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FREE AT LAST CONVICTION OF BOULAK FOUR OVERTURNED. Posted 28 September 2002. An Appeals Court in Cairo this week overturned the conviction last February of four men previously alleged to have had gay sex. You might think this is a sign of Egypt realizing that it has to give the impression atleast of recognizing basic human rights. And you would be right. The only problem is that the gay purge has if anything intensified, only this time the arrests and trials have been more carefully hidden from media attention. Rather than play up new arrests in the press in attempt to solicit domestic approval at the expense of international isolation, the Government has decided it is best to act with a quiet and more "discreet" ruthlessness. You can read one man's account of his recent experience at the hands of Egypt's sex police on this page [see Massive Gay Purge under Way in Egypt - posted 18 September]. But here is the most recent account from the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission of the appeal case victory for "the Boulak Four." Four Presumed Homosexuals Acquitted in Cairo More Arrests Continue to Take Place For Immediate Release: September 25, 2002 To connect to the International Gay And Lesbian Human Rights Commission Website please click on www.iglhrc.org SAN FRANCISCO - Four men, convicted last February in Cairo for consensual homosexual behavior, have been acquitted under appeal. The men, known as "the Boulak 4," had been in continuous detention since their initial arrest on November 10. Their acquittal may signal Egypt's response to mounting U.N. criticism of the treatment of homosexuals in that country. "These men were unjustly arrested, tortured, and convicted. We have been waiting more than 10 months to hear this news," stated Scott Long, Program Director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission. "It is too early to celebrate, however. Fifty of the 'Cairo 52' are still under trial while the remaining two are doing hard labor. And at the same time we continue to receive reports of new waves of arbitrary arrests," added Mr. Long. The "Boulak 4" acquittals follow a string of U.N. actions, questioning and condemning Egypt's treatment of homosexuals. The U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention adopted on June 21, 2002 an unprecedented decision in reference to the "Cairo 52." The decision establishes that "The detention of the above-mentioned persons prosecuted in the grounds that, by their sexual orientation, they incited 'social dissension' constitutes arbitrary deprivation of liberty" and calls on Egypt to redress the situation and amend its legislation. The U.N. Human Rights Committee followed suit, explicitly including a question about Egypt's persecution of homosexuals in the list of questions it intends to officially ask the Government of Egypt this coming Fall. The Committee requested that Egypt provide "information on the existence, in law and in fact, of discrimination based on sexual orientation." IGLHRC has already submitted documentary evidence of both. The "Boulak 4" had been arrested on November 10, 2001. The Egyptian press announced the arrests on November 15, the morning after verdicts were handed down in the "Cairo 52" trial. That day, Mr. Long was able to speak to one of the men through the bars of a police wagon at the Public Prosecutor's Office in Boulak. The prisoner told how all four had been beaten and ill-treated during interrogations. He described how he had been stripped naked and beaten with batons, splashed with cold water in the face, and left hanging by the bars in his jail cell. On February 3, 2002, a court in Boulak-al-Dakrour (in Giza, a suburb of Cairo) convicted the four men for consensual homosexual behavior. A judge sentenced each to three years in prison with three years' probation to follow. The rulings were appealed to the Boulak Appeals Court of Misdemeanors, which reversed the lower court decision for lack of evidence. The Appeals Court found that the prosecution did not visit the flat where the sexual relations between the men were supposed to have taken place, and that forensic test, conducted on only two of the defendants, tested negative. IGLHRC considers that the use of forensic examinations in order to ascertain whether an individual has engaged in anal intercourse is in itself a form of cruel and inhuman treatment. MASSIVE GAY PURGE UNDER WAY IN EGYPT. FUGITIVE FROM THE EGYPTIAN SEX POLICE WRITES ABOUT HIS HORRIFIC EXPERIENCE WE ESTIMATE ATLEAST ONE GAY MAN IS BEING ARRESTED EVERY DAY - AND MORE LIKELY MANY MORE Posted 18 September 2002 In the last weeks GayEgypt.com has received a significant increase in the number of emails from people whose gay friends have been arrested by the police. We know that even this worrying number can only be the tip of the iceberg. Most gay Egyptians seem to know several people who have been arrested and it seems that only a minority