GUILTY VERDICT SHOCKS THE WORLD: TWENTY THREE IMPRISONED FACE STIFFER PENALTIES THAN FIRST REPORTED Picture Above: The Cairo 52 Verdict outranks the collapse of the Taliban on the front page of the Dutch newspaper De Volkstrant. GUILTY VERDICT SHOCKS THE WORLD 14 November: Today Egypt's increasingly repressive regime again shocked the world by sentencing twenty three men, already held for over six months in appalling conditions, to prison sentences ranging from one to five years. Their crime was their alleged sexual orientation following their arrest at a Cairo discotheque on 11 May. According to Sarah El Deeb writing for the Associated Press "Most of them could not hear what sentence they received. One defendant kissed the Quran, Islam's holy book; another screamed at a news cameraman. Most covered their faces, some with masks fashioned from handkerchiefs." But judge Mohammed Abdel Karim read the sentences quickly ignoring the protestations of defendants and relatives. He looked a little uncomfortable though when several men shouted defiantly ``We will appeal to God! He is our defender!'' To the great relief of some of the waiting relatives, twenty nine men were aquitted but they face an uncertain future. Their names and workplace details were published in the Egyptian press earlier this year and there is little chance that they will ever be able to lead normal lives again. The other twenty three are just as innocent. Their only crime was their alleged sexual orientation. But they were convicted by a state security court determined to set a harsh example to any gay man even thinking about putting his foot out of the closet. Twenty received two years sentences for immoral behaviour. One man received a one year sentence. Mahmoud Ahmad Allam, who was convicted of "perverting religion" but acquitted of "immoral sex", received a three year sentence. Sherif Farahat, the former IBM engineer and part time artist, whose private diaries and writings attracted such undeserved notoriety in the Egyptian press, received five years with hard labour. A journalist from CNN described the chaotic situation outside the court - "Only a few people had been allowed into the court room. Police wielding sticks drove back a crowd of about 200 relatives, lawyers, journalists and members of the public, and closed the courthouse doors. Relatives of the accused.....jostled journalists covering the trial, accusing them of defaming the defendants. The accused entered the court room hiding their faces behind masks and newspapers." According to Fox News the relatives of those acquitted were overjoyed. "When news of the sentences came in bits and pieces from people leaving the court, one elderly woman joyfully distributed sweets and soft drinks, saying she had heard her son was among those acquitted" But no such joy for the many families and friends of the twenty three men now sentenced to long prison sentences. And even for those released the nightmare is not over. Legal sources informed Afrol news [a news magazine covering African issues] that though the sentences of the twenty three found guilty cannot be appealed "the prosecutors can appeal the acquittals after thirty days from sentencing have elapsed." IMPRISONED FACE STIFFER PENALTIES THAN FIRST REPORTED. 15 November: According to the London based Arabic newspaper Al Quds [15 November] the 23 allegedly gay men sentenced to prison sentences on 14 November face stiffer penalties than first thought. In addition to having to serve out long prison sentences, all the men have also been sentenced to hard labour in prison. And even when their sentences finish they will have to undergo police surveillance for an equal period of time. As if all this was not enough, all the men also face fines but GayEgypt.com is still trying to determine exactly how much these fines are. According to Al Quds, Egyptian legal experts said they felt these penalties were the result of a "political compromise" and fell short of the harshest penalties allowed only because of international pressure. Homosexuality, they argued, was a threat to family life in Egypt. GUILTY VERDICT WILL COST EGYPT $500 MILLION A YEAR The cost to Egypt's tourist industry of these guilty verdicts will be devestating. There will be no right of appeal for the twenty three men convicted on the basis of their alleged sexual orientation. The guilty verdict shows that Mubarak's regime has chosen to ignore the international outrage at their detention, torture and imprisonment. But it is not the end of the struggle. GayEgypt.com, Amnesty International, Al Fatiha and other groups will call even more loudly for a complete tourist boycott. GayEgypt.com now gets around two thousand visitors (thirty thousand hits) a day [the number is growing continually] and most of them are either regular or prospective tourists to Egypt and even if only one in five now change their mind GayEgypt.com alone could cut annual tourist numbers by 140,000. If you assume that many of these people will persuade their partners and friends not to travel and that the bigger organizations like Amnesty International will have an even greater impact, the gay boycott could easily lead to a decline in tourist numbers of half a million or more. Tourists typically spend about a thousand dollars a trip and so this would mean an immediate cost to Egypt's economy of five hundred million dollars a year. That's ten million dollars a year for every man wrongly