Egypt Military Court Clears Doctor of ‘Virginity Tests’ — and Denies They Even Took Place
- Posted on March 11, 2012 at 2:05pm by
Madeleine Morgenstern
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An Egyptian military tribunal on Sunday acquitted an army doctor accused of forcing a female protester to submit to a virginity test while she was detained. (Reuters)
CAIRO (The Blaze/AP) — An Egyptian military tribunal on Sunday acquitted an army doctor of a charge of public obscenity filed by a protester who claimed she was forced to undergo a virginity test while in detention.
The court denied the humiliating tests even took place, despite a ruling by another court and admissions by generals quoted by a leading rights group.
The ruling further infuriated the country’s revolutionary youth movements, who have said claims of the virginity tests were the first sign that the generals who took over from deposed President Hosni Mubarak 13 months ago were carrying on his repressive practices.
Less than four months before the military is scheduled to hand over power to a civilian administration, Sunday’s verdict was likely to lend credibility to widespread suspicions that the generals were trying to remove any legal basis for prosecution for crimes committed during their rule after they step down. Activists are calling for the generals to face charges for human rights abuses.
Watch one woman — who said she was forced to submit to the test under threat of electrocution — describe her experience to CNN:
Samira Ibrahim, one of seven women who said they were forced to undergo examinations to determine if they were virgins while detained by the military a year ago, won a civilian court ruling last year that affirmed the tests were taking place at military jails and ordered they be halted.
Military prosecutors investigating her accusations brought only one individual, Dr. Ahmed Adel, to trial, and he was acquitted. The verdict cannot be appealed. The court denied that such tests were carried out.
“No one stained my honor,” Ibrahim wrote on her Twitter account after the verdict. “The one that had her honor stained is Egypt. I will carry on until I restore Egypt’s rights.”
Maj. Gen. Adel al-Mursi, head of the military prosecution, defended the verdict in a statement carried by Egypt’s official news agency. He said the judge ruled “according to his conscience and in view of the case’s documents.” He said witnesses for the plaintiff gave conflicting testimony, and that Adel was acquitted also because the testimonies of two prison guards, the jail’s security officer and the head of its clinic insisted that no such test was carried out.
“The court’s denial of the tests being conducted went against written testimonies of several public figures who discussed the issue with several of the ruling generals,” rights lawyer Adel Ramadan said.
The virginity tests created the first tension between the generals and women, tens of thousands of whom took part in the uprising against Mubarak. Late last year, army troops were caught on camera beating female protesters with sticks and stomping on them while they lay helpless on the ground.
One woman was stripped half naked by the troops as they beat her. The video that captured the incident caused an uproar in this conservative, mainly Muslim nation of 85 million people.
Amnesty International said in June that Egypt’s generals acknowledged carrying out the tests on female protesters. It said Maj. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a member of the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, justified the tests as a way to protect the army from rape allegations. The rights group said al-Sisi vowed the military would not conduct such tests again.
The virginity test allegations first surfaced after a March 9 rally in Cairo’s downtown Tahrir Square, epicenter of last year’s uprising, that turned violent when men in plain clothes attacked protesters, and the army intervened to clear the square by force. Ibrahim was detained along with scores of men and women, and a military tribunal later sentenced her to a suspended 12-month prison term.
The military has been in power since Mubarak stepped down last year in the face of a popular uprising. The Mubarak-era generals who succeeded their former patron face accusations by rights activists of killing protesters, torturing detainees and trying at least 10,000 civilians in military tribunals.
They are also accused of bungling the transition and seeking to preserve their decades-old immunity from civilian oversight.
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Xyskalla
Posted on March 12, 2012 at 11:33amGee, men, aren’t you anxious for the day when Sharia law finally becomes the law of the land here in the USA? We’ll be able to do whatever we want to women with impunity. Isn’t that great?
Report Post »Xyskalla
Posted on March 12, 2012 at 11:39amIt looks like my post was somehow edited. I had typed “” at the end of my original post, but for some reason, it is missing.
Report Post »G-WHIZ
Posted on March 12, 2012 at 11:45amYah, it’s Sharia….they’re only women…get over it! (Now, turn-off scarcasm).
Report Post »Xyskalla
Posted on March 12, 2012 at 11:45amAnd it happened again. Apparently The Blaze’s censoring software automatically deletes anything between the chevron-type brackets. The missing word was “Shudder”
Report Post »Detroit paperboy
Posted on March 11, 2012 at 8:48pmAhhh yes… The sweet smell of Obama’s early Arab spring…. Welcome back Carter ….
Report Post »Welcome Black Carter
Posted on March 11, 2012 at 9:08pmWelcome Black Carter…
Report Post »chasbronson
Posted on March 11, 2012 at 8:26pmThese muslim women need to band together and put a tent stake through the heads of these animals while they are sleeping.All in one night.A couple thousand of them.They may change their attitude toward their women.
Report Post »pinchanze
Posted on March 11, 2012 at 8:17pmHey Egypt!
You made a crucial mistake in your fight for freedom……you can’t let the military have the power it has. Now you lost your momentum and your freedom! You need a Moses!
