In June 2020 a new wave of feminist activism emerged in the Egyptian public sphere.1 Building on almost two decades of mobilization and organization against sexual harassment and assault, the new organizers are upper-middle- and upper-class Egyptians in their early twenties who politicize social networks to push the problem of sexual violence and women’s bodily integrity back into public discourse (Fayed 2021). Inspired by the global #MeToo movement, they built on its feminist discourse against sexual violence and its model of organization, relying heavily on social media as a tool for action to revitalize feminist activism in authoritarian Egypt (Khorshid 2021).Nadeen Ashraf, a student at the American University in Cairo, started it all when she founded the Instagram account @assaultpolice. Her intention was to provide a space for people to share anonymous testimonies about Ahmed Bassam Zaky, an elite college student who had left a trail of victims of sexual harassment and rape in every private school, college, and institution he attended (MadaMasr 2020). Instagram was her platform of choice because of its popularity among the young generation and the fact that this social network is less subject to state security than Facebook.2 Once @assaultpolice launched, other individuals joined Ashraf in flooding social media with anonymous testimonies that did not necessarily relate to Zaky but spoke of the pain, agony, and trauma that accompany the experiences of sexual harassment. The ABZ case, as it is known in the media, was followed by others. A whistleblower implicated seven members of Egypt’s wealthiest families in a gang rape in what became known as the Fairmont case (Al-Ahram 2020). Shortly thereafter other newly created or established Instagram accounts joined the conversation about sexual violence, calling for protection against gender-based violence and for gender equality. Between June and July 2020 hundreds of testimonies of sexual violence unrelated to the ABZ case were anonymously shared on various Instagram accounts such as @assaultpolice, @catcallsofcairo, and @skhodirr (El-Mahdawy 2020a).This article analyzes this new wave of feminist activism by examining how its organizers capitalized on the political utility of social media and anonymous testimonies, and discusses how the movement developed within the wider feminist movement and vis-à-vis the Egyptian state. It draws on semiguided interviews conducted with seven feminist activists and actors in the new wave between September and November 2020. The interviews were conducted online by both authors of the article.The use of social media and anonymous testimonies is not new to the feminist movement in Egypt. In fact, this has been a key aspect of activism against sexual harassment and assault since the early 2010s. Initiatives like Harrasmap, Bassma, Dedd el-Taharrush, Shoft Taharrush, OpAntish, Tahrir Bodyguard, the Girls’ Revolution, and the BuSSy Project productively engaged Facebook, Twitter, and blogs to share testimonies of sexual violence, out harassers, and call for action. Similarly, this new wave of feminist activism has relied on social networks to politicize instances of sexual violence beyond the ABZ case and to attract new actors to support its cause.3 The large number of testimonies published on @assaultpolice and other Instagram accounts speaks to the continued pervasiveness of sexual violence across geographical location, generation, and class.In June 2020 Shady Noor, a young feminist musician and filmmaker, saw an anonymous testimony against Zaky on Facebook. After sharing the post on his Instagram account, he received dozens of messages from women who also accused Zaky of sexual harassment/assault. Noor published their testimonies anonymously on his Instagram account and urged others to come forward.4 Sabah Khodeir, another prominent online content creator, began sharing Noor’s stories and posts. Around the same time, Ashraf learned through a closed college-related Facebook group that Zaky had sexually harassed one of her classmates. Instagram was, according to Ashraf, “the first thing I thought of using when I was furious about [the silencing of] my classmate’s testimony against Ahmed Bassam Zaky” (Ashraf interview). In the weeks that followed, Noor, Khodeir, Ashraf, and four other women and men worked together to solicit testimonies and coordinate their actions (Noor interview).In early July Ashraf created the anonymous account @assaultpolice, to which Noor directed his followers for further testimonies against Zaky (Noor interview). The account’s publication of clickbaity posts and its intentional use of screenshots and voice recordings of testimonies—as opposed to their transcriptions—attracted widespread attention. According to Ashraf, this method felt more personal to viewers. While the anonymity of the survivors inspired empathy, people related to the testimonies because sexual harassment affects women despite their class or social status (Ashraf interview). Behind the Instagram stories and posts, the members of the core organizing group were engaged in constant conversation, deciding when and what to post, defining the tone and visual aesthetics, listening and speaking to survivors who reached out to them, and directing them to mental health support resources if necessary (Noor interview). Apprehensive about state surveillance or infiltration from those associated with Zaky, and highly protective of survivors’ identities, they used secure