Kenyatta and Ruto to face ICC trial over Kenya violence

Some 1,200 people were killed in violence after the 2007 elections

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• At a glance: Kenya poll violence suspects
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Two presidential candidates in Kenya are to stand trial over crimes against humanity following post-poll violence in 2007, the International Criminal Court has ruled.

Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta and former minister William Ruto will both face charges.
They are among four prominent Kenyans - all of whom deny the accusations - who will stand trial.
Kenya's president has appealed for people to stay calm after the news.
"Our great nation has had its share of challenging times," Mwai Kibaki said in a statement.
Mr Kenyatta - the son of the country's founding president and a man who has been ranked as one of its richest men - is to stand trial with cabinet secretary Francis Mutaura.
The pair, both allies of the president, are accused of crimes against humanity, including murder and persecution.
Former Education Minister William Ruto and radio presenter Joshua arap Sang will stand trial in a separate case, as they opposed Mr Kibaki during the 2007 election. Charges against a further two officials were not confirmed by the Hague court.
More than 1,200 people were killed in weeks of unrest and some 600,000 people were forced to flee their homes. Many still remain homeless.
'Break with impunity'

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Analysis

Will Ross East Africa correspondent

---

This decision will have a great bearing on the future of Kenyan politics.
Among the four now set to stand trial are two men who want to stand for president in the next elections: A suspended minister William Ruto and Uhuru Kenyatta - the son of the country's first president and the current deputy prime minister.
Last week Mr Kenyatta told the BBC that he intended to pursue his political ambitions irrespective of whether the International Criminal Court trial went ahead.
The pressure may grow on Mr Kenyatta to change his mind and put his political ambitions on hold - to clear his name in court and then, if successful, come back in another five years.
With appeals possible it may be months before the trials begin.
Kenya has had a history of violent elections. But no-one has ever been punished. Many Kenyans hope the ICC trials will help to end the culture of impunity and ensure future elections are more peaceful.

The violence began as clashes between supporters of the two rival presidential candidates - Raila Odinga and Mr Kibaki - but it snowballed into a bloody round of score-settling and communal violence.

"It is our utmost desire that the decisions issued by this chamber today bring peace to the people of the Republic of Kenya and prevent any sort of hostilities," ICC presiding judge Ekaterina Trendafilova said.
Kenyans are due to head to the polls in fresh elections early next year.
Ms Trendafilova stressed that the decisions do not mean guilty verdicts against the suspects, only that there is sufficient evidence to send them to trial.
"We are not passing judgment on the guilt or innocence of the individuals," she said before a public hearing held in The Hague.
No date has been set for the trials.
The news of the trials was welcomed by international campaign group Human Rights Watch.
"The ICC trials will break with decades of impunity in Kenya for political violence," the group said in a statement.
"But Kenya should act to widen accountability by carrying out prosecutions at home."

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“Start Quote

I am firmly still in the presidential race, the charges confirmed against me will not affect it”

End Quote William Ruto

In Kenya itself there was a mixed reaction to the announcement, according to the BBC's Muliro Telewa, in the Rift Valley town of Burnt Forest, the scene of one of the worst atrocities during the violence.

He said people in the town - where dozens died when a church where people had fled was set on fire - had gathered around radios in public places to listen to the ICC announcement.
Some, he said, saw the process at the Hague as political, while others were glad that justice was being done.
'Big disappointment'
Chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo had asked to bring two separate cases, reflecting the political and ethnic divisions behind Kenya's post-election violence.
Mr Kenyatta is accused of organising a campaign of violence including murder and rape members of ethnic groups seen as supporters of Mr Odinga.

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Kenya's troubled politics

• December 2007: Violence explodes after disputed poll. 1,200 people killed, thousands displaced by fighting.
• April 2008: Power-sharing deal is signed
• November 2009: ICC chief prosecutor says will seek to investigate post-poll violence
• August 2010: New Kenyan constitution agreed
• December 2010: ICC names suspects
• May 2011: ICC rejects Kenya's bid to halt election probe
• January 2012: ICC confirms charges against four suspects

• Q&A: International Criminal Court
• Orphaned by Kenya poll violence

Prosecutors say he met members of a secretive criminal organisation known as Mungiki at a shopping centre in Nairobi before the election in 2007 to plan some of the attacks.

