He pressured women to provide intimate photos that he later used to coerce them into sexual intercourse, threatening to send the images to their parents if the women refused.
CAIRO – 9 July 2020: Multiple Egyptian girls and women filed official complaints against the same man, Ahmed Bassam Zaki, who within days, became a public opinion case, especially after an Instagram page that was set up to expose him identified 93 credible accusers, some as young as 13.
Egypt Today has compiled for its readers all they need to know about the case. So look no further!
FILE: Ahmed Bassam ZakiZaki is accused of raping two girls, indecently assaulting another girl by force – one of them was under 18 years old –, threatening and blackmailing other women into sexual intercourse.
He is also accused of inciting immorality, stalking, violating society value by violating his victims’ privacy through constant texting without their consent using his social media accounts.
The court has ordered that he shall be remanded in custody for further fifteen days.
One of the victims provided evidence that Zaki texted her via Whatsapp in November 2016 and threatened her that he would contact her family and claim she is committing adultery and using narcotics unless she agrees to have a sexual intercourse with him.
Moreover, four girls and a child who all filed reports against Zaki witnessed that he contacted them via social media and started engaging in dramatic experiences that he used to claim going through or seducing them until they agree to meet him and then rape them once they reach a safe place.
FILE: Ahmed Bassam ZakiAfter a while he would recontact his victims and threaten them that he would expose them with footage and pictures that he captured while raping them. He would also seduce girls into sending him nudes and later force them into meeting him and having sexual relations lest he exposes them.
During interrogations, Zaki confessed meeting online with around six girls who sent him nude photos of themselves, which he used to blackmail them later.
In a post on Instagram, Sabah Khodir, an activist in the case, shared one response she received from a woman who provided her official statement on Sunday.
“I was honestly very scared but when I came in and met the lawyer and the judge, honestly I was so surprised how supportive they were,” said the woman to Khodir, expressing happiness and pride for filing the complaint.
“The judge told me once I came in ‘I believe you. You’re not here to convince us of your story. Even if you were mid-intercourse with this person and you decided you didn’t want to do it anymore and he forced you to keep going, that’s still rape’ – and I was so surprised because I didn’t expect them to be so supportive.”
Zaki was detained on Saturday, July 4, pending further investigations into accusations that he raped, sexually assaulted and sexually harassed dozens of Egyptian and foreign women and girls.
A 21-year-old who after graduating from the American International School, one of the most expensive high schools in Cairo, he attended the American University in Cairo starting in 2016, where fellow students say that he quickly gained a reputation for bad behavior, especially with women.
As a freshman, he was pushed out of the college salsa club after numerous women complained of harassment.
According to several testimonies that were posted on social media, Zaki used numerous ruses to gain women’s phone numbers, sometimes claiming to belong to social clubs that did not exist.
He pressured women to provide intimate photos that he later used to coerce them into sexual intercourse, threatening to send the images to their parents if the women refused.
One accuser, an 18-year-old woman he met on Tinder, said he seemed like “a decent guy.” But the conversation quickly turned to demands that she come to his house to perform sex acts. When she refused, he showered her with insults and threatened to go to her parents.
“When you take it out of context, he sounds delusional,” she said. “But in the moment you believe it. That’s what’s scary.”
Within days, an Instagram page set up to expose Zaki identified 93 credible accusers, some as young as 13, according to the campaign organizers.
Several of the accusers were fellow students at the American University in Cairo.
Three days after the Instagram page went up, the Cairo police arrested Zaki at his home in an upmarket suburb.
Instagram account Assault Police (@assaultpolice) have been working together to to collect evidence against Zaki and to create a record of the many instances of alleged stalking, blackmail and online harassment he engaged in.
Here are some of the posts that were featured on the campaign’s official page:
Egypt’s General Prosecutor has officially ordered the detainment of accused rapist and sexual harasser Ahmed Bassam Zaki for four days pending investigation, an official statmenet by the General Prosecution’s Office said on Monday, July 6, 2020.
The Prosecutor’s Office’s statement came as follows:
The Prosecutor General has ordered the detention of Ahmed Bassam Zaki for four days pending investigations. He is accused of attempting to engage in sexual intercourse with two girls without their consent, and of indecent assault against them, and another girl, using force and threats.