messaging apps to communicate across borders and time zones.5 While Ashraf was in Cairo, others were operating from abroad, including Noor and Khodier from the United States. They contacted the Spanish university where Zaky studied, which promptly took action after confirming similar cases of sexual assault at the institution.6 The group not only focused on gathering testimonies to stir up public opinion but also collected data from individuals exposed to ABZ’s violence. This later became the evidence used by the lawyers and public prosecutors building the case against Zaky. The Instagram account @assaultpolice built its credibility by posting only testimonies that could be reasonably verified; its moderators asked victims to supply screenshots of previous conversations with ABZ as evidence before posting their testimonies (Mohamed interview). Their unconditional support for survivors and demand for accountability secured a large following for the platform.Following this success, other young activists and influencers began to support the campaign. As the person responsible for @catcallsofcairo mentioned in an interview, this Instagram account dedicated to denouncing instances of sexual harassment in the city attracted more attention as a result.7 Facebook pages and groups such as Speak Up started to discuss the widespread problem of sexual violence.8 In parallel, a group of anonymous activists initiated an online blog named Modawanet Hekayat, which used anonymous testimonies to tell the stories of survivors of sexual violence and denounced prominent figures as perpetrators, including the journalist Hisham Allam, the filmmaker Islam Azazi, and the human rights advocate Wael Abbas.9 New Instagram accounts such as @gangrapistsofcairo, which exposed the details of the Fairmont case, emerged using the same tactics. In response to these cases, online influencers and celebrities like the TV host Radwa El Sherbiny expressed their support, shared posts, and even offered material help and legal support to survivors.10 In the summer of 2020 the Egyptian virtual sphere buzzed with debates about consent, victim blaming, the burden of proof in cases of sexual violence, and trauma.Despite a reliance on social media, organizers were conscious of the limitations of a medium that remains inaccessible to large swaths of Egyptians (Ashraf interview). They also knew that their publication of posts in English made them less relatable outside young, educated, and upper- and upper-middle-class circles (Mohamed interview). Their decision to publish posts in Arabic was thus meant to broaden the potential audiences and to compel mainstream media and popular talk shows to address the ABZ and Fairmont cases, turning them into public opinion debates (Waheed interview). Activists later realized, as Ashraf noted, that the media attention garnered by these incidents was motivated by the “scandalous” nature of the crimes and the fact that they occurred within the relatively protected liberal social circles of upper-class youth (Ashraf interview). While these revelations challenged the social misconception that upper-class girls are protected by the law and the widespread cultural sentiments that sexual violence is the result of poverty and sexual repression, the mainstream media also used these cases to offer a critique of the lifestyles of the wealthy (MadaMasr 2020).While in its early manifestation the movement focused mainly on and benefited from online campaigning, as testimonies continued to emerge the core organizing group became aware of the need to connect survivors with legal resources (Noor interview). According to Ashraf and Waheed, many girls and women who shared their testimonies wanted to participate in the growing movement and support other women who spoke up. Though they wanted to shame sexual predators to prevent similar acts of violence in the future, they did not seek legal redress. With the encouragement of activists, however, a few of them agreed to eventually pursue legal action (Ashraf interview).The initial online phase was thus followed by an offline stage where legal action occupied a central position. Having urged those who gave testimony to press charges, organizers shouldered the responsibility of connecting them with legal counsel (Ashraf interview). Alliances with human rights lawyers obtained pro bono legal services to survivors and provided advice and consultation to activists. The transition to legal activism was fraught with debate and uncertainty regarding personal risk to the complainants. Organizers also feared smear campaigns against themselves and/or survivors as well as attacks on their credibility through tactics such as releasing fake testimonies, questioning the reliability of those they had published, and spreading rumors about the survivors’ morality.11 They also perceived themselves in a litigious race against Zaky before he initiated defamation lawsuits against survivors and/or activists themselves (Ashraf interview). On July 4, 2020, the public prosecutor issued an arrest warrant against Zaky (Noor interview). Prior to that, the veteran women’s rights activist and lawyer Azza Soliman agreed to represent those who came forward against him.As Zaky’s prosecution moved forward, the survivor of the Fairmont case approached @assaultpolice to adopt her cause, motivated by its success. She accused seven young men from Egypt’s elite of drugging and gang-raping her at a party. The Instagram account @assaultpolice