Fighting sexual violence in Egypt on social media: A visual essay on assault police

Abstract

In this essay, we explore how Instagram-based account ‘Assault Police’ uses the tools of social media to name and shame (alleged) perpetrators and to give testimonies of sexually intimidating, violent experiences. We propose the concept of 'framing' to study the development of the account and the campaign, which allowed to create a very local, Egyptian #MeToo movement. By analysing photos posted by the account between July 2020 and January 2021, our findings indicate the ability of Assault Police to adapt to different challenges. Moreover, the account which started as a single-issue movement soon developed into an initiative which focuses on structural roots of violence against women.