He denied the accusation at a preliminary hearing at the ICC last September.
Mr Kenyatta is hoping to stand in next year's presidential poll, with analysts suggesting that he has a realistic chance of winning.
Mr Ruto, a former education minister, described the charges against him as "strange" and emphasised that he still intends to put himself forward for the presidency.
"I am firmly still in the presidential race, the charges confirmed against me will not affect it," Mr Ruto said from Nairobi.
He and Mr Sang backed Mr Odinga in 2007 and are accused of organising attacks on members of ethnic groups seen as Kibaki supporters.
Mr Sang said the news of the trial had come as a "big disappointment" but said he would contest the charges.
Kenya's government has been lobbying for the cases to be dropped - a position endorsed last year by the African Union.
Mr Kibaki was eventually declared the winner of the 2007 election, and is serving his second and final term as president.
Mr Odinga was installed as prime minister under a power-sharing deal brokered by Kofi Annan to end the violence.
Mr Ruto and Mr Odinga have since fallen out and are expected to face each in the elections.

A daunting agenda for Davos

By Mohamed A. El-Erian, Special to CNN

January 18, 2012 -- Updated 1345 GMT (2145 HKT)

The eurozone countries continue to struggle with a debt crisis as the rest of the world fears economic repurcussions

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• PIMCO coined the phrase the 'New Normal' to describe the world's new economic reality
• It forecast advanced economies would face sluggish economic growth, among other problems
• PIMCO said policymaking needed to be pro-active in its response, but this did not happen
• The 'New Normal' is now morphing into a more uncertain and unstable phenomenon

Editor's note: Mohamed A. El-Erian is the CEO and co-CIO of Pacific Investment Management Company LLC (PIMCO) and author of "When Markets Collide."

(CNN) -- Once again, high-level government officials, thought leaders and CEOs from virtually every corner of the globe will gather in the Swiss Alps for the annual Davos meetings. Once again, the agenda is wide-ranging and interesting. And, once again, those of us witnessing the festivities from afar will hope that this impressive mix of brainpower and personalities can contribute to a better understanding of what ails the world and, importantly, what needs to be done to improve global welfare.
The unifying theme for this year's Davos gathering -- "The Great Transformation" -- is a good one, albeit overdue. It speaks to the set of multi-year global re-alignments which is impacting both advanced and emerging countries. It directs participants to analyze why the world seems so ill-equipped to handle the related changes in the economic, political, social and institutional domains. And, going forward, it holds the promise for implementing better collaborative solutions.
World's top economies in 2050 will be...

Mohamed El-Erian, CEO of PIMCO

Here at PIMCO we have been thinking about these realignments for awhile. Back in 2009, we came up with a simple term -- the "New Normal" -- to convey the notion that, after the shock of the financial crisis, the global economy would not reset either smoothly or quickly. Instead, the world would witness material transformations that would create strains, challenge conventional wisdom and, critically, require both intellectual and operational agility -- both in the public and private sectors.
Based on our analysis of the underlying drivers, we argued that advanced economies would face an unfortunate mix of unusually sluggish economic growth, persistently high unemployment, and recurrent debt and deficit concerns. Meanwhile, systemically important emerging economies (led by Brazil, China and India) would accelerate their developmental breakout phase. The impact of this would go well beyond the critical objective of lifting millions of citizens out of poverty, and would have implications for the functioning of the global economy.
In light of all this, we stressed the importance of preemptive and proactive changes in policymaking at the national, regional and multilateral levels -- as a means of ensuring orderly and welfare-enhancing transitions. And we noted that this would require a material evolution in both the what and how of policymaking.
Unfortunately, such changes have not been sufficiently forthcoming, especially in advanced economies. Indeed, rather than respond boldly to the new normal, policymakers fell deeper into the trap of "active inertia" -- namely, appearing active yet essentially remaining hostage to outdated mindsets and old (and increasingly ineffective) approaches. Also, matters were made worse by a combination of initial denial, inadequate recognition, and recurrent bickering among key decision makers in both Europe and the U.S.