was the first Instagram account to draw attention to the case, followed by other accounts that had previously publicized the ABZ case. Activists also tracked down video evidence of the gang rape, which many claimed to have seen but no one seemed able to produce. In the meantime, however, Ashraf grew worried about the integrity and sustainability of the platform and her own safety and sought legal counsel (Ashraf interview). After receiving threats for her involvement in the case, she decided to reveal her identity as the person behind @assaultpolice as a safety measure against these attempts at intimidation.The online noise reverberated in mainstream media and quickly caught the attention of the government’s National Council for Women (NCW), which offered to cooperate with victims willing to take legal action against their harassers. Cooperating with the NCW was cause for contention within the organizing group of activists: some welcomed it, while others realized the need for independent legal support for survivors to maintain their freedom of action (Noor interview). Coming under increasing public scrutiny, organizers also disagreed on the degree to which they should align themselves with the public prosecution, which had supported their cause in the ABZ case (Mohamed interview).Activism against sexual violence in Egypt dates back to the mid-2000s (Hunt 2020: 248). This form of collective action multiplied in the years that followed the January 25 Revolution, with the proliferation of independent initiatives mobilizing against sexual harassment and assault on the streets as well as in other spaces (Butrous 2017: 1029). With the reinstallation of military rule in 2013, the Egyptian state built an arsenal of laws to limit collective action, notably Law No. 107 of 2013, prohibiting public protest and restricting street action without the prior consent of the Ministry of Interior. Beginning in 2014, the state cracked down on civil society work, including the activities of feminist organizations (Smohamed 2021). Law No. 70 of 2017, organizing the affairs of civil society, forced many organizations that had operated as LLCs to register as nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and operate under the guise of the Ministry of Social Solidarity. The law was amended and reissued as Law No. 149 of 2019, which limits previous restrictions on civil society work; however, it still instates ministry oversight. In addition, civil society was still reeling from the threat of NGO case no. 173 of 2011 as dozens of NGO employees/activists underwent investigation and were subjected to temporary travel bans (Abuzaid 2019). Finally, the enactment of Law No. 175 of 2018 instituted state surveillance of activists’ interactions on social media (Miller 2018). These laws have put an end to feminist grassroots mobilization and gravely set back feminist activism.12The new wave of activism that emerged in the summer of 2020 distanced itself from the feminist movement in Egypt to avoid the complications of working under state restriction. As Ashraf noted, the new wave organizers are “not educated as feminists or engaged with earlier feminist fights in Egypt” but identify with the global #MeToo movement (Ashraf interview). However, as the organizers moved from their online campaign to legal action, they became connected to other feminist operatives with more experience in on-the-ground activism, and they sought legal counsel and assistance from human rights activists and lawyers (Darwish interview). Ahmed Ragheb, the renowned human rights lawyer, was the lead counsel in the ABZ case. Other lawyers such as Ragia Omran and Azza Soliman played an active role in advising victims on ways to deal with their legal claims (Soliman interview).The new wave of activism that emerged in the summer of 2020 initially benefited from state cooperation (Soliman interview). On July 4, even before complaints were filed, the General Prosecutor’s Office (GPO) issued an arrest warrant against Zaky. According to organizers, this decision was the result of their behind-the-scenes efforts to push the state to adopt an active role against these crimes and the organizers’ success in mobilizing survivors for legal action and getting public opinion invested in the case. At the same time, the NCW provided free legal services to the survivors of sexual violence and assisted with filing legal complaints. In the Fairmont case, however, the prosecutor’s foot-dragging allowed some accused rapists to escape the country.13 The reluctance of the general prosecutor to issue arrest warrants was interpreted as the result of the influence of the perpetrators’ families, which belonged to Egypt’s business elite. When an arrest order was finally issued against the seven suspects, key witnesses were also arrested (Soliman interview). Among them, Nazli Karim remained in detention for more than four months and was the target of a smear campaign whereby state-allied media leaked personal photos and videos and undermined her testimony (Soliman interview).The detentions of witnesses delivered a significant blow to the movement, resulting in the spread of a sense of defeat and helplessness in activist circles (Darwish and Soliman interviews). By then the core group of organizers had expanded to twenty activists working together to coordinate the Instagram campaigns. Within this group, some members criticized @assaultpolice’s decision not to call for the release of the arrested witnesses, especially