By Fatma Bulbul
ISTANBUL
"Nothing can be compared to what we are living now. Not even Mubarak's era," says Salma Ashraf, one of the thousands of Egyptian women forced to leave her home and who now live in Istanbul.
Anadolu Agency spoke with three Egyptian women ahead of the Feb. 11 anniversary of the fall of former Egyptian autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011.
Mubarak’s three decades in power came to an end when the Egyptian army dissolved parliament and suspended the constitution.
However, for Egyptian women hoping for a better life, society there has not changed for the better.
According to a Human Rights Watch 2015 report on Egypt, assaults on women and sexual harassment have continued despite recent government efforts to combat these crimes.
Although laws prohibit other forms of violence against women, such as child marriage and female genital mutilation, these continue in some areas, the report said.
Ashraf is a Turkey-based legal researcher on Egypt at Human Rights Monitor, an independent, non-profit organization headquartered in London.
She said that during Mubarak's era women were mostly interested in their homes and families, but following the revolution of Jan. 25, thousands of women took to the streets.
"In Mubarak's era, women were members of parliament and they continued to occupy more important positions in [deposed former president Mohamed] Morsi's era as well," she added.
However, according to a report from Amnesty International on Egypt for 2014/2015, outgoing interim president, Adly Mansour, had approved a law to combat sexual harassment but the measures had not materialized by the end of the year.
Ashraf says that people's daily life now -- under the rule of military strongman Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a former army chief who ousted Morsi in a 2013 coup -- is characterized by continuous crimes against humanity.
"The rape of women and children in places of detention; detention of thousands of political prisoners, including women and children; torture in all detention centers and prisons; military trials of civilians; killing in the streets, houses and in prisons are happening on a daily basis," she said.
Despite five years having passed since Mubarak's fall, the situation of Egyptian women has worsened. For that reason, many have left the country out of fear of arrest and a desire for political freedom.
Ashraf said that in 2013 she was forced to leave because her human rights group in Cairo received threats, promising to shut it down.
"Yet I managed to continue my work from different places until I traveled for an international conference where everyone was photographed by Egyptian national journalists and accused of being a terrorist.
“Following this, I could not return to my country as my name was on a list at the airport," she added.
The Human Rights Watch 2015 report claims that although Egypt's new constitution contained the right to peaceful assembly, free expression and association, the authorities have detained thousands merely for protesting.
Ashraf said: "Nothing can be compared to what we are living now. Not even Mubarak's era.
“The human rights situation has been deteriorating severely since the military takeover after the ouster of Mohamed Morsi and although there was a transmission period and a temporary president … it is all the same in fact.
“It was all directed by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.”
In December of 2010, a Tunisian street vendor set himself on fire to protest humiliation and harassment he suffered at the hands of a policeman. The incident sparked regional anti-regime protests later known as the “Arab Spring”, which exploded onto the streets of Egypt on Jan. 25 2011.
Egyptian citizens demonstrated against unemployment, corruption and the Mubarak regime. On June 16/17, 2012, Egyptians voted in the country’s first-ever free presidential elections. The Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi became Egypt’s first-ever democratically elected president.
Menna Khalil, another Egyptian woman living in Istanbul, also said that they were more hopeful about their future during the Morsi era.
"During Morsi's regime, we had hope of changing many things without being afraid of being arrested or killed," she told Anadolu Agency.
Khalil, a housewife, 27, said that freedom of speech and respect for women in general was obvious in Morsi era.
She left Egypt with her husband three days before the coup [in 2013] for her honeymoon in Malaysia. However, they were then unable to return to Egypt. Then they decided to come to Turkey.
D.A., a teaching assistant in Cairo, said that the status of women during Mubarak's era was “awful”.
She said: “Socioeconomic conditions of women deteriorated due to state neoliberal policies, and lack of strong safety networks for uneducated, divorced and poor women.”
She said that it was hard to say if the 2011 revolution had succeeded or not.
"It [the revolution] was a definitely a turning point in Egyptian history and the possibility of a revolution is a threat for the current regime," she added.
For the security situation in Egypt, she said it was getting worse after the coup and the state was unable to spread its control over Sinai Peninsula.
Since Morsi’s fall, northern Sinai has remained the epicenter of a deadly insurgency against Egyptian security forces.
Over the course of the last two years, the Welayet Sinai [Province of Sinai] group -- said to be linked to the extremist Daesh organization -- has claimed responsibility for a spate of deadly attacks on Egyptian forces deployed in the volatile region.
For D.A., enough is enough: "I would like to leave Egypt," she says.
The changes in Egypt also affected its relations with Turkey. Following the fall of Morsi, relations between Cairo and Ankara soured. Egypt recalled its ambassador from Ankara.
Turkey responded by adopting similar measures.
Turkey has been one of the few countries to openly describe the seizure of power by the Egyptian army as a military coup.
Despite the changed relations between the two countries some Egyptian people regard Turkey as their new home, as Salma Ashraf does.
"I used to live in Turkey before, so it was considered a second home for me," Ashraf said.