The wider impact of the Eurozone crisis

Davos: What to expect

As a result, the new normal is now morphing into a more uncertain, unstable and challenging phenomenon. And part of the related distribution of potential outcomes is far from reassuring.
Rather than a traditional bell-shaped distribution curve for advanced economies, the world is now increasingly facing what can be best characterized as a bimodal distribution -- one can think of it as like the back of a two-humped camel.
Within the next few years, a tipping to one of the two extremes of the distribution is more likely -- either into the good equilibrium involving the restoration of conditions for sustainable growth, meaningful job creation, and orderly financial rebalancing; or into a nasty one characterized by higher unemployment, debt deflation, financial instability, and even greater income and wealth inequalities.
This morphing, from a bell-shaped curve to a bimodal world, is most apparent in Europe. Its 2011 muddle-through is likely to give way to one of two outcomes -- a very messy fragmentation of the eurozone or its evolution into a smaller, less imperfect and more robust zone of countries with similar initial conditions.
How the euro became a broken dream

Rather than respond boldly to the new normal, policymakers fell deeper into the trap of "active inertia".
Mohamed El-Erian, PIMCO CEO

Against this background of a changing distribution of potential global economic and financial outcomes, let us hope that Davos will discuss the world's "great transformation" in the context of what needs to be done to restore the global economy on the path of sustainable growth, job creation and financial stability. It would be particularly important for the impressive list of participants to reach a consensus on six key issues:
• How Europe can transition to an institutional and policy framework that provides for the combination of economic growth, jobs, sovereign debt containment, and a robust financial services sector?
• How the U.S. can overcome paralyzing political dysfunctionality in order to strike the appropriate balance in key areas: Between immediate stimulus and medium-term fiscal improvements, between tax and spending reform, between business incentives and stronger social safety nets, and between the welfare of baby boomers and other generations?
• How the systemically-important emerging economies -- including Brazil, China and India -- can effectively assume their greater global responsibilities while continuing to meet the legitimate aspirations of their citizens?
• How to accelerate the glacial pace of reform of multilateral institutions so that they better reflect the global realities of today, rather than continue in their attempts to legitimize outdated feudal entitlements?
• How all this can be combined with environmental realities, as well as the restoration in the eyes of the majority of people of faith in the fairness and effectiveness of market-based systems?
• How transition countries, including those in the Arab world, can pivot from dismantling discredited systems to building a better future?
This is quite a long and daunting list; and the history of Davos does not provide much reassurance that it will be addressed properly. Yet we must all continue to hope and urge that things will be different this time around. The welfare of billions around the world is at stake.

Smiling nanny recovering from Gadhafi family's burns

By Dan Rivers, CNN

November 24, 2011 -- Updated 1918 GMT (0318 HKT)

Gadhafi family's nanny recovering

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• A nanny left disfigured by the Gadhafi family has left hospital in Malta
• Shweyga Mullah still faces almost daily hospital appointments
• She was burned with boiling water by Colonel Gadhafi's daughter-in-law because she was unable to stop a child crying
• Shweyga gave thanks to the people who helped pay for her treatment and get her out of Libya

St Julians, Malta (CNN) -- Shweyga Mullah's face lights up with a smile that spreads like a sunrise across her face.
She's just arrived at a party, organized by the small Ethiopian community on Malta. It's the first time she's seen many of her new friends since being discharged from hospital last week.
They raise paper cups of soda in a toast and Shweyga bashfully takes the salute and laughs and jokes with her fellow Ethiopians.
It's heart-warming to see her finally enjoying herself. All her Ethiopian friends here had been lured to Libya by promises of lucrative work. But no one we know of has suffered quite like Shweyga.
One friend Emanuel Tsegay tells me that on hearing Shweyga's story he burst into tears.
Shweyga's unbelievably awful story of torture at the hands of Colonel Moammar Gadhafi's daughter-in-law Aline has touched people around the world and resulted in some $40,000 being donated to a special fund for her recovery.
We found Shweyga abandoned in a Gadhafi family compound in August.

Shweyga Mullah is recovering but still faces almost daily hospital appointments.

