Head of National Council for Women : Female prisoners are better off behind bars

Nouvelles d’Orient 19/11/2014

Egypt Head of National Council for Women: Female prisoners are better off behind bars | Mada Masr

►http://www.madamasr.com/news/head-national-council-women-female-prisoners-are-better-behind-bars

Mervat al-Talawy, the head of the National Council for Women (NCW), recently stated in an interview to privately owned Dream TV channel that she believed that imprisoned female Egyptian activists were better off behind bars.
She said that she had been to prisons to visit women and had asked them if they were being abused, and if they had access to food, books and breaks, and found that there “were no problems.”
Talawy referred specifically to the “7 am girls” and female Muslim Brotherhood members. Her statement about the “7 am girls” refers to 21 young women from Alexandria that were given prison sentences ranging from 11 and 15 years for peacefully protesting against the regime on December 21, 2013.
When asked about observations from local human rights organizations criticizing prisoners’ treatment, Talawy stated that these organizations have to be critical in order to receive foreign funding.
Talawy’s remarks have faced criticism from women’s rights activists in Egypt. Dalia Abdel Hameed, a gender and women’s rights officer at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, told Mada Masr, “It’s a horrible comment, to think that being imprisoned is by any means better than freedom. It’s really problematic and it’s more evidence that the National Council for Women is not an independent entity.”
Abdel Hameed said that the NCW is more concerned with protecting the regime than protecting the rights of women. She said there needed to be “real reform” within the NCW if it wants to claim that it upholds these rights.

Nouvelles d’Orient