An anonymous Egyptian general has given an interview to CNN revealing that female protesters arrested at demonstrations this spring were forced to undergo "virginity checks" by military officials. In addition to beatings, electric shocks, and strip searches, the military came up with the idea of the checks to prove that female protesters weren't virgins in case they later attempted to bring charges of sexual assault. According to Amnesty International, seventeen women were arrested during the protests.
“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. None of them were," said the general. "The girls who were detained were not like your daughter or mine. 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]." Because, as we all know, sexual assault only counts if it happens to a virgin? And in addition to physical assault, it made perfect sense to slut-shame these women, too? I've already lost count of how many things are wrong with this story.