One of the girls was below the age of 18 at the time of the assault. Zaki is also accused of threatening the aforementioned girls and others of unveiling indecent information about them, while requesting to engage in sexual intercourse with them, refusing to end the relationship, inciting to debauchery with words and signs, and irritating and harassing them through social media. By committing these actions, he broke the principles and family values of the Egyptian society and violated the girls’ private lives. He also sent them numerous electronic messages without their consent, and he used private social media accounts in committing these crimes. The court has ordered the extension of his detention to 15 days.
The Public Prosecution started its investigations by asking one of the accusers who had submitted her complaint electronically. She testified that she received messages from the accused through the digital platform ‘Whatsapp’ in November 2016 — after they had been introduced—. He threatened that if she did not engage in indecent acts with him, he would use alleged leverage to reach her parents and claim to them that she practiced prostitution and used drugs. She refused and threatened him not to call her; and she later learned from her colleagues about his bad behavior and the deception of his claimed leverage. She provided evidence for her testimonies, consisting of pictures of the threatening messages that she received, clarifying that she came forward after what had been published about the accused in the past days.
The Public Prosecution interrogated four girls and a child, who filed reports against the accused. They testified that they were introduced through social media between 2016 and earlier this year; and that he engaged in fake conversations with them, including inventing common topics and asking for their sympathy for going through critical crises, or trying to impress them to guarantee forming a bond with them, then requesting to meet them using several arguments, in order to lure them afterwards to the compound where he lives and to other places. And once he was alone with them, he committed indecent acts, trying to engage in sexual intercourse. However, they were able to resist him; then, he pursued them by sending sexual messages, of which some of the girls presented pictures, accompanied with requests to engage in indecent acts with them and to not end the relationship, threatening that he would publish photos of them while he was attacking them or that he would use some claimed leverage to defame them.
However, they did not succumb to his demands and they ended the relationship, and preferred not to report it out of fear of their parents and of being blamed. Then, they came forward later after what had been published about him, fearing that he would get away.
Moreover, the Public Prosecution interrogated the accused, after his arrest, in order to admit to what he has been accused of. He admitted that he met around six girls through a social media platform. And afterwards, he received sexual photos from them, so he kept the latter and late threatened the girls that he would send them to their parents, when they expressed their willingness to end the relationship. He denied what has been propagated about him on social media, in contrast with his former testimony.
The Monitoring and Analysis Unit at the office of the Prosecutor General has prepared a full report including everything that was propagated about the accused on social media, and what has been collected of incidents and voice records attributed to the accused while threatening the girls and asking for indecent acts. The Prosecutor General has ordered an investigation into the report, and investigations are continuing.
The Public Prosecution supports what Al Azhar and Dar Al Iftaa have confirmed in their official statements, regarding harassment being an indecent assault contrary to religious values and human principles, confirming that it strictly stands against this crime with all legal measures that it affords and that it rejects blaming the girls, victims, and claiming that they contributed to the attack that they endured; or offering any justifications of the latter.
The Public Prosecution also refers to the necessity of parents’ commitment to their responsibilities towards their children, which are built on mutual trust, and to referring back to the religious and behavioral values and principles on which the society is built, in a practical way that corresponds with their ages and their situations, so that the children can see these values clearly and not only through advice and guidance.
The Public Prosecution also refers to the necessity of parents’ participation with their children in facing the crises they meet, with mutual honesty, accompanied with tenderness and affection; and to reassure the children that every problem has a solution and every mistake can be fixed and forgiven, and making them aware that respecting sacrileges is reciprocal.
The Public Prosecution calls for everyone to abide by good manners on different social media platforms, and not to share news and information without confirming their truthiness and source; and to know that God has warned us from that…
Additionally, some people’s pursuance of propagating news without being confirmed undermines the real efforts to confront the criminals and preserve the evidence against them, and spreads fear of defamation among the victims, which comes in the way of achieving justice.
Accordingly, the Public Prosecution called for citizens to report their complaints and the accompanying evidence to the guardians of justice, including the members of the Public Prosecution, security services and the respected national institutions, instead of sharing them to those who have no knowledge or specialization. The former can listen to the information, investigate it, and imply from it; and thus, citizens would have fulfilled their role by referring the subject to those specialized in order to pursue the public good and avoid confusions among the society.
‘Citizens, cooperate with the institutions of your country to fulfill your duties, protect your rights, and preserve them. By doing that, you will be performing your duties in front of God, your country, and your conscience.
Young men, know that being occupied with something other than useful knowledge and activities and being isolated from parents and families have made you vulnerable to desires that have claimed your futures at a young age.’
May God Preserve the Country, Its People and Its Youth.
