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Amnesty International
EGYPT - MILITARY PLEDGES TO STOP
FORCED "VIRGINITY TESTS"
17 female protesters were subjected to forced 'virginity tests' by the army in March
© Maggie Osama - 27 June 2011
The head of Egypt’s military intelligence has promised Amnesty International
that the army will no longer carry out forced ‘virginity tests’ after defending
their use, during a meeting with the organisation in Cairo on Sunday.
Major General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces
(SCAF), discussed the issue with Amnesty International’s Secretary General
Salil Shetty months after the organisation publicized allegations of the forced
‘tests’.
Major General al-Sisi said that ‘virginity tests’ had been carried out on
female detainees in March to "protect" the army against possible
allegations of rape, but that such forced tests would not be carried out
again. He also added that army would avoid detaining women in the
future.
He noted that women seeking to work for the army are required to undertake
‘virginity tests’.
“The Major General’s comments must translate into unequivocal instructions to
army staff that women are never forced to undergo this treatment again in
Egypt,” said Amnesty International.
“Subjecting women to such degrading procedures hoping to show that they were
not raped in detention makes no sense, and was nothing less than torture.
The government should now provide reparation to the victims, including medical and
psychological support, and apologise to them for their treatment.”
The Major General’s comments came during discussion of a range of human rights
abuses, including the ongoing military trials of thousands of civilians
including demonstrators, workers and people suspected of petty crimes.
When army officers violently cleared Tahrir Square on 9 March – the day after
International Women’s Day – 17 women were detained, beaten, prodded with
electric shock batons, subjected to strip searches, forced to submit to
‘virginity tests’ and threatened with prostitution charges.
The women were brought before a military court on 11 March and released on 13
March. Several received one-year suspended sentences for charges including
disorderly conduct, destroying property, obstructing traffic and possession of
weapons.
That month, Amnesty International wrote to SCAF to investigate the women’s
treatment, but received no direct reply or comment from them on the ‘virginity
tests’ until the meeting.
In relation to abuses by the security forces during the uprising and in the
past thirty years, Major General al-Sisi told Amnesty International at Sunday’s
meeting that there was a need to change the culture of the security forces, and
gave assurances that instructions had now been given not to use violence
against demonstrators, and to protect detainees against ill-treatment.
Such a commitment is particularly welcome ahead of mass demonstrations called
for 8 July in solidarity with families of victims of the uprising, and for
greater social justice.
According to Major General al-Sisi, people alleging human rights abuses at the
hands of the army should complain to the military prosecutor, and can also post
their complaints on the SCAF Facebook page.
Major General al-Sisi also stressed the importance of ensuring social justice
for all Egyptians, an aim shared by Amnesty International.
“We are hopeful that Egypt’s 25 January Revolution will ultimately lead to
justice for those wronged and mistreated by security forces,” said Amnesty
International. “But ultimately what matters are the actions of the
Egyptian authorities, not their words.”
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Subject: Egypt - General Admits "Virginity Checks" on
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EGYPT - GENERAL ADMITS
"VIRGINITY CHECKS" ON WOMEN PROTESTORS
From
Shahira Amin, For CNN - May 31, 2011
Cairo (CNN) -- 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.
At that time, Maj. Amr Imam said 17 women had
been arrested but denied allegations of torture or "virginity tests."
But now a senior general who asked not to be
identified said the virginity tests were conducted and defended the practice.
"The girls who were detained were not
like your daughter or mine," the general said. "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
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)."
This demonstration occurred nearly a month
after Egypt's longtime President Hosni Mubarak stepped down amid a wave of
popular and mostly peaceful unrest aimed at his ouster and the institution of
democratic reforms.
Afterward, Egypt's military -- which had
largely stayed on the sidelines of the revolution -- officially took control of
the nation's political apparatus as well, until an agreed-upon constitution and
elections.
The March 9 protest occurred in Tahrir
Square, which became famous over 18 historic and sometimes bloody days and nights
of protests that led to Mubarak's resignation.
But unlike in those previous demonstrations,
the Egyptian military targeted the protesters. Soldiers dragged dozens of
demonstrators from the square and through the gates of the landmark Egyptian
Museum.
Salwa Hosseini, a 20-year-old hairdresser and
one of the women named in the Amnesty report, described to CNN how uniformed
soldiers tied her up on the museum's grounds, 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 soon after the Amnesty report came out. "They wanted to make
us feel that we do not have dignity."
The treatment got worse, Hosseini said, when
she and the 16 other female prisoners were taken to a military detention center
in Heikstep.
There, she said, she and several of other
female detainees were subjected to a "virginity test."
"We did not agree for a male doctor to
perform the test," she said. But Hosseini said her captors forced her to
comply by threatening her with more stun-gun shocks.
"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."
The senior Egyptian general said the 149
people detained after the March 9 protest were subsequently tried in military
courts, and most have been sentenced to a year in prison.
Authorities later revoked those sentences
"when we discovered that some of the detainees had university degrees, so
we decided to give them a second chance," he said.
The senior general reaffirmed that the
military council was determined to make Egypt's democratic transition a
success.
"The date for handover to a civil
government can't come soon enough for the ruling military council," he
said. "The army can't wait to return to its barracks and do what it does
best -- protect the nation's borders."