One is the newly formed Alliance of Queer Egyptian Organizations, which coordinated protests outside Egyptian embassies and consulates on Oct. accounts offering information and solidarity, in Arabic and English. community and a lightning rod for our moral guardians.Īrmed with social media and audacity, more people are questioning taboos around religion and sexuality. Mashrou’ Leila, with its sexually subversive songs - which include references to gender fluidity and Abu Nawas, an eighth-century Arab, and Sappho (both known for poems that celebrate same-sex love) - have become icons for a beleaguered but determined L.G.B.T. Sinno is unapologetically “brown, queer and from a Muslim family” by his own description. In June, Jordan had done the same.Īcross the Middle East and North Africa, increasingly bold expressions of sexual freedom are clearly unsettling regimes accustomed to being guardians not just of “national security” but also of our bodies and sexualities. Egyptian authorities promptly barred the group from performing again.
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A talk-show host who suggested that both terrorism and homosexuality were being used to “ruin our youth” by a nameless external enemy offered perhaps the most honest explanation for this vicious round of homophobia in Egypt: the conflation of a security threat with a “moral” threat.Īfter the Mashrou’ Leila concert - attended by an estimated 35,000 - a parade of TV personalities pleaded with the regime to “save our youth” from homosexuality. “Some people think gay people should be stoned, others recommend burning them after stoning, while some sheikhs are saying their hands and legs should be cut on opposite sides of their bodies, and ask in the softest of voices for their imprisonment or deportation.”īut there is more than just distraction at play. “All political parties here, even the ‘leftist’ ones, think homosexuality is a disgrace,” my friend told me.
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Egypt’s political parties might disagree on how to remedy any or all of those issues - but homophobia cuts across disagreement. There is much that Egyptians need distracting from: disastrous economic austerity policies, the insurgency in Sinai, 60,000 political prisoners.Īnd it does make for a convenient topic. It would be easy to label the crackdown a distraction. So why now? Why the parade of men “confessing” to being gay and “repenting” on TV talk shows, and the psychiatrists touting “conversion therapy”? Same-sex relationships are not illegal in Egypt, but gay men are arrested under “debauchery” laws. He also reminds me that rainbow flags were flown in Tahrir Square during the 18 days of protest that toppled President Hosni Mubarak in 2011.
It was not the first time fans displayed rainbow flags at a Mashrou’ Leila concert, a gay friend who has attended some of the band’s previous concerts in Cairo reminds me. This wave of arrests and raids began after gay-pride rainbow flags were flown at a concert by a Lebanese indie-rock band, Mashrou’ Leila, whose lead singer, Hamed Sinno, is openly gay. Several men have been subjected to anal examinations, which human rights groups describe as a form of torture, ostensibly to determine whether they have engaged in anal sex. At least 20 people have received prison sentences, ranging from six months to six years. Sisi’s government, aided by a team of media personalities and religious authorities, spend the past month whipping up a frenzy over another kind of “threat” altogether?Īs part of what can best be described as hysterical homophobia, more than 65 people, mostly gay men, have been arrested in the crackdown against L.G.B.T. So with such a real and present danger, why would Mr. President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi seems incapable of quelling this menace: An insurgency that has killed hundreds of troops and police officers in northern Sinai continues judges and police officers in Cairo have been attacked. The shocking attack is the latest reminder of the very real threat that armed militants pose to Egypt’s security forces. 21, militants fired rockets and detonated explosives in the desert southwest of Cairo, killing at least 59 Egyptian police officers and security officials in the worst assault on security forces since 2015.