WUNRN
Amnesty International
EGYPT - WOMEN PROTESTERS FORCED TO
TAKE "VIRGINITY TESTS"
23
March 2011
Amnesty International has today called on the Egyptian authorities to investigate
serious allegations of torture, including forced ‘virginity tests’, inflicted
by the army on women protesters arrested in Tahrir Square earlier this month.
After army officers violently cleared the square of protesters on 9 March, at
least 18 women were held in military detention. Amnesty International has been
told by women protesters that they were beaten, given electric shocks,
subjected to strip searches while being photographed by male soldiers, then
forced to submit to ‘virginity checks’ and threatened with prostitution
charges.
‘Virginity tests’ are a form of torture when they are forced or coerced.
"Forcing women to have ‘virginity tests’ is utterly unacceptable. Its
purpose is to degrade women because they are women," said Amnesty International.
"All members of the medical profession must refuse to take part in such
so-called 'tests'."
20-year-old Salwa Hosseini told Amnesty International that after she was
arrested and taken to a military prison in Heikstep, she was made, with the other
women, to take off all her clothes to be searched by a female prison guard, in
a room with two open doors and a window. During the strip search, Salwa
Hosseini said male soldiers were looking into the room and taking pictures of
the naked women.
The women were then subjected to ‘virginity tests’ in a different room by a man
in a white coat. They were threatened that “those not found to be virgins”
would be charged with prostitution.
According to information received by Amnesty International, one woman who said
she was a virgin but whose test supposedly proved otherwise was beaten and
given electric shocks.
“Women and girls must be able to express their views on the future of Egypt and
protest against the government without being detained, tortured, or subjected
to profoundly degrading and discriminatory treatment,” said Amnesty
International.
“The army officers tried to further humiliate the women by allowing men to
watch and photograph what was happening, with the implicit threat that the
women could be at further risk of harm if the photographs were made public.”
Journalist Rasha Azeb was also detained in Tahrir Square and told Amnesty
International that she was handcuffed, beaten and insulted.
Following their arrest, the 18 women were initially taken to a Cairo Museum
annex where they were reportedly handcuffed, beaten with sticks and hoses,
given electric shocks in the chest and legs, and called “prostitutes”.
Rasha Azeb could see and hear the other detained women being tortured by being
given electric shocks throughout their detention at the museum. She was
released several hours later with four other men who were also journalists, but
17 other women were transferred to the military prison in Heikstep
Testimonies of other women detained at the same time collected by the El Nadeem
Center for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence are consistent with Rasha Azeb
and Salwa Hosseini’s accounts of beatings, electrocution and ‘virginity tests’.
“The Egyptian authorities must halt the shocking and degrading treatment of
women protesters. Women fully participated in bringing change in Egypt and
should not be punished for their activism,” said Amnesty International.
“All security and army forces must be clearly instructed that torture and other
ill-treatment, including forced ‘virginity tests’, will no longer be tolerated,
and will be fully investigated. Those found responsible for such acts must be
brought to justice and the courageous women who denounced such abuses be
protected from reprisals.”
All 17 women detained in the military prison were brought before a military
court on 11 March and released on 13 March. Several received one-year suspended
prison sentences.
Salwa Hosseini was convicted of disorderly conduct, destroying private and public
property, obstructing traffic and carrying weapons.
Amnesty International opposes the trial of civilians before military courts in
Egypt, which have a track record of unfair trials and where the right to appeal
is severely restricted.