Cairo ( CNN ) -- A senior Egyptian general admits that `` virginity checks '' were performed on women arrested at a demonstration this spring , the first such admission after previous denials by military authorities . The allegations arose in an Amnesty International report , published weeks after the March 9 protest . It claimed female demonstrators were beaten , given electric shocks , strip-searched , threatened with prostitution charges and forced to submit to virginity checks . At that time , Maj. Amr Imam said 17 women had been arrested but denied allegations of torture or `` virginity tests . '' But now a senior general who asked not to be identified said the virginity tests were conducted and defended the practice . `` 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 ) . '' The general said the virginity checks were done so that the women would n't later claim they had been raped by Egyptian authorities . `` We did n't want them to say we had sexually assaulted or raped them , so we wanted to prove that they were n't virgins in the first place , '' the general said . `` None of them were ( virgins ) . '' This demonstration occurred nearly a month after Egypt 's longtime President Hosni Mubarak stepped down amid a wave of popular and mostly peaceful unrest aimed at his ouster and the institution of democratic reforms . Afterward , Egypt 's military -- which had largely stayed on the sidelines of the revolution -- officially took control of the nation 's political apparatus as well , until an agreed-upon constitution and elections . Mubarak denies ordering shootings . The March 9 protest occurred in Tahrir Square , which became famous over 18 historic and sometimes bloody days and nights of protests that led to Mubarak 's resignation . But unlike in those previous demonstrations , the Egyptian military targeted the protesters . Soldiers dragged dozens of demonstrators from the square and through the gates of the landmark Egyptian Museum . Salwa Hosseini , a 20-year-old hairdresser and one of the women named in the Amnesty report , described to CNN how uniformed soldiers tied her up on the museum 's grounds , forced her to the ground and slapped her , then shocked her with a stun gun while calling her a prostitute . `` They wanted to teach us a lesson , '' Hosseini said soon after the Amnesty report came out . `` They wanted to make us feel that we do not have dignity . '' The treatment got worse , Hosseini said , when she and the 16 other female prisoners were taken to a military detention center in Heikstep . There , she said , she and several of other female detainees were subjected to a `` virginity test . '' `` We did not agree for a male doctor to perform the test , '' she said . But Hosseini said her captors forced her to comply by threatening her with more stun-gun shocks . `` I was going through a nervous breakdown at that moment , '' she recalled . `` There was no one standing during the test , except for a woman and the male doctor . But several soldiers were standing behind us watching the backside of the bed . I think they had them standing there as witnesses . '' The senior Egyptian general said the 149 people detained after the March 9 protest were subsequently tried in military courts , and most have been sentenced to a year in prison . Authorities later revoked those sentences `` when we discovered that some of the detainees had university degrees , so we decided to give them a second chance , '' he said . The senior general reaffirmed that the military council was determined to make Egypt 's democratic transition a success . `` The date for handover to a civil government ca n't come soon enough for the ruling military council , '' he said . `` The army ca n't wait to return to its barracks and do what it does best -- protect the nation 's borders . ''
17 women were arrested at a March 9 protest in Cairo , after Mubarak 's ouster . A senior Egyptian general says some of them were subject to `` virginity checks '' He says it was done so that they would n't claim later they had been raped . One woman allegedly targeted had said , `` They wanted to teach us a lesson ''