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THIRTEEN MORE MEN ARRESTED Posted 27 February 2003 According to the Egyptian newspaper Al Wafd, thirteen young men including students and hotel employees were arrested on Monday. Charges have yet to be brought against the men but the expectation implicit in the report was that all the men would be formally charged this Saturday [ 2 March ]. The paper even reported that none of the men denied to being gay. The speed and unanimity of such a confession in Egypt, a country where any announcement of one's sexuality is to make oneself a social and legal outcast, is a certain guarantee that "intense coercive measures" were used. These arrests bring the total number of men detained or brought before the courts this month to atleast 32, judging only by the most prominent reports in the newspapers. Earlier this week Egypt's government announced that it would extend its' emergency powers, introduced over twenty years ago in the wake of president Sadat's assassination in 1981, for yet another three years. And only last week Human Rights Watch slammed the Egyptian Government for it's escalating campaign of repression against gay men. The arrests pose a direct and possibly deliberate challenge to the international community. Egypt's currency and economy are in crisis. War fears are undermining investment and giving added fuel to protests by Islamic factions over the government's cooperation with the United States in it's military preparations against Iraq. The Suez canal in particular has been vital in the movement of American warships and Egypt's use of torture against suspected Islamic terrorists has probably been welcomed by many in the CIA. There have also been reports, obviously unverifiable, that the United States is also receiving secret logistical support for an invasion from Cairo and Amman. The supposed aim being to launch a surprise airborne invasion of Iraq from the west to speed the advance on Baghdad. In this plan Sinai and Jordan will become, like Kuwait and Turkey, vital, though in this case secret, military spring boards. Mubarak has correctly calculated that the United States is desperate for Egyptian help and that it will do nothing, atleast while the Iraq crisis remains in the headlines, to risk this strategic relationship. At the same time he feels he can win over popular support, which has been drifting towards the Islamic opposition, by appearing to stand firm to the West on the issue of gay rights. Gays in Egypt have become the unlikely pawns in this internatinal crisis. ANOTHER LEBANESE VISITOR ARRESTED Posted 25 February 2003 For other February news reports logged at the Independent Media Centre please click here. Also see a copy of the Human Rights Watch report further down the page. Anonymous source forwarded via contributor. All, I would like to keep you up-to-date of the events unfolding in Cairo. First, it is my sad duty to report that another Lebanese national was arrested, tried, and convicted this week of the same "crimes" as Wissam Abyad. This young man was visiting Cairo on a business trip, and on his second day in Egypt was entrapped by the Egyptian police and charged with similar charges to Wissam. His sentence will be handed down next week. As in Wissam's case, the Lebanese Embassy in Cairo has done nothing for them. Secondly, 6 young men were arrested and tried and convicted in the Suez Canal city of Port Said last week. They were together in a private home when the police entered and arrested them, charging them with "debauchery." Their appeal is this week. Thirdly, the verdict in the appeals case for 12 young men arrested last year in Agouza, Cairo, in an entrapment/sting operation in a private home will be handed down today. They have been in one of the worst jails in Egypt for the past year. These 20 individuals, along with dozens of other documented cases of young men entrapped on the Internet, the 52 Queen Boat defendants, and many others brings the number of individuals persecuted for their perceived sexual orientation well into the hundreds in Egypt. There are now 3 cases headed for the Egyptian Supreme Court. Wissam and Zaki, both outlined in the Human Rights Watch press release, and another friend of mine who has already served his sentence and is trying to clear his name and criminal record. I hope you can raise support internationally for these individuals. I am suffering personally from the continued jail sentence of my partner, Wissam Abyad. I am certain that others are suffering for the detention and destruction of their loved ones as well. We need urgent international attention to these cases to make Egypt stop this persecution of people within its borders for their perceived lifestyle. We need urgent attention and intervention to press for Wissam's release, along with the others in jail on these trumped-up charges. I hope also that the Lebanese community abroad can rally support for the 2 Lebanese nationals arrested in Cairo in the past month