Encouraging news for Gadhafi nanny

Lying alone on a mattress on the floor, she told me how Aline Gadhafi and one of her staff poured boiling water over her head and body, simply because she'd been unable to stop one of the Gadhafi children from crying.
Offers of help poured into CNN Center and resulted in her evacuation to the tiny Mediterranean nation of Malta.
She arrived here in September and has undergone surgery and skin grafts since then.
Now though, surgeons are satisfied enough with her progress to allow her to become an outpatient.
She's staying at a small apartment on the island and is receiving some financial help from the Qatari government, which has helped bankroll the Libyan revolution and arm its fighters.
Shweyga's life here is not ideal though. She yearns to see her family, but red-tape has slowed down efforts to bring her relatives to Malta.
Shweyga says she doesn't feel ready physically or emotionally to return to Ethiopia and be subjected to the scrutiny of people in her hometown. She remains profoundly self-conscious of her appearance.
But the doctors and nurses treating her at the Mater Dei hospital are pleased with her recovery.
Nurse Mary Rose Bonnici has been treating her since she arrived. We watched as she delicately trimmed the growing crown of hair on her scalp. It's growing back fast but for now it must be kept short, in order to prevent infection.
Nurse Bonnici says: "She is making very good progress. It was discharging before now it's getting drier and drier. But now it's good, very good, she feels it's good anyway."
The consultant in charge of her case, Francis Xavier Dermanin, says: "Ms. Mullah had regular physiotherapy for mobilization of her limbs especially the right shoulder which showed signs of early contractures due to immobility from the burns that she had sustained.
"She also had the support of our psychologists in helping her to get over the horrific trauma that she had sustained. In both aspects she did very well.
"In general, Ms. Mullah is more confident and communicating well with the medical and nursing staff."
It's encouraging that her hair is growing back in places on her head. But the hair follicles towards the front, where the skin graft was performed, seem to have been permanently killed off.
The doctors hope there are enough towards the back to enable her to grow her hair out and disguise the scars.
I ask Shweyga about Aline Gadhafi and she speaks rapidly and with conviction.
She hopes the former dictator's daughter-in-law will one day be caught and prosecuted. But like her husband Hannibal Gadhafi, Aline's whereabouts remains unknown. Victims like Shweyga are still waiting for justice.

Suicide bomber strikes fortified Iraqi compound

From Mohammed Tawfeeq, CNN

December 26, 2011 -- Updated 1417 GMT (2217 HKT)

Bloodshed in Baghdad

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: The suicide bomber got through six checkpoints
• The bombing kills five and wounds 39 others, police say
• A string of explosions killed dozens of people last week
• Violence and political turmoil erupted just days after U.S. troops withdrew

Baghdad (CNN) -- A suicide car bomber passed through six security checkpoints before detonating at the main entrance to Iraq's heavily fortified Interior Ministry compound in central Baghdad Monday.
The bombing killed at least five people and wounded 39 others, police said.
The attack follows a weekend meeting between Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and senior security officials to review last week's string of deadly bombings that killed almost 70 people and wounded more than 200.
Al-Maliki said at that session that security and stability must be the country's top priorities.
The seemingly coordinated explosions Thursday struck during the height of morning rush hour, hitting a number of Baghdad's primarily mixed Sunni-Shiite neighborhoods. Nine car bombs, six roadside bombs and a mortar round all went off in a two-hour period, targeting residential, commercial and government districts in the Iraqi capital, two police officials told CNN.

Iraq's future hinges on political crisis

Iraq after the withdrawal

Violence in Iraq has declined in recent years but last week's attacks were among the worst since August when a series of coordinated bombings killed at least 75 people in 17 Iraqi cities.
A recent political crisis has raised fears of a return of the sectarian bloodshed in Iraq that ripped the country apart at the height of the war a few years back.
Last Monday, al-Maliki, a Shiite, ordered the arrest of the Sunni vice president, a move that escalated sectarian tensions and threatened to collapse Iraq's fragile power-sharing government.
The political turmoil as well as the recent spate of violence erupted just days after the final U.S. troops withdrew.

'Blue bra girl' rallies Egypt's women vs. oppression

By Isobel Coleman, Special to CNN

December 22, 2011 -- Updated 1844 GMT (0244 HKT)

A newspaper photo shows Egyptian security forces beating a female demonstrator during clashes in Cairo on Sunday.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Isobel Coleman: Videos of vicious beating of Egyptian woman have prompted protests
• Women have been active in revolution but largely excluded from political process, she says
• Coleman says the battle for women's rights in Egypt is a vital but difficult struggle

Editor's note: Isobel Coleman is the author of "Paradise Beneath Her Feet" and a senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

