JERUSALEM — He’s at it again.

Last month, Egyptian lawmaker Elhamy Agina declared that women should undergo female genital mutilation in order to “reduce their sexual desires” because Egyptian men are “sexually weak.”

Now he wants all Egyptian women to undergo compulsory “virginity tests” prior to being admitted into the country’s universities.

“Any girl who enters university, we have to check her medical examination to prove that she is a miss,” Agina told Egypt’s Youm 7 newspapers, according to a translation in the Egyptian Streets news website. “Therefore, each girl must present an official document upon being admitted to university stating she’s a miss.”

“No one should be upset by this decision,” he added.

Agina’s use of “Miss” was widely interpreted by Egyptians on social media as referring to a woman who is a virgin. And they took to Twitter and Facebook to ridicule Agina and call for punitive measures against him.

One person tweeted, “How about we have mandatory IQ tests for politicians who aim to mandate nonsense like this?”

Agina, who is a member of the Egyptian parliament’s human rights committee, added that if a woman “fails” the virginity test, her parents would be notified immediately. He hopes that will deter couples from entering into a clandestine union known as an “Urfi marriage,” seen by  conservative clerics and officials as a cover for premarital sex.

It wasn’t Agina’s only controversial statement this past week. He publicly declared that the victims of a boat carrying migrants to Italy that capsized off Egypt’s coast last week “deserve no sympathy” because they were illegally migrating to pursue “an unguaranteed fantasy,” according to Egyptian Streets. More than 200 people were killed on the boat.


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