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May 31, 2011 02:55 am PDT

Egypt: general confirms "virginity checks" forced on female protesters by military

Via CNN and other sources today, the revolting news that a senior Egyptian general has admitted that so-called "virginity checks" (presumably, forcible examination of the hymen) were performed on women arrested in at least one demonstration this spring. Previously, military authorities had denied this practice. As noted on Boing Boing in March, Amnesty International reported and condemned first-person accounts of this systematic sexual abuse by military agents. From CNN: 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)." As a human biology note, not that it would make this horrific practice any more justified: examining the hymen is not an accurate way to determine virginity. This is a myth. Egypt: female protesters tortured, sexually abused, "charged as ... Egypt: Amnesty condemns "virginity tests," sexual abuse of female ... Guy in Egypt orders "artificial hymen kit" over the internet ......


Original Link: http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/7NGTk67hfpI/egypt-general-confir.html

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