(CNN) -- The Egyptian revolution has a new, and shocking, image: It's the Egyptian flag, but the eagle in the middle has been replaced by a simple blue bra. The image refers to the recent, savage beating of an abaya-clad female protester by Egyptian military forces.
Graphic videos of the beating, captured on phones and uploaded to YouTube and Facebook, have quickly proliferated. They show a limp woman being dragged by her arms along the street. Her abaya is ripped open, exposing her naked torso and blue bra. Security forces surround her, many wielding batons. As the beating progresses, the guards hit her and one even stomps on her. Photos of the man bringing his heavy boot down on her bare stomach made the front page of newspapers around the world.
In response, thousands of women -- and men -- marched Tuesday in Cairo's Tahrir Square. Observers say it was the largest demonstration of women in Egypt in decades. Not since 1919, when women mobilized under the leadership of feminist Hoda Sha'rawi in anti-colonial demonstrations against the British have so many Egyptian women taken to the streets. (After representing Egyptian women at the International Women Suffrage Alliance in Rome in 1923, Sha'rawi returned to Cairo and very publicly removed her veil.)

Isobel Coleman

Women have played an important role in Egypt's modern revolution but have struggled to translate their activism into a political role in the new, emerging system. They have been excluded from important decision-making bodies, and the military leadership declined to continue a Mubarak-era quota for women that ensured them at least 64 seats in parliament. Based on early election results, it appears that few women will win a place in the new government.
Nevertheless, one intrepid woman, Bothaina Kamel, is breaking ground with her candidacy for president. The campaign of Kamel, a well-known television presenter, at first was shocking, and certainly quixotic, with polls indicating her support is less than 1%. But her persistence has gained her credibility. While she has little chance of winning, she is helping to normalize the idea of women in politics -- an idea that is deeply contested in Egyptian society. Leaders of Salafi parties, which gained a surprising 20% of the vote in the first rounds of elections, have spoken out against women running for office.

Woman recounts violent attack in Egypt

Female demonstrators attacked

The recent women's protest may breathe life into a movement that desperately needs new energy. In the early weeks of the revolution, women activists tried to bring attention to women's issues but never succeeded in getting the masses behind them.
A women's march in Tahrir Square to mark International Women's Day on March 8 ended badly. Only a few hundred women showed up, and they were soon harassed by a mob of angry men who shouted at them to go home and warned that their demands for rights were against Islam.
Around the same time, the Egyptian military rounded up scores of women demonstrators, and in a show of raw intimidation, subjected many of them to "virginity tests." Military leaders at first denied the accusations, and later defended their abuse by claiming the women "were not like your daughter or mine."
In a remarkable show of courage, one of the victims, Samira Ibrahim, is pursuing a criminal case against the military for her ordeal. The only one of the 17 victims willing to take her case to court, Ibrahim is challenging not only the heavy-handed tactics of the military but also the social stigma associated with her issue.
The woman attacked by the military in the recent protests has declined to come forward, so for now she is only known as "blue bra girl." But her mistreatment seems to be a galvanizing force. Thousands of people joined the march through Cairo on Tuesday, many of them taking to the streets for the first time in outrage. Organizers of the march used the hashtag #BlueBra on Twitter to encourage people to join them.
Some of the protesters held giant posters of the blue bra/flag icon. Others carried photographs of the beating. Men formed a cordon around the women, chanting "The women of Egypt are the red line." Still, many Egyptians were not supportive.
Bloggers and tweeters offered negative comments on the blue bra girl -- criticizing her for being out in public protesting in the first place and accusing her of being provocative for not wearing more clothes under her abaya.
It remains to be seen whether these new humiliations for Egyptian women will lead to significant changes. But given the country's deep-seated patriarchy, women in Egypt should not take their rights for granted.

Somali women defy danger to write basketball history

By Teo Kermeliotis, for CNN

December 22, 2011 -- Updated 1201 GMT (2001 HKT)

Coach Mohamed Sheekh gives instructions to his players during Somalia's game against Jordan on Monday, December 19.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Somalia's national women's basketball team played at this year's Arab Games in Qatar
• The team had to prepare in the Mogadishu police HQ for extra security
• Somali religious militants see sport as "un-Islamic"
• In 2006, Somalia's Islamic Courts Union banned women from playing sport

