EGYPT: General admits protesters subjected to 'virginity tests'

A senior Egyptian general told CNN Tuesday that officials performed "virginity checks" on women arrested during the uprising that led to former President Hosni Mubarak's ouster, the first time the authorities have admitted they performed such tests during the revolution.

The tests were first reported by the human rights group Amnesty International, weeks after a March 9 protest in Cairo's Tahrir Square in which female demonstrators were allegedly beaten, strip-searched, threatened with prostitution charges and forced to submit to procedures that supposedly determined whether they were virgins.

At the time, Maj. Amr Imam said 17 women had been arrested but denied they had been tortured or had their virginity tested.

On Tuesday, a senior general who asked not to be identified admitted to CNN that military officials conducted virginity tests -- and he defended them.

"The girls who were detained were not like your daughter or mine," the general told CNN. "These were girls who had camped out in tents with male protesters in Tahrir Square, and we found in the tents Molotov cocktails and [drugs]."

The general said the virginity checks were conducted to prevent the women from claiming they had been raped 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]."

Salwa Hosseini, a 20-year-old hairdresser and one of the women named in the Amnesty International report, described to CNN how, on the day of the protest, uniformed soldiers tied her up on the grounds of the Egyptian Museum near Tahrir Square, forced her to the ground and slapped her, then shocked her with a stun gun while calling her a prostitute.

"They wanted to teach us a lesson," Hosseini said. "They wanted to make us feel that we do not have dignity."

Hosseini said she was taken with 16 other female prisoners to a military detention center in Heikstep and subjected to a "virginity test."

Hosseini said she did not want to be tested by a male doctor, but her captors threatened her with stun guns until she complied.

"I was going through a nervous breakdown at that moment," she recalled. "There was no one standing during the test, except for a woman and the male doctor. But several soldiers were standing behind us watching the backside of the bed. I think they had them standing there as witnesses."

Some bloggers have announced plans to hold an online day of protest Wednesday about the virginity testing.

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which has been running the country since Mubarak stepped down, has increasingly faced criticism from the youth protest movement, upset at the government's unwillingness to address past abuses, release political prisoners and prosecute former leaders.

On Tuesday, the military prosecutor questioned a prominent blogger, Hossam al-Hamalawy, after he criticized the ruling military council on a TV talk show.

Military leaders plan to meet with some youth leaders on Wednesday at the El Galaa Theatre in Heliopolis that holds up to 1,000 people, but the meeting has been condemned by protesters on Twitter and Facebook as a ploy.

"They're just going to pick one thousand kids and get in an argument and say the revolutionaries don't know what they want," said Tarek Shalaby, a blogger and social media consultant who was jailed after participating in recent protests and has been tweeting his opposition to Wednesday's meeting.

RELATED:

Timeline: Revolution in Egypt

-- Molly Hennessy-Fiske in Cairo

Photo: Salwa Hosseini, a 20-year-old Egyptian hairdresser and one of the women named in an Amnesty International report about human rights abuses during protests that led to the downfall of former President Hosni Mubarak, described to CNN how she was subjected to a "virginity test." Credit: CNN

 

 

Comments

[no hope]

This is only the start of SHARIA LAW IN EGYPT. THE MILITARY COUNCIL HAS NO RIGHT WHATSOEVER TO BARBARIACLLY DO VIRGINITY TESTS ON ANY GIRL, WHETHER MUSLIM OR CHRISTIAN.

The "Peaceful" Muslim Brotherhood apparently now represents the voices of ALL egyptians, through their Powerful Contacts in the Egyptian Military Council, that is corrupted by Muslim Salafi's. Just to note, wasn't the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt behind numerous attacks on egyptians and foreign tourists in the past. RELIGION SHOULD BE SEPERATED FROM STATE, BUT THAT WILL NEVER BE THE CASE IN EGYPT.

WHERE IS Democacy, Freedom & Justice?The Revolutionists seem to have all gone in HIDING, ALL OF A SUDDEN! ONLY THE VOICE OF MUSLIM 'SALAFI'S' CAN BE HEARD. "Crimes against Humanity' continue day after day on the christians. Girls abducted, raped & forced to convert to Islam. IN THE LAST 40 YEARS IN PARTICULAR, CHRISTIANS HAVE BEEN MURDERED IN VILLAGES AND THEIR CHURCHES, CHRISTIAN GIRLS, WOMEN & CHILDREN SYSTEMATICALLY ABDUCTED & TERRORISED BY CRIMINALS, CHURCHES & CHRISTIAN BUSINESSES ROBBED AND DESTROYED, ALL WITH THE BLESSINGS OF THE CORRUPTED EGYPTIAN AUTHORITIES….

What do you expect, there are over 12,000 criminals roaming the streets of Cairo, NOW. Thanks, of course to the EX - REGIME WHO RELEASED THESE CRIMINALS. THERE IS NO POLICE OR ARMY IN OPERATION TO PROTECT CIVILIANS!!! THANKS TO THE EGYPTIAN AUTHORITIES & THE SALAFI EXTREMISTS WHO HAVE DESTROYED EGYPT!!!

[Louise M]

Putting aside that the fact that such inspections are degrading and humilliating, and that sexuality is nobodys business but our own: is being a non-virgin woman some sort of a crime in Egypt? I mean, what kind of security or whatever goal is accomplished by checking a woman's virginity? I'm trying to find the "rationale" behind this (tho I know the military is not the most rational of institutions).

