Today - 21 August - GayEgypt.com received the following email from an Egyptian who recently obtained asylum in the United States. To whom it may concern, I am originally from Egypt and I have political asylum in the United States. Over the past xxx years I have decided to keep silent about the massive human rights abuses that take place in Egypt against gay people. It makes me sick that tremendous violations of the right to life, liberty, or simply to be treated like a human being are allowed to take place in Egypt and nothing is being done about it. xxx years ago I left Egypt after the government cracked down on gay people. Until that time gay people in Egypt had learned to cope with police harassment and just try to live under the radar. On May 11th 2001 the police in Cairo arrested a large number of gay people in the case that came to be known as the Cairo 52. Numerous human rights organizations wrote reports, interviewed detainees and victims of torture in the case. However, until today nothing is being done to end the suffering or the torture of innocent people in Egypt who are being persecuted for basically no crime at all. In 2001 I was forced to leave Egypt because my life as a gay man was threatened. While I am grateful to having a new lease on a life free of persecution in the US, I am sickened by the fact that I had to seek protection from my own country to be able to live freely. I am disgusted by the fact that persecution and torture are allowed to take place in Egypt while the rest of the world turns a blind eye. I am also angry by the fact that I cannot do anything about it. As an asylee I chose to save my own life and abandoning those that are suffering in Egypt. I cringe at the images of gay men who are being beaten by the police, burned with cigarettes, hung from ceilings and electrocuted. It makes me mad that innocent men are held in the deep labyrinths of Egyptian jails, tortured and raped daily while their cries fall on deaf ears. Every time I tell someone I am from Egypt, I hear the same spiel about how they always wanted to visit the Pyramids and the Sphinx. May be on their way to the Pyramids tourists should stop at some of the jails or even the forensic examiner’s office and take pictures of innocent men being anally probed to determine of they were “used.” May be they should crank a dynamo with wires connected to a man’s testicles while he screams and faints from pain. Or may be while tourists are learning some Arabic words to negotiate with the locals they should learn how to say khawal (faggot) or shaz (pervert) to yell at innocent men being charged with "debauchery and defaming religion" just because they love other men. I love Egypt simply because it is the country I grew up in. At the same time Egypt and other countries like it make me sick. Egypt is not all about pyramids and the Nile. The rich heritage left to the Egyptians by their ancestors are now stained in the blood of the countless innocent victims. I am not just talking about gay people since the habitual torture of “suspects” occurs every day in the wonderful land of the Pharaohs. Maybe this angry letter will make people aware that Egypt is not such a wonderful place after all. Maybe after reading this people, including myself and other gay Egyptians will stand up against the massive human rights violations taking place there. It is time to end the torture. Ahmad Email ahmadism@hotmail.com   x |