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Amanpour

Brazil Braces for World Cup; Sexual Terror in Egypt; Imagine a World

Aired June 10, 2014 - 14:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN HOST: Tonight a video goes viral, forcing Egypt's president to order urgent action against sexual violence. I ask a

victim and a campaigner will it be enough.

Also ahead, strikes and protests, the ugly side of the beautiful game. I'll speak live to the Brazilian ambassador.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

AMANPOUR: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the program. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London, where the British Foreign Secretary William

Hague and movie star Angelina Jolie kicked off a summit to stop sexual violence in war zones. And I'll have an exclusive interview with both of

them on this program tomorrow.

But every day sexual violence is commonplace all over the world, more on that later in the program.

But first, the football World Cup 2014 starts in Brazil on Thursday. The government is hoping it can finally let out a sigh of relief when all

the protests and criticism quieten down as people crowd the stadium and their TV sets to watch the beautiful game in the football nation. At least

that's what the government hopes, because over the past year, more than a million angry Brazilians have protested the Cup's $14 billion bill as they

suffer poor services and endemic corruption.

Despite this, Brazil is still the firm favorite to win the tournament, not England, where football was founded.

Roberto Jaguaribe is Brazil's ambassador to the U.K. and he joins me here in the studio.

Ambassador Jaguaribe, nice to see you.

ROBERTO JAGUARIBE, BRAZIL'S AMBASSADOR TO THE U.K.: Nice to be here.

AMANPOUR: Let me start out by saying the following: Sepp Blatter, FIFA head, has said the preparations for the Brazil World Cup are the worst

he's ever seen.

JAGUARIBE: Yes.

AMANPOUR: Yet --

JAGUARIBE: Well, of course he said. But then he retracted, as you know, as well. And so --

AMANPOUR: -- but they're pretty bad.

JAGUARIBE: Well, I don't think so. I think they are Brazilian. And of course it is important not to lose sight of the specificities of the

country or where you are going.

AMANPOUR: Well, let's just talk about the specificities in terms of what's upsetting people.

First, today news that this week a worker on the construction monorail was killed. We've had several construction workers on the stadiums being

killed. People are worried about just safety, the bottom line, first and foremost. You've got a half a million visitors coming. You've got all the

Brazilians who want to crowd the stadium.

Can your country guarantee safety, first and foremost?

JAGUARIBE: Well, it is an issue in every place in the world. We are deploying 150,000 officers of the police and the armed forces to guarantee

the safety of the games. So we are very much assured that everything will turn out well.

You will recall that during the Confederations Cup, we had over a million people in the streets at one point. And we had 50,000 people

deployed, no major incident ever affected the games or the people who went to the games to watch.

AMANPOUR: Do you think, as the government hopes, that once the ref's whistle blows for the first game these protests will quieten down,

everybody will go home to watch the game? Or are you bracing for protests throughout the Cup?

JAGUARIBE: I don't think that the protests this year had the same, let's say, energy that they had last year, where more than 1 million people

got into the streets. I think many things happened since then. There was a violent trend that was, to a certain extent, pushing people away from the

protests. And this was something that I think undermines some of the validity of the protests themselves.

So of course we expect protests. We are a democracy. It's open. You can go to the streets. We want to protect the protesters and obviously

protect the spectators. This is going to happen. It's going to be inevitable. But we are not concerned that it's going to affect the

fluidity of the game or of the tourists.

AMANPOUR: Now you say this is a democracy; everybody has the right to express themselves. But of course the government has reacted very harshly

and this has reverberated around the world. There's been tear gas. There have been heads being knocked.

I mean, it hasn't looked pretty, Ambassador.

JAGUARIBE: Well, you can always show many types of pictures. Sometimes --

(CROSSTALK)

AMANPOUR: -- what's happening.

JAGUARIBE: Well, you can -- you can show 100,000 people singing the national anthem, which was happening in the streets as well. This is very

nice. It wasn't shown, however. It's very difficult to have a balance to what the police should do. It's very, very difficult.

AMANPOUR: Let's get --

JAGUARIBE: -- very touchy element in, you know, police in Brazil have the same type of instruction in Brazil that they use --

AMANPOUR: -- let's get to the heart of the matter, though. This $14 billion bill that has cost Brazil for the World Cup, people are saying,

number one, is it worth it? Will we ever see and reap the benefits?

And number two, could we please perhaps spend some of that money on better services, hospitals, schools, transport and the like?

What is your reaction to that?

Let me just actually bring up a Pew poll figure, because 34 percent of the people in Brazil think that it won't be good for the economy or rather

only 34 percent think that it won't -- that it will be good eventually for the economy.

