Earlier this year, a video of a groom beating up his bride-to-be on their wedding day in Ismailia circulated social media and sparked outrage. Unsurprisingly, the groom is now arrested on charges of assault against his wife.

The Ismaili bride’s eight-month account of her tragedy with her spouse Abdullah began with abuse and ended up even worse; according to the official police report, he tortured her repeatedly during this time.

At the time of the crime, the groom’s actions were harshly condemned, but to our surprise, some individuals, including the groom’s family, started to come up with excuses for the groom.

People were even more startled when another video on social media was shot at their home the next day as they eventually were married. The bride, however, declared unwilling to file a complaint to the police and is staying with her husband.

It wasn’t until recently that Maha began revealing how her husband threatened her if she sought a divorce or complained and how he kept her captive at his brother’s apartment.

In the police report, Maha stated that she endured numerous sorts of abuse; her husband had locked her up in his brother’s apartment and had repeatedly beaten and tortured her, causing her to bleed out continuously; Maha claimed that this had been the case for her from the beginning and that the threats she had received to harm her family were what kept her from speaking out. 

She emphasized that she had requested a divorce. Still, her husband insisted that her father pay 50,000 pounds for the wedding expenses, with a pledge to waive all of her rights, including giving up her personal belongings, to obtain a divorce.

In order to prove her husband’s family’s mistreatment of her, the wife also asked for a medical evaluation to demonstrate the severity of her injuries and to hear testimonies from neighbors who overheard her screams when her husband once stripped her in the street and ridiculed her in front of everyone.

The security services summoned the Ismailia bride’s husband to the Police Station to look into the allegations made against him by Maha; he was detained by security forces after she filed a report accusing him of regularly beating her.

There is always an imbalance of power and control in abusive relationships. An abuser controls a relationship by using threatening, cruel words and actions. For many women in Egypt, domestic abuse poses a major risk and can even be fatal.

We wish nothing but justice for Maha and all victims of domestic violence.