imprisoned. Our message to Mubarak is this. If you don't free these men you will bankrupt your regime. Tourism is your Government's main source of foreign exchange. Without it, your corrupt government will not last. Tourists may be temporarily scared away by the Afghan crisis but if these men are found guilty this case will prove a much more permanent deterrent. We will not forget them. WHAT'S HAPPENED SO FAR - A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE CAIRO 52 TRIAL In the early hours of 11 May several hundred police descended on a floating discotheque on the Nile in Cairo, the "Queen Boat", which was allegedly holding an informal gay night. In other words, most of the customers knew it was a gay evening, but it wasn't actually advertised as such. The police selectively arrested Egyptians, leaving several foreign tourists who were enjoying the dance undisturbed. The detained men, numbering fifty two, were subjected to torture and some badly beaten. Even the youngest, only fifteen, who it has been claimed was not even at the disco when he was arrested, told a journalist he had been beaten with a "falaka" - a thick stick. Within a week, several Egyptian national newspapers had published a list of all those arrested together with their photographs and places of employment. The press also accused them of devil worship, being funded by foreigners, having links with Israel and of taking part in sex parties. These accusations were leveled even before the trial had begun. The trial itself began in pandemonium on 18 July as families and relatives were denied entrance to the court and the morale of the prisoners slumped as they discovered they were to be tried before a State Security Court [originally set up to deal with cases of terrorism and espionage] with no right of appeal. Then, as the trial unfolded, it was revealed that the very same police officers who were now bringing this case had brought an almost idential case the previous year in a civil court which the judge had then dismissed because of a complete absence of corroboration. Meanwhile, according to our sources and also the British Magazine Gay Times, police actions against gay men in Cairo have continued with recent mass arrests in two areas, Heliopolis and the Pyramids. The Egyptian police have also escalated their campaign of entrapment through the internet. The Queen Boat Case may be only the "tip of an iceberg" but their detention, apawling treatment and trial without right of appeal merely on the grounds of their sexual orientation, is one of Egypt's most blatant violations of the United Nations Charter on Human Rights to which the Egyptian Government itself is a signatory. But with world attention now focused on Afghanistan, Mubarak believes he can get away with it. GayEgypt.com is determined not to let anyone forget so long as these men remain in prison and others continue to be intimidated, arrested and tortured. "FORGOTTEN" PRISONERS TO RECEIVE 26,000 LETTERS A lorry load of letters will deeply embarass President Mubarak. He wants the world to forget about the fifty two prisoners now held in Cairo's notorious Tora prison and waiting a verdict in the Cairo "gay dischoteque" case. He thinks that with world attention focused on Afghanistan no one will care when a state security court decides their fate. They have been held in prison in apawling conditions since they were arrested on 11 May for their alleged sexual orientation. But Amnesty International members have been busy writing five hundred letters to each prisoner, a staggering total of 26,000 letters. So many that, if they were stacked on top of each other, they would rival in height the great pyramid of Cheops [137 metres], which is the highest of the three Giza pyramids. You can add your voice by telephoning the Egyptian Embassy in Washington DC on (202) 895 5400 or the Egyptian Embassy in London on (0207) 499 3304 or in Australia (62) 273 4437 or in Canada (613) 234 4931 or in France (1) 47 209 770 or in Germany (4930) 477 1048. Or why not phone your nearest Egyptian tourist office, ask them lots of time consuming questions about Egypt and then advise them that because of the police arrests and torture of gay men that you will be boycotting Egypt. Call the Egyptian tourism offices in New York on 001212 3322570 or Los Angeles on 001323 6538815 or Chicago on 001312 280 4666 or Frankfurt on 004969 252 319 or London on 00 44 207 493 5282 or Paris on 00331 456 2944 or Rome on 00396 482 7985 or Montreal on 001514 861 4420 or Tokyo on 00813 358 91372. The verdict of the trial of the "Cairo fifty two" is due next Wednesday 14 November. The date marks the anniversary, to the day, of the Muslim Brotherhood's strong showing in last November's elections. The Brotherhood, who supported several of the victorious independent candidates, is thought to have instructed Mubarak to "clean" Egypt of its "undesirables." It gave Mubarak a year to comply. The imprisonment of the Cairo fifty two will be Mubarak's first anniversary gift to the terrorists. But a Coalition of gay groups are determined that their fate should not go unnoticed. "We have not forgotten the cairo 52 in the wake of the September 11 tragedy," said Faisal Alam, founder and director of the World's largest gay muslim foundation - al-Fatiha. "The voices of freedom and justice must be stronger today than ever before." Al-Fatiha's Washington DC branch will be targeting the Egyptian Cultural and Educational