JAGUARIBE: Well, you know, the World Cup has many things. Amongst either one of the most impressive is the fact that it is by far, without

comparison, the biggest sporting event of the world. About 30 billion people will be the communitive body inside the World Cup. So it's a very

good place to make your complaints well known. And this is part of the process.

In Brazil, we have spent about 25 billion reals in the World Cup, 70 percent of which is in infrastructure; 8 billion reals have been spent and

not federal government money, but federal government support with loans in the stadium. The rest is infrastructure. Things that are important, that

need to be done, communications, insurance, safety, transportation and many other things that are important for Brazil.

So what we're doing essentially is accelerating projects that would have to be carried out anyway, with the exception, of course, of the money

spent on the stadium which, as I said, is not federal government money.

AMANPOUR: So let's talk about the stadium, because again, there have been complaints. And you know, it's not just Brazil. There were complaints in

other nations as well, that even though governments say, hang on; all of this infrastructure will be used for the future, many wonder whether that

will be the case and many are wondering whether, for instance, the big stadium being built in the Amazon is going to be a white elephant.

What is the rationale economically for all of this?

JAGUARIBE: Well, I think there are many rationales, not just economic, but also Brazil is a very big country, as you know, and divided

in different regions. One of the most important and fabulous regions of the country is the Amazon. And in this, the heart of the Amazon, we have

this city of over 2 million people. Now do you think that a city of 2 million people can handle a stadium of 45,000 people or is it excessive?

Well, I think it's not excessive. And it showcased many other spectacles of enormous importance culturally that can be held at the

stadium also. So obviously there were exaggerations. There were incorrect expenditures, as happens everywhere. But the biggest exaggeration is to

make use of the World Cup to show problems that we do have and we have to face up to them. But are not really related to football.

AMANPOUR: Right. So what are the problems that you do have and what do you think the government really does need to tackle because, let's face

it, you have obviously -- or have had -- many years of lifting millions and millions of people out of poverty. Brazil was the envy of the continent

and much of the BRIC world.

But it has come through a bit of a grinding halt.

JAGUARIBE: Well, I think you've touched on a point. There are many difficulties in Brazil. The challenges are very well known. This is no

difficulty. Everybody in Brazil would tell you what the challenges are. They are security; they are transportation. They are education. They are

health, all of that needs to be improved. But it takes an enormous amount of resources, both human and financial in order to pick a country from a

very low end that we started unto the level we are.

Just as an example, which is a number which always fascinates me, over the past 10 years, we have 65 million new bank accounts in Brazil. Where

does that come from? Not from a demographic explosion but from social inclusion.

AMANPOUR: Some people have said that the real test of all of this is going to be the presidential election in October and that if Brazil wins or

does really well and gets to the final, it could rub off on President Rousseff's chances of being reelected. If not, she might have to pay the

price for all of this.

JAGUARIBE: Well, you know, this is a very special World Cup for us because it's the World Cup in Brazil. But if you go by the recent World

Cups, results have not affected presidential elections in Brazil.

In this case, it might be different. But I am not a soothsayer. I cannot predict. But we hope and we are very confident that we're going to

have a very, very formidable World Cup.

AMANPOUR: I want to finally ask you about football as the heart of your nation, the identity of your nation. It's called the football nation.

And some have said that the fantastic 1970 World Cup that Brazil won was akin in a -- to the moon landing for Americans. It was that important.

Give me a sense of that.

JAGUARIBE: Well, I think you touched a very good point because for us football is more than sport. Football is an ontological (ph) quality of

Brazil. It has been essential in the national integration of the country, very important in social and cultural integration and also as a redemption

of some sort, redemption from discrimination from poverty, but also collective redemption from a perception of being worse than the rest.

And this is something that football has helped very much to change in Brazil and it's completely Brazilian. It has not lost the cultural

qualities that we have. You will find that globalization standardizes many things, food, music -- and that is not very good, actually.

But football still preserves national qualities. It's certainly the case of Brazil and many other countries, not in the case of Brazil. And I

think this is something very beautiful that we're going to witness in the World Cup.

AMANPOUR: Ambassador Jaguaribe, thank you very much indeed for joining me.

JAGUARIBE: Thank you.

AMANPOUR: So in Brazil, the government will be praying, as I said, that the ref's first whistle will reunite the fractious nation. And though

football is meant to unite, back in 2012 in Egypt, more than 70 people were killed in clashes there between fans of clubs from Cairo and Port Said.

Violence all too often mars celebrations in Egypt and now a video of a sexual assault casts a shadow over the new president's inauguration. We'll

have more when we come back.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program. As we've been discussing, sexual violence is all too commonplace. And in Egypt, it is particularly

pervasive. One study calls Egypt the worst place in the Arab world to be a woman. And today, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has ordered an immediate

investigation after a devastating video emerged, showing a badly doctored, nearly naked 19-year-old woman mobbed by attackers as police struggled to

guide her to safety.

