Egypt
New prison sentences for alleged Egyptian gays

afrol News, 12 March - An Egyptian court sentenced yesterday five men accused of consensual homosexual conduct, the "Damanhour Five," to three years' imprisonment to be followed by three years' probation, nonregarding the international protests. 

At the trial, held in Damanhour, the capital of Egypt's Al-Beheira province, the judge deliberated for only fifteen minutes before handing down the verdicts. All five men had confessed to homosexual acts under what they later claimed was torture. The prosecutor alleged that they had been found "used" - being "passive" partners in homosexual sex - by a medical examination. 

- This trial, if it can even be called that, is simply another farce, commented yesterday Scott Long, Program Director at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC). "The defendants have been subjected to brutal torture through beatings and electroshock in the two months since their detention. We call for their immediate release," he added.

- Egypt is an important ally of the United States, and yet the United States remains silent on this issue, added Sydney Levy, IGLHRC's Communications Director. "President Bush must remember that against torture there should be no immunity, and there can be no neutrality." 

US President Bush met with President Mubarak on 4 March in Washington, the same day the Damanhour trial opened. US officials apparently never raised the recent pattern of persecution in Egypt. 

The Damanhour defendants willl face an appeals hearing on 13 April. On 18 March, another appeals hearing will be held in the case of the "Boulak 4," who received similar sentences under the same law in a trial held in Cairo suburb on 3 February. 

The Damanhour trial comes after a year in which brutal arrests, allegations of torture, and hard labor sentences and sensationalised trials of suspected homosexuals have become a regular occurrence in Egypt. 

The Damanhour defendants have been in jail since their arrest on 15 January 2002. They been charged with "habitual practice of debauchery" [al-fujur] under Article 9(c) of Law 10/1961 - a provision commonly used in Egypt to penalize consensual homosexual behavior. The same law was used to sentence 23 men to one to five years of hard labor on 14 November of last year, in the notorious Queen Boat case. 

Sources: Based on IGLHRC and afrol archives

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