Egypt must investigate forced virginity tests: Amnesty

The London-based rights group has slammed it as "nothing less than torture.".

Amnesty International called on the authorities in Egypt to bring to justice those responsible for forced virginity tests on female protesters,slamming it as “nothing less than torture.”

The London-based rights group’s statement came yesterday after an apparent admission by an army general to CNN that women detained on March 9 in Cairo had been subjected to virginity tests.

But a senior military official yesterday denied to reports that the army had conducted such tests,saying “these allegations are baseless.”

The general,speaking to CNN on condition of anonymity,had defended the practice.

“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,” he told the US broadcaster. “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),” he said.

Amnesty condemned the admission as “an utterly perverse justification of a degrading form of abuse.

Story continues below this ad

“The women were subjected to nothing less than torture,” it said.

Authorities “must bring those responsible for ordering or conducting forced ‘virginity tests’ to justice,” it said.