Bureau in Washington DC on Tuesday, 13 November, the day before the verdict. While in Rome, Arcigay, The Italian National Gay Association, are focusing their energies on the Egyptian Embassy in Rome on Wednesday. HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO WRITE 26,000 LETTERS ? If you have just read about Amnesty International's members writing 26,000 letters to the 52 prisoners in Tora prison you may be wondering how long this might take. Well, had the great Gamal Abdel-Nasser [who incidentally would never have used a state security court to try people for their private sexual behaviour] started writing a protest letter every day from the age of thirteen and if his ghost had continued for the thirty years since his death, he still wouldn't have finished writing 26,000 today. However, most Egyptians only write an average of one letter a month, which means that if Queen Cleopatra had written one protest letter a month she would now only have another hundred years more left to finish. WHAT'S TORA PRISON LIKE ? Tora prison lies on the southern outskirts of Cairo. When prisoners first arrive they are sent to a holding cell known as "Al Talaga" [The freezer] where they are stripped and searched. Then, if they haven't been already, they have their heads shaved and are issued with prison clothes. Most of the prisoners are held in large communal cells. It's thought that under threat of violence gay prisoners may have been forced to categorize themselves as "positives" [active] or "negatives"[passive] and that they may have been segregated into different holding cells accordingly. It is also believed that they have been threatened with violence by other inmates. Food is usually served in dirty buckets or containers, often infested with insects. There are usually no private or partitioned toilet areas so that toilet functions have to be made in full view of other prisoners. Tuberculosis and other diseases are said to be endemic. Tora prison has long been notorious for torture and the forms of torture are believed to include beatings, electric shocks, burning with cigarettes and threats of rape or sexual abuse. So who has expressed concern about torture at Tora and what are the particular references ? Many organizations have but they include 1} Amnesty International AI Index: MDE 12/015/2001 and 2) The World Organization Against Torture: Case Egy 180697.2 HOW YOU CAN HELP Please can you help us in the following four ways - 1) Boycott Egypt - Please don't finance torture with your holiday money. 2) Boycott Egypt Air - Egypt Air is one of Egypt's biggest earners of foreign exchange but much of it goes directly to the government. 3) Boycott BP AMOCO - until they agree to scale down their investment to reflect the Egyptian Government's dismal record on human rights which is currently one of the worst in the world. To quote BP's own words on human rights. "All companies should adopt an explicit company policy on human rights which includes public support for the universal declaration of human rights." So we will be asking them to cut their proposed five billion dollar investment in Egypt by twenty percent. Until they agree or the Egyptian Government stop the intimidation, detention and torture of gay men we would like you to boycott BP AMOCO. 4) If you receive any information about Egyptian police actions against the gay community please let us know at info@GayEgypt.com. Updated 5 November - we plan to add extra advice, information and requests - probably on this part of the page - within the next few days. "I WANT TO GO HOME." SIXTEEN YEAR OLD'S DESPERATE PLEA BOY TELLS JOURNALIST HE WAS BEATEN WITH A "FALAKA" POLICE PREVENT BOY PHONING HOME Tariq Maalouf writes Today, Wednesday, October 31, 2001, was the first appeal hearing of the case of the minor, Mahmoud Abdel Fatah, sixteen years old, arrested when just fifteen for “habitually practicing debauchery” in connection with the fifty two others detained on the same charge. The hearing was before a Juvenile Court in Abbesiya, Cairo. At about 10:30, a line of minors came into the building two by two. Twenty of them were dressed in the prison’s blue outfit. Each two were chained together with metal handcuffs. The blue outfit shows that they are all sentenced to prison and that their cases are under appeal. Six younger minors, aged 8 to 12, also chained in metal handcuffs, followed the twenty. They were dressed in dirty rags. When I came nearer to them they smelled awful. It was obvious that there is not even the bare minimum of hygiene in the prison. All the twenty-six were crowded into a cage inside courtroom number three, on the ground floor of the building. The room was big and crowded with lawyers and some families. The judge was in a separate chamber off to one side. Each of the detainees was called by name to go into this side room with his lawyer. Mahmoud Abdel Fatah was number eleven on the list. There were five lawyers attending with him including Taher Aboul Nasr from the Hisham Mubarak Centere. Also present was Feras Abou-Younes, a Lebanese lawyer and human rights activist, who was there as an observer representing four organizations, Amnesty International, Defense for Children International, Human Rights Watch and International Federation for Human Rights. During the hearing, the prosecutor gave a speech which Mr. Abou-Younes described as “pure rhetoric, completely irrelevant to the case, a restating of religious