for this reason. Does this signal that Egypt thinks the Lebanese are easy targets now? I thank you for your attention, and for anything you can do to assist us advocate to release Wissam quickly, and the others as well. Please pass this message on to whoever may be interested or able to help. ENTRAPMENT CAMPAIGN CONTINUES 19 KNOWN KNOWN CASES THIS MONTH QUEEN BOAT VERDICT DUE SOON Posted 23 September 2003 The following is a Human Rights Watch Press Release. Their website is at www.hrw.org (New York, February 21, 2003) A February 17 appeals court ruling in Egypt may signal an increasingly harsh campaign of entrapment, arrest and conviction of men solely on the basis of alleged consensual homosexual conduct, Human Rights Watch said today. "For two years now, the Egyptian authorities have conducted an on-going campaign of harassment against suspected homosexuals. "The police are raiding private homes and using the Internet to entrap men on trumped-up charges of 'debauchery.' People looking for support and community find a prison cell instead." Joe Stork, Washington Director of the Middle East and North Africa Division of Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch urged the Egyptian authorities to conduct a fair review of all sentences handed down in such cases, and to free from prison anyone convicted solely for private, consensual conduct among adults. "For two years now, the Egyptian authorities have conducted an on-going campaign of harassment against suspected homosexuals," said Joe Stork, Washington director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch. "The police are raiding private homes and using the Internet to entrap men on trumped-up charges of 'debauchery.' People looking for support and community find a prison cell instead." On February 17, a Cairo appeals court upheld a penal sentence against Wissam Toufic Abyad, a 26 year-old Lebanese citizen. Police arrested Abyad on January 16 in Cairo's Heliopolis district after he had arranged to meet with "Raoul," whom he had met through the gay personals-advertisements site www.gaydar.com. Undercover police and informants have used the nickname "Raoul" in several other cases to entrap suspected homosexual men. The Heliopolis Court of Misdemeanors convicted Abyad on January 20 on charges of the "habitual practice of debauchery [fujur]" under Article 9(c) of Law 10/1961 on the Combating of Prostitution, a charge commonly used in Egypt against private, consensual homosexual conduct. The court also convicted him of advertising "against public morals" under Article 178 of the Penal Code; and "inciting passers-by" on a "public road or traveled or frequented place. . . to commit indecent acts [fisq]" under Article 269 of the Penal Code-both referring to his having placed a personals advertisement on the Internet site. These charges are commonly used to criminalize the expression of homosexual identity. Many recent cases of Internet entrapment of suspected homosexuals have led to convictions in the first instance that were later reversed on appeal. Human Rights Watch is concerned that the appeals court's decision in the Abyad case may signal increasing harshness in the application of the law. Human Rights Watch is also concerned by the continuing imprisonment of Zaki Saad Zaki Abd al-Malak, a 23-year-old resident of Ismailia who was arrested under similar circumstances over a year ago. In January 2002, after corresponding with a man through an MSN chatroom, Malak came to Cairo. On January 25, at their prearranged meeting place on a street in the Mohandiseen district, Vice Squad officers arrested Malak. He told human rights activists that he was beaten daily by police during two weeks of detention in the Agouza Police Station. At one meeting with his lawyer he still had dried blood crusting his face. On February 7, 2002, Malak was sentenced to three years' imprisonment, followed by three years' supervision, under the same three charges used against Wissam Abyad. The sentence was upheld on appeal. A further appeal is pending before the Cassation Court, Egypt's highest judicial review body. Meanwhile, Malak is being held in Borg al-Arab prison near Alexandria. In a separate hearing, scheduled for February 23, 2003, a court of appeals will rule in the case of twelve men sentenced to three years' imprisonment on the charge of "habitual practice of debauchery" in November 2002. All were arrested on August 20, 2002, when police raided what they described as a gay party in an apartment in Cairo's Mohandiseen district. Ten of the men were sentenced for practicing consensual, non-commercial sex with male adults. Although two of the men confessed to having practiced commercial sex, Judge Mohieddin Atrees stressed in his verdict that homosexual conduct--"debauchery"--was a criminal offense even in the absence of financial gain. In another case, six men were arrested in January 2003 in a private apartment in Port Said and charged with the "habitual practice of debauchery." All six were