Egyptian activists and bloggers are pressing the military leadership to investigate soldiers who abused pro-democracy demonstrators, including women who were detained and forced to take “virginity tests.”
Bloggers said they would hold a day of online protest yesterday to voice their outrage, adding to criticism of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which took control of the country in February.
The abuse of the women, which was confirmed by a senior general this week, has caused particular anger, and prompted a storm of protest on the Internet.
The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces had previously denied allegations by Amnesty International that 18 women detained in March were subjected to virginity checks and threatened with prostitution charges. However, an army general told CNN on Monday that tests were in fact conducted, and defended the practice.
“The girls who were detained were not like your daughter or mine,” said the general, who requested anonymity. “These were girls who had camped out in tents with male protesters in Tahrir Square, and we found ... Molotov cocktails and [drugs].”
He said the tests were conducted so that the women would not be able to claim that they had been sexually abused while in custody.
“We didn’t want them to say we had sexually assaulted or raped them, so we wanted to prove that they weren’t virgins in the first place,” the general said. “None of them were [virgins].”
Amnesty condemned the general’s comments and called for a full investigation.
“This general’s implication that only virgins can be victims of rape is a long-discredited sexist attitude and legal absurdity,” a statement said. “When determining a case of rape, it is irrelevant whether or not the victim is a virgin. The army must immediately instruct security forces and soldiers that such ‘tests’ are banned.”
One of the victims, Salwa Hosseini, 20, told Amnesty that she and the other women were forced to remove their clothes before being strip-searched by a female guard. Male soldiers looked into the room, and took pictures, she said.
The women were also beaten and given electric shocks, Amnesty reported.
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