discourse and with no legal basis.” It is worth to say that the judge seemed to have been informed of Mr. Abou-Younes’ visit, and knew him by name. He started by asking whom among those present was Mr. Feras Abou-Younes. Then asked him if he had any requests, to which Mr. Abou-Younes answered that he had just come as an observer. At the end, the judge adjourned the hearing until 21 November 2001. While the juveniles were in the ‘cage’, many of the mothers surrounded it and talked to their children. This encouraged me to come closer and look for Mahmoud. Standing there I heard one of them telling his mother that the food is very little and that each two share one meal! I couldn’t know who is Mahmoud among the children so I called his name and he answered. While all of the children were chained to each other with handcuffs he was the only one chained alone to the bars of the cage. I was able to ask him if he needed anything to which he replied “I want to go home.”, then burst into tears. It was a very depressing scene. When he calmed a little bit, I asked him about the treatment inside the Institute of Correction. He said that the treatment was "very bad" but that he was only beaten at the beginning during the interrogations. I asked him how. He said that they beat him on the soles of his feet with a “Falaka.” [a thick stick which is usually used for punishment and torture after the victim has been tied down.] His tears were falling while he was looking at the other children’s mothers as none of his family had come. An Egyptian journalist offered him his mobile to call someone but just after he dialed the number, a guard noticed, went into the cage and took the mobile. The journalist after presenting his credentials and mitigating the transgression with a little baksheesh was able to retrieve his phone but it was little consolation for Mahmoud for whom the last opportunity to contact friends and family had gone. Tariq Maalouf is a free-lance journalist who has written articles for the Guardian and The Daily Telegraph and other newspapers. If you wish to contact him please write to Tariq Maalouf, Flat 5, 235 Earls Court Road, London SW5. CONCERN GROWS OVER MISSING MEN CAN YOU HELP ? FRANCE WARNS MUBARAK TO RESPECT HUMAN RIGHTS WHILE EGYPT'S US AMBASSADOR VOICES HIS DISGUST OVER GAY DANCING. CONCERN GROWS OVER MISSING MEN About a month ago rumours began to circle around Cairo that dozens of gay men had been arrested in the affluent suburb of Heliopolis, not far from Cairo's international airport. But such is the concern of the Government to avoid new embarassment, such is the eagerness of the police to avoid further damage to their already notorious reputation and incompetence and such is the determination of relatives to avoid prisoners' names appearing in national newspapers that GayEgypt.com has been unable to discover what has happened to them. The British Magazine Gay Times was also receiving information regarding the latest clampdowns in Heliopolis and the Pyramids as its' November issue went to press. Although GayEgypt.com has received e-mails from many worried Egyptians, we still don't know the exact number of detainees involved except that it is said to be large. There are also reports of a similar large scale arrest of gay men in the Pyramids area but even less seems to be known about this. There have also been reports of an intensification of arrests of Egyptians placing personal ads on the internet. If you have any information about any such police activities of either of these raids in Heliopolis or the Pyramids area of Cairo please report it to info@GayEgypt.com. FRANCE WARNS MUBARAK In a response this last week to an earlier question by a leading Senator, France's Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine said his Government was deeply concerned by the ongoing trial of the "Queen Boat 52" and that a diplomat would be attending the trial verdict on 14 November. On 13 September, Nicole Borvo, leader of the Communist Party in the Senate, in a written letter to Vedrine, called on the French Government to voice the concern of the French people ovver the fate of the fifty two detainees. On 25 October the French Minister gave a written reply stating that the French Government was indeed deeply concerned by the situation in Egypt and that his Ministry had expressed its' concern to Mubarak's Government. Vedrine stated that "the support of the French Government for human rights is well known and that France therefore could not remain indifferent to the ongoing trial in Egypt." Regarding the use of torture, he warned the Egyptian Government, that should this information prove correct it would be utterly indefensible. He promised that the French Government would continue to monitor the situation closely. GayEgypt.com would like to thank the Gay online magazine Kelma.org for e-mailing us information regarding the French Foreign Minister's statement. EGYPT'S US AMBASSADOR DISGUSTED BY GAY DANCING On Tuesday 30 October, The Egyptian Ambassador to the United States, Nabil Fahmy, was quized on a radio programme during a trip to Chicago. Most of the discussion was about terrorism in the Middle East and the events of 11 September. However the issue of the Queen Boat was briefly raised. Fahmy, according to our US source, claimed that the raid had been provoked by "lewd acts" on the boat. He seemed to be still in state of shock at the very idea of men dancing together in Egypt. |