of active gay men have escaped arrest or temporary police custody entirely. However the number being locked up for long terms of hard labour is also rising. Yesterday we received the following disturbing account of the threats used by Egyptian police to extract confessions from one man who got "trapped on the net" but is now in Europe having left Egypt while still on bail. Here is his account. A few details such as times and names of places have been changed or hidden. Otherwise his account is completely unedited. I met that xxxx ["foreign"] guy on gay.com that he claimed to be living in Cairo and seeking friendship or to know some Egyptians because he is a new comer. We had a couple of chat and exchanged pictures. He asked me to meet and I agreed. It was in the afternoon and I had to go down town, so we agreed to meet for a coffee and gave him an appointment at 3:30 PM in front of the xxxxx hotel. I was waiting there and he called to ask me what I'm wearing because he can't see me.. the minute I told him what I'm wearing, I was surrounded by 6 people and took me to an office in "Mogamaa El Tahrir" and started to interrogate me. For the first 4 hours they kept puting pressure on me accusing me that I'm chatting on the net to an Israeli guy giving information about the country and beating me to tell what information did I tell him. I keep saying that I never did it and I have no information to give at first place!! Later after being beaten and seen all sort of! torturing and humelation someone came playing the good man and told me your best way to get yourself out of this is by telling them that you are chatting for sex and it's a personal matter they will let you go and if I don’t do that, they will charge me with conesperacy and I might spend my life in jail. They brought me in again and started beating me and threaten me to be electrified and be like the others hanged on the doors that I've seen earlier. I thought about it and said as I was told by the other man. Though I knew what to expect, but anything would be better than spending my life in jail for conesperacy!!... and that's what they have been waiting for!!! They kept asking all kind of related questions as when did I started, how do I do it, active or passive, where and how I meet people... etc... they kept me for few more hours and later they called me to sign on the report and told me that I will leave. It was one page and they refused even to let me read it and beaten me again to sign on it. They put the cuffs in my hands and sent me to xxxx police station and later in the evening to xxxx court.. there, I have seen the one page report I have signed to become 14 pages.. full of lyes and fabricated stories and attach! ed with it all the chat I had with this xxxxx guy and also the pictures I sent him. The following day they took me for anal test to see if I get fucked or not. That report took 15 days to arrive. I spent 21days in "7agz" sleeping on the floor with almost 90 people in the same room that is not even 5 x 6 meters, filthy, dirty.. no words to describe it with all kind of criminals.. and they made it a point to tell everyone inside why I'm there so they will bother me all the time and calling me by names.. and even beat me because I'm queer. Thanks God the report came to my favor that I was not fucked and I was sent to court. Our main concern with my family was to get me out of this hell as soon as possible and they appointed two of the best lawyers, The judge gave me one year in preson with hard labor plus paying xxxxxx Egyptian pounds to be released until the final hearing on xxxxxxxxx. Of course it was obvious he asked this big sum ! of money that we say we can not pay it and will keep me in jail until the hearing for another two and half month.... but no money is worth a day there and we payed the bail and they released me 5 days ago. I heard they trapped 17 persons during the past weeks with the same way.. I believe as well as my lawyer that they will give all of us between 6 months to one year in jail!!! I had to leave the country as soon as possible before my name is put on the computer and be obliged to attend the hearing and eventually go to jail. I took first flight availabale and now I'm in Europe and have no idea what my future will be! While I was in "7agz - Police custady" I also met others that they were trapped from the net, two of which they were trapped from gaydar.. the profile of the policemen on gaydar are xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx - GayEgypt.com apologizes profusely for being unable for legal reasons to name the email addresses. We are looking into it as a very urgent matter. WE SAY The Egyptian police have been targeting first one and then another gay website in an effort to intimidate Egyptian gays from using the net and international websites from allowing Egyptians to advertise. On January 25th an advertiser on GayEgypt.com was arrested and on 7 February he received a three year prison