Seventeen Egyptian rights organizations released a statement on Monday calling upon the country's minister of health to investigate alleged incidents of indecent assault of detainees by army doctors.
The groups accused the doctors of physically and psychologically abusing scores of detainees on 9 March after they had been arrested during a protest in Cairo's Tahrir Square.
The statement quoted the accounts of the detainees, among whom were women. They said that white-coated army officers removed the clothes of female detainees and conducted virginity tests on them.
"An officer accompanied by a female guard attended the tests. Women were forced to assemble in the ward, completely naked, with the door open," they said.
The rights groups said that one doctor injected the detainees with a substance which he claimed was a sedative drug. The same statement said that those injected suffered stomach aches and vomiting.
"The incidents reported form a flagrant violation of national and international pacts on the ethics of medical practice," said the statement. It urged the health minister to intervene with the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces to stop those abuses, publicly apologize for the victims and litigate the abusers involved.
The groups that signed the statement were the Nadim Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence, the Arab Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI), the Association of Freedom of Thought and Expression, the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights, and the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights.
