Feminist Revolutions with Yasmin El-Rifae at Lighthouse Bookshop Edinburgh (online)

Please note that this is an online-only event.

We’re over the moon to be welcoming journalist Yasmin El-Rifae with her book Radius: A Story of Feminist Revolution, a haunting and intimate account of the women and men who formed Opantish—Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment – in the middle of the Arab Spring.

In 2012, the joyful hopes of the democratic Egyptian Revolution were tempered by revelations of mass sexual assault in Tahrir Square in Cairo, the revolution’s symbolic birthplace. Opantish deployed hundreds of volunteers, scouts rescue teams, and getaway drivers to intervene in the spiraling cases of sexual violence against women protesters in the square. Organized and led by women during 2012–2013—the final, chaotic months of Egypt’s revolution—teams of volunteers fought their way into circles of men to pull the woman at the center to safety. Often, they risked assault themselves. Yasmin El-Rifae was one of Opantish’s organizers, and this is her evocative, aching account of their work, as they raced to develop new tactics, struggled with a revolution bleeding into counter-revolution, and dealt with the long aftermath of assault and devastation.

We’re tremendously honoured to host Yasmin as she introduces us to this uniquely fluid, daring work, for a conversation about resistance, solidarity, revolution and memory.