sentence, against all agreed principles of international justice, and after being beaten mercilessly by thugs who seem to take sadistic delight from their jobs. We then reluctantly closed the Egypt personals ads page to all Egyptian advetisers. We wanted to end such horrific incidents altogether - even at the price of giving in to torture, arrest and intimidation. However, Egyptians gays were not intimidated. They continued and continue to use other websites and they continue to be arrested in ever greater numbers. Our message to Mubarak and his sadistic henchmen is this - Out of the hundreds of gay men you hold in custody - release the man you arrested for advertising on our site on 25th January last. He is, anyway, being held in custody illegally. We don't know him. We don't know his family. But we will never forget him or indeed anyone else arrested. And we will seek justice for the acts of inexcusable violence perpetrated against defenseless gay men in custody either by police or prison officers directly or by other inmates at the instigation of prison or police officers. But if the Egyptian Government ignores this plea and the other pleas for many other prisoners held in prison and continues with its present policy, GayEgypt.com will reopen it's personal ads page for Egyptians. We know, and Egyptian gay men know, what the risks are. Unlike some other sites we will ensure anyone using the page is in no doubt as to the risks they are taking. But it is sickening to pander to the wishes of a repressive regime which has shown no interest whatsoever of even slowing down its illegal detention and acts of torture against gay men. Infact, just the reverse. The more sites like ours give in to pressure from the Egyptian police, the more they take advantage. With every few arrests they feel confident they can intimidate many others into silence. And the fewer sites and the few advetisers, the greater the sense of intimidation. It's a vicious circle we cannot allow the Egyptian police to win. There must be no more giving in. GayEgypt.com now intends to reopen its personal pages to Egyptian advertisers from 1st October. We may infact close some of our other pages so as to be able to concentrate more on our campaign. We, have recently been guilty of trying to attract more internet traffic at the expense of our concentration on the battle for gay rights within Egypt. We shall in future try to focus our energies more on this crucial struggle. Your help, as always, in sending us information and true accounts and stories, will be greatly appreciated. Egyptian Police Ordered To Explain Gay Arrests This news piece is from the excellent 365gay.com news site. To connect to this website please click here. by Jon ben Asher 365Gay.com Newscenter ( Cairo ) A Cairo judge will allow lawyers for 50 men arrested in a gay club last year to cross examine police. Judge Hassan Al-Sayef issued a summons to the police who were responsible for the arrests to appear in court October 12. The 50 men are in their second trial on charges of the "habitual practice of debauchery." During the first trial lawyers were not permitted to question police. The case dates back to May 10, 2001 when police raided a gay club on a Nile riverboat. 52 men were arrested. While awaiting trial human rights groups said the men were tortured with cattle prods and given forced medical exams to determine if they had engaged in sex. At their trial, all 52 pleaded innocent. Two men described as the ringleaders of the "homosexual sex club" were handed the stiffest sentences. One defendant was convicted of "contempt for religion" . The other was convicted of "debauchery" and "contempt of religion and given five years of hard labor. Twenty-one of the remaining defendants were convicted of the debauchery. The other twenty-nine were found not guilty. After protests from human rights groups, the European Union, Canada, and a group of US congressmen, the Egyptian government ordered a new trial for all but the two "ringleaders". The government also vacated the "not guilty" verdicts for the 29 men declared innocent in the first trial and ordered them to be retried The second trial got underway this summer. Judge Al-Sayef, in addition to ordering the police officers to appear in court for questioning, approved a motion requesting the daily records of 3 downtown Cairo police stations for the 5 days preceding the raid on the Queen Boat. Defense attorneys have argued that proper arrest procedures had not been not followed, that the arrests had been made at random, and that charges had been fabricated by ambitious vice squad officers. "The hearing today was encouraging," stated Scott Long, Program Director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC). But, he said that anti-gay harassment continues in Egypt. "At the same time, we are receiving new reports of internet entrapment and continuous arrests of suspected homosexuals in Egypt." ©365Gay.com Ltd® 2002 TO SEE MAIN NEWS PAGE CLICK HERE. |