Karim (Ashraf interview). This decision was motivated, according to Ashraf, by their fears that such a campaign would “create a viral spread of her private photos and videos that are being used to incriminate Nazli” (Ashraf interview). Others argued that a feminist agenda required opposition to authoritarian rule as much as it required a clear stance against sexual violence (Darwish interview). Instead, @assaultpolice thanked the GPO and President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi for their support, thus dividing the movement and its supporters around the issue of cooperating with the state.While state officials took a hard-line stance in the ABZ case, mainly through the adoption of a narrative of paternalistic state protection of women, this was not the case in the Fairmont crimes. Soliman, who attended the GPO and NCW meetings, recalled that prosecutors and NCW officials repeatedly referred to witnesses and survivors as their “daughters” and voiced their intention to protect them from the danger represented by Zaky (Soliman interview). Conversely, state agents took a more ambivalent approach toward the Fairmont incident, which allegedly occurred in the context of an elite party filled with sex, alcohol, and recreational drugs. On that occasion, the state saw an opportunity to condemn the lifestyles of a group of young, upper-class Egyptians who had dressed, partied, and socialized according to a set of social rules that differed from the state’s conservative morality (El-Ammar 2020). In response to this case, the state articulated a moral code that condemned “illicit” sexual acts, both nonconsensual and consensual, urging parents to pay attention to the moral upbringing of their children and youth to beware of internet influence. This narrative of family values and parental control was expressed in several statements released by the GPO as well as in the NCW’s sudden retraction from assisting the victim or the arrested witnesses (Ashraf interview). The active persecution of witnesses on unrelated charges of moral indecency also demonstrated the state’s intention to use this incident to remind activists that the paternalistic authoritarian state had the final say about what was permissible and what was not (Shea 2020).What started as a movement by largely young upper- and upper-middle-class women sharing testimonies of sexual harassment and assault gradually influenced the wider public debate and ultimately led to actual legal change, with the amendment, in August 2020, of Law No. 113 of 1950 to ban the disclosure of victims’ identities and personal information in sexual violence cases. The law is still ineffective; it was approved by parliament and passed on to the cabinet but was not enacted. However, the potential law amendment is a testament to the work of feminist activism in Egypt.Almost two years after the publication of the first testimonies on @assaultpolice, the intensity of that summer has subsided but the effects of this new feminist wave are ongoing. Fueled by the sharing of experiences of and testimonies about sexual violence that keep surfacing via online groups, feminists carry on with challenging the culture of disbelief and victim blaming by supporting survivors and animating the public debate about gender violence and discrimination. Feminist-identifying online communities such as Speak Up are still attracting thousands of engaged followers from a mostly middle-class social base to discuss gender inequality and violence. A discussion on the legitimacy of relying on anonymous testimonies as a tool of truth telling and accountability remains active. The difficulty of legal recourse for survivors and the need for legal reform is more widely discussed. Ultimately, this new wave of feminist activism has caused a crack in the state’s firm control over the public sphere, creating a space of action around sexual violence.By 2022 the new wave of activism that started in social media and among the closed circles of the Egyptian elite has organically spread to other locales and sectors of society. An example of this development is the independent feminist lobby Egyptian Female Journalists. This group was created during the campaign against Hisham Allam to demand the creation of an internal policy and bylaws against sexual harassment in syndicated journalistic institutions.14 Similarly, groups of Coptic women and girls are bravely speaking about sexual harassment within the church.15The question remains: What is next? While this wave of feminist activism has revived issues of sexual violence in the mainstream public debate, its longevity hinges on the ability of activists to make connections among feminist causes that differently but simultaneously affect women from different socioeconomic, professional, and educational backgrounds. The capacity of activist groups to offer collective care and support to one another in a context where the intensity of violence against women is often traumatic is also crucial. If this wave is to bring about further change, activist groups will have to find new ways to expand their reach, diversify their alliances, and stay connected to one another despite state efforts to fragment, frighten, co-opt, and marginalize them. Most important, the activist groups have to realize that scaling up the issue of sexual harassment will happen through constant contact with state institutions, which raises another question on the nature of their relationship to the state.