[Jeff Lovejoy]

So what if Egyptian women are being brutalized. That's small change compared to how the United States brutalizes 24-million of its own people by exporting manufacturing jobs overseas . . . and leaving them alive, unemployed, and unemployable.

The United States condemns 47-million of its people for being on food stamps while rewarding the hyper-individualism of the rich and powerful. 48-million American children participate in the school lunch program every day. The United States government steals from hundreds of millions of current, and future, old-age pensioners. All this stuff is going on and I am supposed to be concerned with what is happening to how many Egyptian women? A few thousand? Tens of thousands? All of them?

Are you kidding me? You want to talk about Egyptian women with all the other endless cruelties taking place right here at home? Has the Los Angeles Times gone completely out of its editorial mind?

Being a decadent Western male, I would gladly undergo a virginity test, if it would guarantee that my old age pension would be there when I needed it. I would undergo repetitive virginity tests if that would, at the very least, guarantee that my president, senators, and congressmen (some of whom are women), would not have theirs . . . thereby ensuring that they would become one with the fate of "their" people.

Am I, an American Citizen, am I supposed to be . . . what? Outraged, or appalled, or sexually aroused? Does my voice count for anything when my government plans on sending more billions dollars to a country that hates us . . . especially when my country is flat broke?

What a crock.

[Fred Hosea]

This shocking revelation reinforces the urgent and profound need for changes in "leadership" in Egypt and other countries suffering from similarly embarrassing, moronic, and anachronistic customs of patriarchy. It's unbelievable that ignorant goons like this "General" are in positions of national responsibility anywhere in the 21st century. There is no physiological "proof" of virginity or non-virginity -- much less is there any political authority to subject political detainees to such spurious and scandalous "proofs." Any political or military official stupid enough to believe in, or tolerate, such lunacies should be fired on the spot.

[tom]

These interrogations were probably conducted by CIA trained security forces. Obama now wants to reward the transitional government with additional and continued funding to the military. As the second largest recipient of foreign and military aid in the middle east, the actions of the security forces in Egypt, now and over the previous decades, are a direct indictment of US policy in the region. The results- abject poverty, death, misery and destruction, observed throughout Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq, and elsewhere-- all courtesy of the US tax payer.

[Ricardoh]

Is this what they mean by Arab Spring? Just the troops feeling a little frisky? I can't tell you how thrilled I was to find Obama pledging them our hard earned tax dollars. What a guy with our money.

[josh]

Egyptian people should be happy that virginity is still respected in their country. In the US you would be lucky to find one virgin out of a thousand teenage girls.

[Sara Mikkelsen]

Why do we let the generals frame the discussion by calling these intrusions "virginity tests"? Let's call them what they are: digital rapes. The women, remember, were unwilling subjects to these so-called tests.

[rewwwebb]

Talk about people unclear on the concept. The checks themselves constitute a type of rape. And they think only virgins can be raped? Wow...

[Greg Cahill]

Virginity tests!? The 21st century just called and it wants the revolution to go into high gear. Egypt has a lot of catching up to do.

[bill_k_Lopez]

Oh admit it, you have to love the old world charm of Egypt.

[El Fweido]

So they 'confirmed' status by raping them. Sounds like the methods used to determine witches in Salem.

[A. Nonymous]

Why do Virginity tests on the young women? The tests should be done on the Egyptian leaders since someone has obviously "screwed their brain out".

[Verballistic]

Good work Molly...nationally syndicated radio talk show host Sean Hannity is reading from this very article as I type this.

Thanks for sticking up for womens' rights and human rights...the feminist movement in America has essentially given radical Islam a PASS despite its UNMATCHED (in the 21st century) oppression of women.

[Socorro Varela]

What'a the matter LA Times affraid to put this up for general blogging? Affraid many readers will ask where is the National Organization for Women in these "virginity tests"? How's your love affair with the Muslim brotherhood working out for you? Nice bunch of sadists you liberals are protecting.

[Verballistic]

Sharia Law is such a heinous violation of BASIC human rights that it cannot be tolerated by civilized nations.

Nor can Sharia-infested nations be trusted as allies by the United States. Massive foreign aid cuts might POSSIBLY put an end to Egypt's increasing infatuation with Islamic fundamentalism. If severe aid cuts do not drastically reduce this madness then total elimination of all foreign aid is definitely a serious option.

[Dean Blake]

Standard operating proceedure in Moslem countries, what's news here? There doesn't need to be a revolution for a woman to be subject to an on-the-spot virginity inspection; just an allegation of impropriety. And she's lucky if she gets a virginity inspection test; in rural areas just the allegation will get your head cut off and left on your Mother's door stoop by morning.

[temporarycalifornian]

And we are letting people from these countries, who live their lives according to Sharia Law, the governing ideology behind the religion, to just flow over our borders, just as they have done to European countries. Both Great Britain and France are currently working on ways to reel in the tide of these kinds of crimes. In the news just this morning, another story of an "honor killing", several teenage boys stoned to death a young girl who had just participated in a beauty pageant. They stoned her to death, citing Shariah Law, for wearing "modern clothing". Charming, huh? This fanatical "religion" has no place in modern society. Keep it to the nomadic, tribal cultures and out of our country.

[CallMeWhatever]

"None of them was a virgin". Is that a surprise? They were all heifers!

[finn]

Middle Eastern and northern African countries are convoluted. The young boys there are learning how to be war mongers, biggots, and sexual misfits. Where is the leadership of the country of Egypt? Oh yes - toppled. Women need to rise up and put a stop to this nonsense that is still tolerated by them.