Weird news - Egyptian military did virginity tests on arrested female protesters
This is really weird. After the deposition of President Hosni Mubarak, the military took power with a promise to better things; but the military in the past has also been associated with the rule of Mubarak, and it did not make conditions any better after it took over and had been ruling for some time. This in turn brought protesters onto the street, something that was not liked by the ruling military and it decided to turn tough on the protesters and arrested and jailed some of them.
However, soon after the arrest, one of the arrested made an accusation that was horrific, claiming that they were administered a virginity test by the authorities, and that too without any female doctor or personnel being present. At that time, the military forcefully denied that any such thing was done, but now a senior office has claimed that the denied tests were done, but stated that it was fine to do such tests. In further comments, the general claimed that these were 'loose' girls, and were done to protect the forces from future claims by the protesters that the girls were not virgins.
This is horrific behavior, to first state that the morals of a girl were loose if she was a virgin, to actually conduct such tests as if this was a crime, and then to justify such tests. No wonder the military regime is facing more pressure (link to article):
A senior Egyptian general admits that "virginity checks" were performed on women arrested at a demonstration this spring, the first such admission after previous denials by military authorities. The allegations arose in an Amnesty International report, published weeks after the March 9 protest. It claimed female demonstrators were beaten, given electric shocks, strip-searched, threatened with prostitution charges and forced to submit to virginity checks.
The general said the virginity checks were done so that the women wouldn't later claim they had been raped by Egyptian authorities. "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)."
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