Egypt
More Egyptians to prison for "gay behaviour"

afrol News, 4 January - Barely two weeks after 23 men were condemned in Cairo to serve prison terms at hard labour for "homosexual behaviour", two Egyptian university students were sentenced under the same law. They had been responding to an undercover police agent's request for gay contacts in an Internet chatroom. 

The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) yesterday protested against this new sentence. IGLHRC says the case "clearly demonstrates a continuing campaign of entrapment by the Cairo Vice Squad. It also shows the scope given to intolerance and abuse by Egypt's Law 10 of 1961 on the Combat of Prostitution, which is regularly used to jail and discredit men suspected of homosexual behaviour." 

One of the two students, who did not appear at his trial and was sentenced in absentia, was condemned to one year in prison and one year of probation; the other received three months in prison and three months' probation. 

IGLHRC yesterday called for an immediate pardon for both. The group also repeated its call on Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak to pardon the 23 men convicted in Cairo in November, to investigate patterns of intrusive and abusive behaviour by the Vice Squad, and to put an end to legally fostered persecution and discrimination. 

On 19 December, the Egyptian daily Al Ahram reported that two university students had been convicted for alleged homosexuality. The report appeared on the same day that Mahmoud, a 16 year-old convicted in the "Cairo-52" case, was freed by an appeals court in Cairo. According to the article, a security agent posing as gay arranged a meeting where the two were arrested. 

A number of confusing press accounts followed, with CNN and the Associated Press reporting that the men had been accused of "setting up a website" where they sought gay contacts. According to the Associated Press, judicial officials, "speaking on condition on anonymity," stated the men had been convicted on 18 December, and had offered gay sex for 100 Egyptian pounds per hour. 

The case was initiated by Major Essam Abul Ezz of Cairo's Vice Squad. On 15 September 2001, Major Abul Ezz, posing as a gay man, used a Yahoo chatroom where he "spoke" to the two defendants separately. He arranged to meet them separately on the same day, near the Ramses Hilton Hotel. There, he arrested both. The defendants were respectively 19 and 22 years old, and were students at two of Cairo's universities. 

The Major testified to the Public Prosecutor that one of his "confidential secret sources" had assured him that many homosexuals offer sex on the Internet in exchange for money. Yet this allegation did not motivate the arrests - the Major accused only one of the defendants of asking for money in return for sex - nor did it figure in the final charge. 

Both men were charged under Article 9(c) of Law 10/1961, with "habitual practice of debauchery." This was the same charge used against the 52 men arrested in the Queen Boat discotheque on 10/11 May 2001. It is used in Egyptian law as a catch-all to cover consensual homosexual behaviour between men, and (unlike other provisions of Law 10/1961) does not entail the exchange of sex for money, according to IGLHRC. 

The lawyer of Sherif A., one of the two men, stated subsequently at the trial that his client had been subjected to beatings at the Vice Squad. Nonetheless, both defendants pleaded not guilty when taken before the Public Prosecutor at Boulaq Abul Ella. 

They were referred to the Administration of Forensic Medicine for anal and genital medical examination, a practice IGLHRC has condemned as invasive and abusive. Further, according to the file, they were both found "used." The prosecutor released them after charges were pressed. 

Only Sherif A. appeared at the trial on 5 December (not 18 December, as press reports indicated). Neither Islam A. nor his lawyer attended; possibly as a consequence, he received the longer sentence, one year in prison and one year's probation. He is believed to be in hiding. 

Sherif A. was sentenced to three months in prison and three months' probation. He appealed the sentence; his appeal was heard, and rejected, on 22 December. 

Source: Based on IGLHRC and afrol archives

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