It happened during mass celebrations for Sisi's inauguration in Tahrir Square on Sunday. Seven men have been arrested since the assault.

But will Sisi's call for reforms to Egypt's laws stem the epidemic of violence? In a country where more than 99 percent of the women say they've

experienced some of form of sexual harassment.

Hania Moheeb is one of those women. After surviving a brutal attack last year in Tahrir Square, Moheeb has made it her mission to speak out and

work for a safer future.

And across the Arabian Peninsula, another nation in the region is hoping to boost its national pride. And we are going straight now to Hania

Moheeb.

I was reading the wrong thing. That does happen in live television.

But let's get to the very, very serious issue of what happened on the streets of Egypt this past weekend.

Do you think President al-Sisi's call for an immediate investigation into this and to tackle the phenomenon of sexual harassment and violence,

will it make a difference now?

HANIA MOHEEB, WOMEN'S RIGHTS ACTIVIST: Definitely I think it will because part of the problem was the political will of the previous regimes

-- let me phrase it this way -- to neglect and to look upon the problems of women and the issues of women as inferior or non-important or maybe not on

the agenda right now.

But President Sisi has -- owes a lot to Egyptian women, who lined up to vote for him. And I think it was an overwhelming majority of women who

voted for President Sisi. He had given some promises before. And I was happy that he spoke about the issue yesterday -- it was today, actually,

that he spoke, I think. And I think that if he has the will and he does -- the care that he has the will that something will happen.

The real problem or because the problem has two sides. It's the legal and you know, executive part and the cultural and educational part.

(CROSSTALK)

MOHEEB: So if he works on this then --

AMANPOUR: Well, yes. He can work on the legal part and then there's got to be some work on the cultural part.

So let me ask you about the legal part first.

He has, before his inauguration, ordered some reforms. There were increased penalties and punishments and jail time for perpetrators of

sexual harassment.

It didn't mention rape laws or other such things. That -- those haven't been changed and they are not up to snuff, according to many

Egyptian women.

Is this a step in the right direction?

Or does more need to be done?

MOHEEB: Well, I have to say that this has changed because one of the four laws that the former president decided to issue before leaving office

was a law on harassment or let me say precisely, it's -- it was an amendment on a previous law on sexual harassment.

Maybe it was not phrased as many of the law experts wanted it to be. Maybe it didn't give enough or sufficient penalties for this terrible kind

of crime.

However, to us it was like a step in the right direction and maybe we can negotiate later on. However, the whole thing about laws in Egypt is

that we don't have a mechanism of applying those laws. So if we don't really know as Egyptian public how will those laws be applied how -- the

police will pursue it all in --

(CROSSTALK)

MOHEEB: -- applying the law.

AMANPOUR: We heard, and perhaps you can confirm, that the police there are not really trained in this regard and often women who complain

about sexual harassment are blamed themselves and that's -- you know, happens in many parts of the world. But it's particularly egregious in

your country.

MOHEEB: Well, definitely the police is not prepared for this, but the police is not also prepared for many other types of crimes. Imagine like

for at least for the last 10-20 years, the only role of the police in Egypt was for -- until the end of the Mubarak era, was to protect the regime, to

protect those who are in authority.

People used to get robbed; apartments used to get -- be -- used to be robbed. And the police wouldn't intervene because the police had a single

mission.

Right now this has to change, although the police is still so much criticized, we hear so many stories that we need some clarification about,

I think that this at least regarding women, that Sisi's declaration today was a step in the right direction.

AMANPOUR: So it's a step in the right legal direction. Now let's talk about the cultural, patriarchal situation that also needs to be

addressed.

I'm going to play you some sound bites from young boys in Egypt who are asked what they thought of sexual harassment. Listen to what they

said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (from captions): About the harassment of women in the street, it's usually the girl's fault because sometimes they are

strolling around in tight clothes which reveal their bodies.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (from captions): Well said.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (from captions): I will tell you if a girl is wearing (INAUDIBLE) I can't harass her.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: So that's pretty devastating, one young boy says it's a woman's fault and the other one says, well, if she was totally covered up,

of course we would never touch her.

How do you affect those kind of attitudes and look how young people learn them.

MOHEEB: Well, actually there everybody is -- correct, correct me if I'm wrong, but everybody was complicit at that time for over the last

decades because the religious discourse, especially that directed through the Muslim Brothers in Egypt was always looking at women as inferior

beings, as servants to men, as looking at the role as just housewives and those who have to take care of the children and so on and so forth. And

they even promoted those ideas of like the good woman is like a jewel; the good woman is like a piece of candy that has to be covered. So all those

discourses, you know, are the --

(CROSSTALK)

AMANPOUR: How do you stop it?

