Egypt's leader dumps 'debauchery' verdicts against gays Wary activists praise Queen Boat decision Issandr El Amrani, Chronicle Foreign Service Friday, May 31, 2002 To connect to the Chronicle online website please click on sfgate.com Cairo -- In a surprise decision, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has tossed out verdicts against all but two of 52 defendants in a controversial case that international gay activists had assailed as part of a systematic campaign of discrimination against homosexuals. The decision on the so-called Queen Boat case, named for the floating discotheque on the Nile where 52 men were arrested last May, suggests that Mubarak may be responding to international pressure at a time when his country is coming under increasing scrutiny for human rights violations. In addition to gay activists -- who have staged demonstrations in Europe and the United States to protest the verdict -- several politicians, including French President Jacques Chirac, have also urged Egypt to annul the court's decision. In March, 40 U.S. lawmakers sent a letter of protest about the case to Nabil Fahmi, Egypt's ambassador in Washington. Invoking Egypt's long-standing emergency laws, Mubarak canceled 21 guilty and 29 not-guilty verdicts handed down for "habitual practice of debauchery," a euphemism used by Egyptian prosecutors to denote homosexual acts, because Egyptian law does not forbid homosexuality. Mubarak's decision could have a broader effect on human rights cases, because it struck at the authority of the all-powerful state security courts, which handed down the verdicts in November. "It's a surprise," said Ahmad Seif, director of the Hisham Mubarak Center, whose organization provided legal aid for the Queen Boat defendants last year and raised allegations that torture had been used to obtain confessions from some of the defendants. "They are accepting what we said." The center had sent an appeal to Mubarak after the verdict, arguing that the case had been illegally sent to a state security court -- a parallel judicial system, with no possibility of appeal, that operates under emergency laws imposed in 1981 after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. Since Sept. 11, the emergency laws have been invoked with increasing frequency to detain members of the Muslim Brotherhood, a fundamentalist group, and other people suspected of fomenting dissent or plotting terrorist acts. The Queen Boat case now has been sent back to Egypt's public prosecutor, who will decide whether to drop the case altogether or schedule a retrial in an ordinary criminal court. For the 50 defendants, the decision could be a mixed blessing. For 21 of them, who were given sentences of up to two years in prison and were set to return home this week after paying bail of approximately $20, the president's ruling means they could be cleared entirely -- or have to undergo a new trial, albeit in an ordinary court where they will have the possibility of appeal. But for the 29 who were acquitted, it could mean a return to court, and possibly even jail. There was no good news for the two remaining defendants, Sherif Farahat and Mahmoud Allam, who were identified as the leading figures. In addition to the debauchery charge, they were convicted of "contempt of religion" and received longer sentences of five and three years respectively. Their sentences were confirmed by Mubarak. In conservative Egypt, where homosexuality is still generally under wraps, most human rights groups have been reluctant to champion the Queen Boat case. Not so for international activists, who have viewed the case as the most flagrant example of what they say is a state-sponsored campaign against Egyptian homosexuals. Organizations such as the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, which monitored the trial in Cairo, have guardedly welcomed the decision to send the case back to the public prosecutor. "We are cautiously optimistic at news that guilty verdicts in the case have actually been canceled," said Scott Long, program director of the rights commission. "But renewed prosecution would be renewed persecution. These trials must stop. At the same time, the prison sentences of two men in this case have been confirmed -- and many other suspected gay men across Egypt remain in prison. We must continue to press the Egyptian government to meet its international obligations, not just in a few symbolic cases, but across the board." Egypt insists that it is not waging a campaign against homosexuals, although the government stepped up monitoring last year of Internet sites, a favorite meeting ground for gays. In response to the letter of protest by the 40 U.S. legislators, Ambassador Fahmi wrote that the Queen Boat defendants "were convicted essentially under a law which penalizes promiscuity/prostitution" and that "there is no distinction or discrimination based on a person's sexual orientation." The legislators labeled Fahmi's response "unpersuasive." Legislators brought up the issue in a recent meeting with leading Egyptian businessmen lobbying Washington on bilateral trade issues. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who is gay, questioned the Egyptian delegation on the Queen Boat case. According to a congressional source, the Egyptians said the trial was not about homosexuality but prostitution and acts of public lewdness and that heterosexuals would have suffered the same fate. "What's the Arabic for 'bull--'?" Frank answered deadpan, the source said. Frank, who has brought up the Queen Boat case in Congress several times, also is said to have threatened to attach an amendment to trade legislation to block any free-trade agreement with Egypt. Egypt has campaigned hard for such an agreement, hoping it would help pull the country out of an economic slump that began several years ago and has grown more severe since Sept. 11. Egyptian Islamists -- who often style themselves as the guardians of public mores in a secular state -- have harshly criticized the decision to cancel the Queen Boat verdict. Columnist Muhammad Abbas, writing in the online version of the banned socialist-turned-Islamist newspaper Al Shaab, attacked the government last week for releasing "perverts" while keeping hundreds of members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood in prison. And some observers fear that the edict is just an attempt by Mubarak to move trials of gays out of the state security courts and into criminal courts, where they would attract less international attention. GayEgypt.com, a Web site offering news, culture and contacts for Egyptian gays, said in an editorial this week that it suspects that "Mubarak may be trying to appease both the West, by releasing the Queen Boat prisoners, and the Muslim Brotherhood, by introducing a new law to criminalize homosexual relations." Although no such a law has been proposed in the National Assembly, conservatives are pressing for a law based on Shariah, or Islamic code. On Monday, the independent weekly Al Osboa carried a headline blaring, "We want Shariah law against homosexuality so we can avoid Western pressure." GayEgypt.com said it fears that arrests will continue "in a more clandestine manner: the cases to be conducted swiftly in civil courts without the glare of the international media, and on a scale sufficient to intimidate and silence the gay community," which has often been critical of Mubarak's government. The editorial warned that such tactics, along with a strict Shariah law forbidding homosexual relationships, "would bring a new climate of fear to the everyday private lives of millions of Egyptians." Latest news 22 May 2012: Cairo psychiatrist claims he can "cure" 70 to 75 per cent of gay teenagers.