A leading female figure in the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) has accused the women’s march to condemn military brutality against female protestors in December as being funded from abroad.
In December, Egypt witnessed its biggest women's march in history as 10,000 women marched through central Cairo to protest against soldiers who dragged women by the hair, stomped on them, and stripped one half-naked in the street during a fierce crackdown on activists.
"The [FJP women] refused to participate in the march because participants were funded and had a particular agenda,” said Manal Abul Hassan, the FJP women's secretary.
Speaking to the London based Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper Saturday, Abul Hassan argued that "When a woman marches to defend her rights, this affronts her dignity."
She added that "Does she [female protestor] not have a husband, a brother or a son to defend her?"
"This march was a sectarian one, because all the groups of Egyptian society should defend women. She should not defend herself on her own. The man should stand beside the woman because on her own she will not be able to get her rights," said Abul Hassan.
In the interview, Abul Hassan said Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the protest that toppled long-time president Hosni Mubarak in February, is no longer the same square.
“Tahrir is no longer purely for revolutionaries. Other elements infiltrated them; the same elements which caused the [violence at the] Balloon Theatre and Maspero tarnish the image of Tahrir."
Abul Hassan continued that "They stay in dirty tents [in which one can find] acts against the ethics of the revolution. It became a fertile atmosphere for the spread of all irregularities, and the revolution is innocent of them."