(CNN) -- It's just a few minutes after the final whistle has blown and the shiny basketball court of the Al Gharafa Sports Hall in Doha is filled with shouts and cheers.
The sky blue-clad national women's basketball team from war-ravaged Somalia has just beaten Qatar, the host nation, at the 2011 Arab Games, in a hotly-contested match that ended 67-57 to the East African country.
"Words can't describe how I felt," says Canadian-born Somali team member Khatra Mahdi about last week's triumph. "We were all jumping up and down, there were tears in the girls' eyes -- history was made right there," she adds.
The victory marked a remarkable feat for the Somali players as it came against a backdrop fraught with difficulties and danger.
Notwithstanding Somalia's prolonged civil war and shattered sports infrastructure, the team says it had to prepare for the Games in the bullet-ridden police headquarters in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu. There, the women would train for two to three hours a day under the watchful eye of security officers, tasked to safeguard them against religious militants targeting women playing the sport.
Fertile territory for Al Shabaab in chaos of Somalia

The threat is always there -- there are people who will see girls playing sport as a devil's thing and they will not allow it.
Duran Ahmed Farah, Somali National Olympic Committee

"We try to protect them outside and inside," says Said Duale, the secretary general of the Somali Basketball Federation, adding that the safety of the women is "taken very seriously."
In recent years, many Somali athletes have been threatened by members of the militant Islamist group Al Shabaab who see sport as an "un-Islamic" activity, according to Duran Ahmed Farah, the Somali National Olympic Committee (NOC) senior vice president for international relations.
In summer 2006, the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), which then controlled Mogadishu, labelled sport as a "satanic act" and issued an order prohibiting women from playing sport, including basketball.
A few months later, the ICU was deposed but Al Shabaab, which has connections to al Qaeda, is still fighting to impose its own interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia, on the country.
"The threat is always there -- there are people who will see girls playing sport as a devil's thing and they will not allow it," Farah says.
Women have been stoned to death for adultery; amputations and beheadings are common while in some areas Al Shabaab has banned listening to the radio.
Inside Kenya's war with Al Shabaab
"These girls are brave: in that kind of environment they're still playing their sport, the sport they like," says Farah.
Basketball is one of the most popular sports amongst women in Somalia. Duale says that the country's first national female basketball team was created in the early 1970s but hadn't performed at an international tournament since 1987.
The Islamist ban, coupled with the challenges presented by the lack of sponsorship and destroyed facilities, have all hindered the development of the sport in recent years.
Yet, despite the threats and all the setbacks, Somalia's national women's basketball team concluded its participation at the Games on Monday with the very respectable tally of three losses and two victories -- Kuwait also lost to Somalia.

We want to use sport as a peace-building tool to bring the Somali people together.
Aden Hagi Yeberow, NOC president

Like some other teams representing Muslim countries, the national team plays in relatively modest uniforms: track pants and shirts with elbow-length sleeves; players also wear scarves that cover their hair.
Coach Mohamed Sheekh put together an ambitious team comprised of women based in Somalia and the diaspora -- the United States, Canada, UK and Germany. Many of the players hadn't even seen their teammates before, let alone played a basketball game with them.
"I'm very happy and proud of them," says Sheekh of his players. "They were excellent and everyone was talking about them."
NOC president Aden Hagi Yeberow says the team's success in Doha can act as a unifying factor in a country that's been plagued by insecurity, political instability, lack of unity and scarcity of resources.
"We want to use sport as a peace-building tool to bring the Somali people together," he says. "What these young girls are doing in this tournament has laid the foundations, hopefully, of a good future of our people.
"We would like to capitalize on this and also to move forward and, hopefully, this will be the beginning and the start of the unity of our people."

Out of Egypt: Live ammo, beatings, stripping

By Mohammed Jamjoom and Mohamed Fadel Fahmy, CNN

December 23, 2011 -- Updated 1531 GMT (2331 HKT)

Egyptian woman speaks of injustice

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• A video showed police beating a woman and others trying to help her
• The violence occurred in Cairo's Tahrir Square Saturday during a stretch of unrest
• Twitter hashtags emerged -- #Tahrirwoman and #Bluebra
• A relative says of Suleiman's beating, "I'm glad her father didn't see this day"

Cairo (CNN) -- When Azza Hilal Suleiman saw Egyptian military pummel the veiled woman, she stepped in to help and got kicked and clubbed by security forces, a beating that was captured in a video that went viral around the world and also showed live gunfire and the violent removal of a Muslim woman's clothing.
"A veiled woman was injured and the army stripped her," she told CNN in an exclusive interview from her hospital bed in Cairo, suffering from painful skull fractures and facial cuts.
She couldn't stand to see the repeated blows to the woman, who was dragged, kicked, partially stripped and then stomped. "So I ran and tried to cover her body and pull her out," Suleiman said.
"We tried to cover her and pull her away but they beat us. I didn't feel anything after this."
Suleiman was seen in a red coat in the same video that showed the veiled woman's beating. Security forces rushed toward Suleiman and pushed her to the ground as she ran to the veiled woman's side.
"I was just trying to help her up after they exposed her body," she said.
Suleiman is one of three people in the video interviewed by CNN, with one of them saying he was shot. A CNN crew also witnessed the security force beatings and shootings and saw other women stripped of some of their clothing.