subjected to forensic medical examinations which found them "used," and were sentenced approximately two weeks ago to six months' imprisonment. An appeals hearing in the case will be held on February 26. Egypt's most notorious "gay trial," of fifty-two men arrested at the Queen Boat discotheque in May 2001, is also drawing to a close. In November 2001, after a process marked by lurid publicity in the state-controlled press, twenty-three of the men were convicted and given sentences of between one and five years' imprisonment. Their case was heard before an Emergency State Security Court, whose verdicts under Egypt's emergency legislation allow no ordinary appeal. President Hosni Mubarak, who as military governor must review all verdicts of this court, later cancelled innocent and guilty verdicts alike for fifty of the Queen Boat defendants, resulting in a retrial of these cases before an ordinary court. That court has announced it will hand down its decision on March 15. "This routine of harassment and persecution has gone on far too long," Stork said. "The authorities should halt such arrests and stop the criminalization of consensual private sexual relations." RED IS THE COLOUR. Posted 6 February 2003. Several small groups of gay men in Egypt have decided collectively to celebrate 11 May as Gay Pride Day. Although they will be also remembering the anniversary of the notorious police arrests and beatings conducted during the infamous raid on the Queen Boat in the early hours of 11 May 2001, they will be also be celebrating Gay Pride ! A clear demonstration that Egypt's gay community is resisting repression, fighting back and still very much alive. On that day they are asking people to come out on to the streets wearing red, though enthusiasts may well decide not to hide their red clothes in the closet for the rest of the year. It's a colour they hope will be worn in memory of all those who lost their liberty and were victims of state repression in recent years and also as a clear sign of visibility and resistance. Red is a particularly appropriate colour. It is the colour of blood and repression but it is also vibrant and can be worn as a clear symbol of defiance. But it is not so exclusive as the rainbow colours as to make it easy for the police to retaliate with arrests. However, people are advised to be careful about what red clothes to wear and where to wear them. Egyptians in Upper Egypt, including Luxor, Aswan and especially Asyut should be particularly careful. Elsewhere Egyptians are also urged to consider carefully what red clothes to wear. Red underpants or trousers or anything particularly unusual such as red hankies hanging from back pockets might be used by Egyptian police, especially when the courts seem so ready to accept the flimsiest of evidence, to incriminate individuals who might otherwise escape arrest. However bright red shirts could be worn with less risk and in any number they would be a very visible symbol of open defiance to Egypt's apparatus of repression. Tourists are requested to wear as much red as possible, whether they themselves are gay or straight, in sympathy with the gay struggle for freedom in Egypt. They are extremely unlikely to be arrested simply for wearing red clothes and the sight of groups of tourists roaming the streets dressed in red will be a sure sign of the strength of international anger at the State's homophobic policies that have seen hundreds of gay Egyptians arrested. One of our GayEgypt.com Editors, though the rest of us feel it a fanciful notion, insists we suggest that a clenched fist rested discreetly next to one's drink at a table could also be a sign, not just of open-mindedness on sexuality, but also of liberal reform-minded opposition to Egypt's corrupt and repressive ancien regime. But we are all, without exception, delighted by the news that the colour red is rapidly being adopted by Egypt's gay community. We don't know quite how and where the idea originated. We wish we could claim credit for it but we can't. We are very happy however to give the "Wear Red for Gay Freedom" campaign ( we can't resist the temptation to use a tentative temporary name for this as yet unnamed spontaneous movement ) all the publicity we can. So, apart from being a vivid vibrant colour of resistance, does red have any special place in Egypt ? It certainly appears so. Red was the favourite colour of Cleopatra and Egypt has both the Red Pyramid and of course the Red Sea with its redish coral reefs and teeming shoals of red fish. It is the colour of the Egyptian national football team and of the traditional tarboosh. It even comprises one third of the national flag. And there is, though set against these other national symbols it might easily be sadly overlooked, also a beautiful Hibiscus flower known as the "Cairo Red". Wear one only at your own risk ! To view gay news for Egypt in January 2003 Click here, For earlier months please Click here ! 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