EGYPT: General admits protesters subjected to 'virginity tests'

By artappraiser on Tue, 05/31/2011 - 10:55pm |

By Molly Hennessy-Fiske in Cairo, Babylon and Beyond blog @ Los Angeles Times, May 31, 20

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....

....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....

URL:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2011/05/egypt-general-admits-protesters-subjected-to-virginity-tests-.html