Beaten activist still in lot of pain

The beatings took place last Saturday in Cairo's Tahrir Square, amid a five-day stretch of assaults by police and defiant protests by demonstrators demanding that Egypt's ruling military cede power to a civilian government.
A Health Ministry spokesman said 16 people died, including 14 by gunshots, according to Dr. Hisham Sheeha. The military has denied the use of live ammunition.
Photos of the unidentified veiled woman were plastered on the front pages of global and local newspapers and appeared on Facebook. Twitter hashtags #TahrirWoman and #Bluebra emerged. The images stirred worldwide outrage because of the beating and because she was partially stripped in a Muslim society where women cover themselves for modesty.
The woman has not been identified. An activist and student, she chooses not to talk to reporters at present, two people who know her told CNN.
She had been dressed in a traditional robe and headscarf, but as police clubbed her and dragged her down the street, those articles of clothing were pulled away, exposing her midriff and blue bra. The video showed one of the police officers aiming a foot at her upper abdomen and stamping squarely on it.
The beatings and the use of live ammunition against protesters, particularly women, have outraged Egyptians. More than a thousand people gathered in Tahrir Square for a "Million Woman" march Tuesday.
Women and men holding placards showing pictures of the veiled woman's beating marched through the surrounding streets to denounce the escalating violence by security forces.
The ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has since expressed "great regret" over the mistreatment of women protesters, but it has not apologized for the assaults, a fact that enrages demonstrators. But SCAF reiterated "its respect and appreciation for Egyptian women and their right in protesting and their active positive participation in the political life."
Age 48, divorced and unemployed, Suleiman is the daughter of a deceased army general. She wanted to speak to CNN despite her agony.
In an earlier visit to the hospital, she indicated how much she was suffering, saying, "My head is going to explode."
Others came to Suleiman's aid, such as businessman Ehab Hanna, who was also beaten up and shot after he tried to help the woman with the veil.
"Azza covered her naked body. Then we tried to pull her up to take her to the field clinic. But I was shocked with a sting in my leg, thought it was a rock. I tried to walk but fell to the ground, so they started beating me and Azza relentlessly," he told CNN.
Hanna said security forces left him alone when they thought he was dead. But when he moved, he was beaten. He said he and other injured people were on the ground for about 30 minutes because ambulances weren't allowed into the area.
"I only found out I was shot in the leg when I arrived to the hospital. They told me the bullet penetrated my knee and ended up in my calf. I saw the Army officer firing his gun, but I thought it was blanks. I did not imagine they would fire live ammo at their people."
Journalist Hassan Shaheen Mahmoud also is in the video. He told CNN that he is filing a complaint against military leaders because they "dragged, stripped and beat" women and journalists. He too said he tried to come to the aid of the veiled woman, who suffered serious cuts and bruises.
"I started to run, but she froze and fell to the ground when another protester bumped into her," Mahmoud said. "I tried to help her get up, but the soldiers were brutal even when I told them I was a journalist. They even continued to beat her after her body was exposed."
"I will not remain quiet," Mahmoud vowed.
One military official showed no sense of remorse.
"What was a woman like her doing in a conflict zone?" asked the military spokesman, Maj. Mohamed Askar. "She must have participated in the attacks on the military and the Cabinet."
Askar questioned why the woman has not come forward to identify herself.
"Our troops do not just attack people for no reason," he said. "If she had nothing to hide then she would have presented herself. Where is she?"
The Egyptian military said it isn't aware of Suleiman's case but will look into it.
"If she comes from a military family then she reserved the right to be transferred to a military hospital even if her father is deceased," said Col. Islam Jaffar of the military's morals department.
As Wafa Ahmed, Suleiman's sister-in-law, listened to her wailing in pain, she thought of Suleiman's father and other family members, who have served Egypt in the military and government. "I'm glad her father didn't see this day," Ahmed said.