The National Council for Women also announced its submission of a report to the Public Prosecutor to investigate the famous incident that was recently raised on the social networking site (Instagram), where a number of girls created a group on Instagram to collect indictments against Zaki, which includes girls’ testimonies about numerous rape incidents committed by the young man, incidents of sexual harassment of girls, as well as indecent assaults via text and voice messages that the young man sent to many girls.
The council further announced it had received over 400 complaints involving various forms of violence against women since the furor erupted. The statement was as following:
In light of the National Council for Women's follow up on social media, it was found that there was a page on the Instagram application launched by some girls and women complaining that someone raped some of them and sexually assaulted and harassed others. This page, which is followed by thousands of followers, includes text messages and voice, which are assaulting, sent by the young man to young girls and women in order to threaten and blackmail.
The Council also received many appeals and from victims regarding the same person and that he threatened them, and took advantage of them through the images and clips he documented while committing his heinous crimes to defame them if they report him to the competent authorities. The victims asked to have their identity and their privacy protected and not to disclose their data so that they could cooperate with the police and the public prosecutor.
The National Council for Women in its capacity as the national machinery for women's issues in accordance with Law No. 30 of 2018 that regulates its work. Whereas, Article 7 of its provisions 13 and 14 of the aforementioned law provides for the competence of the National Council for Women to receive and study complaints about violations of women's rights and freedoms and refer them to the competent authorities and inform the public authorities of any violations of women's rights and freedoms, and within the framework of the Council's efforts to combat all forms of violence against women, we extend to you Your Excellency this report to investigate this incident and take the necessary legal action against its perpetrator, while protecting and assisting the victims."
The National Council for Women calls upon all girls to file official reports against this young man so that he will receive the punishment he deserves according to the law, and it will serve as an example to all those who dare harm girls and harass them.
The National Council for Women also announces that the Women's Complaints office is ready to provide the necessary legal assistance and psychological support to girls, and to support them until this young man gets his punishment, while emphasizing the confidentiality of all complaints and data received by the office.
You can contact the women's complaints office on the hot-line 15115, or by applying Whatsapp via the phone number 01007525600, or via the office's e-mail, as follows: Complain.office.2001@gmail.com
Egypt’s two highest religious authorities have also condemned sexual harassment.
Al Azhar Mosque and the Mufti, or chief theologian, have rejected the notion that how a woman dressed could be blamed for sexual harassment and rape.
In statements at the weekend they said women should never be blamed for such crimes.
Al Azhar, the world’s top peacon of learning for Sunni Muslims, devoted this week’s issue of its magazine, Sawt Al Azhar, to the need to increase the fight against the sexual harassment of women.
“Women’s attire, regardless of what it is, is not an excuse for assaulting their privacy, freedom or dignity."
A separate statement by Al Azhar called for support for women seeking legal retribution against offenders and urged members of the public to be proactive if they witnessed sexual harassment or assault.
It called on authorities to diligently enforce laws against sexual harassment and on society at large not to take lightly the suffering of victims.
The office of the Mufti, the country’s chief theologian, called harassment a “cardinal sin” and called on authorities to deal “firmly and decisively” with perpetrators.
It also rejected the popular notion that at the root of sexual harassment lies in the way women choose to dress.
Zaki's father made a private statement to Egyptian media figure Amr Adib on July 4, 2020 and Adib recounted his conversation with the father on his show "El Hekaya".
The father revealed that he and his son are denying these allegations, claiming that while he may have made mistakes in the past like anyone else, rape and sexual misconduct were not among those mistakes.
According to Adib, Zaki’s father, who is working at a local telecommunication company, claims that his son is innocent and that social media is behind framing his son as a sexual predator.
He also claimed the evidence provided by two of the girls were fake and cannot prove that his son committed these crimes.
Based on current investigations and the official complaints that have been filed by girls and women over the past few days, Zaki is being accused of the following:
♦ 1- Attempting sexual intercourse with two women without their consent.
♦ 2- Assaulting and threatening those two women and another under-18 girl.
♦ 3- Threatening the three of them – and others – through blackmail intended to harm their honor in order to force them into sexual relations and to not end them willingly.
♦ 4- Inciting his victims to commit immoral acts by stalking and harassment through social media platforms and therefore infringing the principles of family values and morality in Egyptian society.
♦ 5- Violating the sanctity and privacy of his victims and contacting them in persistence without their consent.
♦ 6- Misusing social media accounts to commit the aforementioned crimes.
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