Their voice was evidently heard at military headquarters. Even before the march broke up, the ruling generals reversed themselevs to offer an apology to women for unspecified “violations.”

“The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces expresses its utmost sorrow for the great women of Egypt, for the violations that took place during the recent events,” the council said in a statement. “It stresses its great appreciation for the women of Egypt.”

The statement asserted that the council had already taken “all the legal actions to hold whoever is responsible accountable.” But it gave no indication that anyone in the military has been publicly investigated or charged for any misconduct, and the statement also reprised the council’s recent attempt to pin blame for the clashes on the protestors themselves. The generals urged calm “until we can reveal the infiltrating and paid agents of thuggery that aim at destruction, sabotage and damaging the revolution and the great Egyptian youth.”

Egypt’s military rulers came under fire from international human rights groups soon after they took power in February for performing invasive, pseudo-medical “virginity tests” on several women detained after a protest in March. But in Egypt’s conservative culture, few of the women subjected to that humiliation have come forward to criticize the generals publicly.

The spark for the march on Tuesday came over the weekend, when hundreds of military police officers in riot gear repeatedly stormed Tahrir Square, indiscriminately beating anyone they could catch. Videos showed more than one instance in which officers grabbed and stripped female demonstrators, tearing off their Muslim head scarves. And in the most infamous case caught on video, a half-dozen soldiers beat a supine woman with batons and ripped off her abaya to reveal a blue bra. Then one of them kicked her in the chest.

Recalling that event at a news conference Tuesday, the woman’s friend Hassan Shahin said he had told the soldiers: “I’m a journalist, and this is a girl. Wait, I’ll take her away from here.” But, he said, “nobody listened, and one of them jumped on me, and they started beating me with batons.”