Egyptian-American journalist Mona Eltahawy says that she was beaten and sexually assaulted by police after being arrested in Cairo. She had been filming protests with her camera phone.

The columnist and activist, who holds dual citizenship, told MSNBC that the police “acted like animals,” and that her right hand and left arm were broken. Riot police, she says, dragged her away from the scene of the protest by the hair and groped her between the legs.

One officer, she says, stuck his hand down her jeans: “I managed to stop him before he touched my genitals. They touched me all over, groped every part of my body and called me names, called me a whore.”

MSNBC reports that Eltahawy posted a photo of her right hand, tweeting that it was “so swollen I can’t close it.”

Her allegations, MNBC says “could not be immediately verified.”

Eltahawy believes that it was when the police realized she held dual citizenship that they thought they should be “more careful,” apologized and sent her home in a cab after she had been questioned for several hours.