Report Post »The Third Archon
Posted on March 11, 2012 at 7:52pm“An Egyptian military tribunal on Sunday acquitted an army doctor of a charge of public obscenity filed by a protester who claimed she was forced to undergo a virginity test while in detention.”
Report Post »Hmm–sounds like Egypt may be taking notes on Texas’ legal system.
cassandra
Posted on March 11, 2012 at 6:57pmthis is where Ms Fuke should go to school, maybe THEY will pay for her free birth control
Report Post »hi
Posted on March 11, 2012 at 4:56pmIt’s okay. The doctor is really just a comedian.
Report Post »USPATRIOT101
Posted on March 11, 2012 at 5:03pmIt was a written exam.
Report Post »db321
Posted on March 11, 2012 at 5:36pmMany Women now support Obama because they think he is going to pay for their Birth Control. Not only is he not going to cover BC he is going to bring in Sharia Law which requires women to ware veils and under go Virginity testing. I see stoning coming to America and the victims are the same ones that voted it in.
Report Post »Anamah
Posted on March 11, 2012 at 7:40pmA civilization sample beyond barbaric classification. Very seek people trapped inside a morbid ideology.
Report Post »pavepaws
Posted on March 11, 2012 at 7:55pmDid she pass?
Report Post »disenlightened
Posted on March 11, 2012 at 4:04pmI had a Muslim friend who told me it’s easy for Muslim women to remain virgins. He said the only time Muslim women get any action is when they’re mistake for men.
Report Post »Gourdy
Posted on March 11, 2012 at 3:59pmHmmm….these virginity test remind me of mandatory ******* ultrasounds being passed around the country. Whether here or there, it’s all about control.
Report Post »DSTSS2010
Posted on March 11, 2012 at 4:24pmA virginity test is to an ultrasound as rape is to a pap smear.
Report Post »Gourdy
Posted on March 11, 2012 at 4:33pmDST, not if they are legally required by the State (be it a Muslim state or an American state). Both are grave injustices to personal freedom.
Report Post »destrecht
Posted on March 12, 2012 at 1:21pmWell, if infanticide weren’t legal, it would be a moot point, now wouldn’t it?
Report Post »HorseCrazy
Posted on March 11, 2012 at 3:29pmwhere is the outcry from the womens groups? oh wait they are too worried about sandra fluke and the fake birth control scandal verses doctors performing invasive humiliating virginity tests. Poor women stuck in these muslim countries I couldn’t imagine.
Report Post »cuinsong
Posted on March 11, 2012 at 3:00pmsorry mis-q
Report Post »cuinsong
Posted on March 11, 2012 at 2:58pmObviously another example of how badly women are treated by Muslim culture. The women of the world should speak out and condemn this practice! They should withhold sexual favors till something is done about it! “The Devils Song” http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_10789987
Report Post »is all they know.
Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra
Posted on March 11, 2012 at 2:38pmSo how did they determine the doctor hadn’t done it, smell his fingers? “Nope, you ddin’t do anything, your finger is clean”……Wait, he didn’t use his finger? I’m not smelling that thing then.
Report Post »TIME_2_END_THE_PAUL_CAMPAIGN_IN_12
Posted on March 11, 2012 at 2:32pmWell, soon enough he’ll be back at it… checking the virginity of women and camels and making sure neither is spoiled for the desert dwelling love machines…
Report Post »Snowleopard {gallery of cat folks}
Posted on March 11, 2012 at 2:29pmNo Suprise – how long until Obama orders something like that here?
Report Post »lukerw
Posted on March 11, 2012 at 2:24pmNothing to see here… wink;wink…
Report Post »sndrman
Posted on March 11, 2012 at 2:24pmgood thing gloria allred(in the face)where are you and your feminists to stand up for women? why don’t these feminists tell the leaders of these countries that their women must be respected and they do not have to wear head and face covering….ohhh i remember they are just a arm of the socialists to push an agenda in AMERICA.
Report Post »MidWestMom
Posted on March 11, 2012 at 2:53pmI vote we send Gloria & Crew over there so they can tell them in person. Face to face is always more effective.
Report Post »Stoic one
Posted on March 11, 2012 at 2:24pmPull everything out of these places and let them self-destruct.
Report Post »SoupSandwich
Posted on March 11, 2012 at 2:18pmWe have a prototype for DHHS director/czar….Sebilius should keep an eye on her job secuirty.
Report Post »Rose Ellen, where are you?
Rosey…. these are your people, come on, you know you want and have to defend this….
DYNA
Posted on March 11, 2012 at 8:16pm@SoupSandwich regarding Rose Ellen
I know what you are saying. Reminds me of the same dumb liberal mentality that manifested itself in the “blame America first crowd” during the cold war with the USSR/communism through the 1980s.
Report Post »MidWestMom
Posted on March 11, 2012 at 2:17pmWell I’m shocked, just shocked. /end sarcasm/
Report Post »Welcome Black Carter
Posted on March 11, 2012 at 9:14pmWhen you are living the lie that is islam, all things are possible. There is a Bagdad Bob on every street corner and leading every mosque.
Report Post »