How?

MOHEEB: It's on the long run, first of all, we have to put this in the educational system to change the method of education and teach children

equality from the very beginning, from the kindergarten. We have to teach the mothers equality. We have to have cultural activities everywhere in

the villages, in the countryside, you know, because overwhelming majority of people outside of the cities have nothing, no -- not -- no source of

cultural activity, no source of information, no libraries.

So we need to put that in order to have some change.

AMANPOUR: What happened to you? Are you -- I said that you went through a horrific assault.

MOHEEB: Last year in -- on the 25th of Jan of 2013, I was going to Tahrir Square to celebrate the second anniversary of the revolution. And

as soon as I set foot in the Tahrir Square, I got attacked by mobs, by groups of young men. I don't know the number. It was, you know, getting

dark and the light in the square was off. All the lights were off. I couldn't recognize anyone. And yet that lasted for like 35 minutes almost.

AMANPOUR: How did you get out? How did you survive? Were they ever arrested or punished?

MOHEEB: Well, it was very confusing because my belief, I totally, totally believe that these were planned because -- planned attacks because

everybody that was attacking me was shouting in my ears words that meant -- gave another message, you know, stop doing that. It's like your sister,

Haram. You shouldn't be doing that. Leave her alone. While those very people were attacking and violating my body.

So I didn't know who was helping out and who was attacking. And at the same time, I was not really very conscious all through the attack. But

some people managed to put me in the ambulance and those very people who put me in the ambulance were violating my body until they put me in the

ambulance.

Some of them came with me and so I decided as soon as I reached the hospital and I saw the filing the police report that I will accuse those

guys. But at the end of the day, I didn't because I was not pretty sure that they were part of the perpetrators, too.

AMANPOUR: So you're here as part of the Prevent Sexual Assault against Women Conference that we mentioned, that Foreign Secretary Hague

and Angelina Jolie are sponsoring.

What do you want the world to do?

What can outside countries do to make sure governments like yours actually stop this and hold people accountable?

MOHEEB: Well, I think that the charter for human rights indicate all that. The -- several agreements that Egypt has signed has this. And

actually I think that today's statement is some sort of a commitment.

However, I wish to see the Egyptian delegation playing another role here in London and giving more commitments towards the women's cases. We

want the development of action plans, detailed action plans, with -- and implementation, monitoring, with involvement of survivors in all levels.

AMANPOUR: So the women have to be involved in all of this.

MOHEEB: Definitely, definitely.

AMANPOUR: Hania Moheeb, thank you very much indeed for joining me.

MOHEEB: Thank you.

AMANPOUR: And as I was saying, across the Arabian Peninsula another nation in the region is hoping to boost its national pride and

international stature by becoming the first Middle Eastern country to follow Brazil's example and host a World Cup.

Ever since it won the bid for 2022, the wealthy emirate of Qatar has been taking the good, the bad and the ugly. The latest when we come back.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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AMANPOUR: And finally tonight, if you think this year's World Cup in Brazil has its share of problems, imagine a world where the 2022 World Cup

is already receiving a red card.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Qatar!

AMANPOUR (voice-over): Critics have been yelling offside ever since that moment in 2010, when the oil-rich emirate of Qatar became the first

Muslim country and the first Middle Eastern nation every to be awarded the World Cup.

Eight years before matches and soccer manners even begin, criticism keeps mounting over charges of corruption and allegations that the bid was

bought through bribes from secret slush funds. Of course the Qataris deny that.

And you thought diving made football look bad. There are also accusations that foreign workers drafted to construct the stadiums are

being exploited, what one labor organization called "modern slavery."

And then there's the heat. With the June thermometer expected to hover around 120 degrees Fahrenheit, planners still haven't decided whether

to host the games in the summer or the winter.

With so much uncertainty, what is always the world's most watched sporting event has left its sponsors, such as Visa, Sony, Coca-Cola nursing

headaches. Even Adidas, which has been in business with FIFA, the international football federation, for six decades, has expressed concern

about all these allegations.

But FIFA's long-time president Sepp Blatter shot back, bending it like Beckham with a charge of his own. He called the criticism "racism." One

beneficiary of the controversies in Qatar and Brazil is a country slipping under the radar for once, Vladimir Putin's Russia, which will be hosting

the next World Cup in 2018.

That's it for our program tonight. And before we go, this reminder: actress Angelina Jolie and British Foreign Secretary William Hague are

joining forces to end sexual violence in conflict. They're hosting that three-day summit here in London aimed at tackling this global issue. And

they'll be my guests on the program tomorrow.

And of course remember you can always contact us at our website, amanpour.com, and follow me on Twitter and Facebook. Thank you for

watching and goodbye from London.

END