Egypt: Challenging decision to conduct virginity tests on girls inside military prisons

No for Military Trials group, El Nadeem Center for Rehabilitation, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, Nazra for Feminist Studies, New Women Foundation and Hisham Mubarak Law Center filed a law suit before of the Administrative Court against the Commander in Chief of the Military Forces and the Minister of Defense and others appealing the decision of forcing women to examine their virginity in military prisons and detention places for Armed Forces.

The petition No  45029 said that those two women, as participants of the sit-in in Tahrir square,  were practicing their rights of freedom of expression and political participation which are guaranteed by the law .They could be arrested on any base and detained in one of those detention places. They are afraid as other female participants in any of political action nowadays in Egypt to be subject of compulsory examination or "virginity tests" .

The appeal is based on the infringement of this decision, virginity test one, to the constitutional declaration and international conventions, especially the Convention of Elimination all Forms of Discrimination and the International Covenant on Civil and Political  Rights, as well as the violation of the resolution of this  decision .

The groups and organizations which filed this case aim the immediate stop for examination for virginity in military prisons and stop discrimination against women. They are standing against all the trials to eradicate the rule of hundreds of thousands of Egyptian women who are participation in the revolution and trying to protect it side by side with their male peers.

The groups and organizations also stated that examination of virginity decision in addition to being a violation of the right to bodily integrity; it is a severe discrimination against Egyptian women from who is running Egypt nowadays.

by hmlc | أحد, 17/07/2011 - 05:09