thread has put everything on the table and that you, the reader, can make the proper judgement.

#JusticeForMena
#حق_منه_عبد_العزيز