The accused persons have practised sodomy. Oriental society criminalizes homosexuality and delinquency, which are condemned by Islam and all divine religions. This practice, if spread, will destroy the whole society.' The state security prosecutor's report contained these words regarding the case of the 52 Egyptians accused of sodomy, who were arrested on 11 May 2001 on the tourist Queen Boat. On 14 November, 23 of them were found guilty. The main two accusations were obscenity (in Egyptian criminal law, obscenity means sodomy) and contempt of religion

Said, A.S.

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FeaturesI S I M  N E W S L E T T E R  9 / 0 2 9N o t e s1 . Hossam Bahgat, 'Explaining Egypt's Targeting ofGays', MERIP Press Information, Note 64 (23 July2 0 0 1 ) .2 . David Gillies, Between Principle and Practice:Human Rights in North-South Relations ( M c G i l l -Queen University Press, 1996).3 . Human Rights Watch 57, no. 6 (Nov./Dec. 1997): 38;James D. Wiles, 'The Human Rights of Sexual Mi-norities', Human Rights: Journal of the section of In-dividual Rights & Responsibilities 22, no. 4 (autumn1995): 22; Fact Sheet entitled 'Where Having Sex isa Crime', International Gay and Lesbians HumanRights Committee (April 1999).4 . Jonathan Wallace and Mark Mangan, Sex, Laws,and Cyberspace (New York: Henry Holt and Compa-ny, 1996), 33.5 . Mona Abaza, 'Tanwir and Islamization: Rethinkingthe Struggle over Intellectual Inclusion in Egypt',Cairo Papers in Social Science (AUC, 1999).6 . In a personal interview with the writer (19 Novem-ber 2001).7 . Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality (New York:Vintage Books, 1980).Atef Shahat Said is a researcher in Human Rights andSocial Sciences, Egypt.E-mail: ashasaid@aucegypt.eduRi ghts  Ac t iv i smA T E F S H A H A T S AI D'The accused persons have practised sodomy. Orien-tal society criminalizes homosexuality and delin-quency, which are condemned by Islam and all divinereligions. This practice, if spread, will destroy thewhole society.' The state security prosecutor's reportcontained these words regarding the case of the 52Egyptians accused of sodomy, who were arrested on11 May 2001 on the tourist Queen Boat. On 14 No-vember, 23 of them were found guilty. The main twoaccusations were obscenity (in Egyptian criminal law,obscenity means sodomy) and contempt of religion.H o m o s e x u a l i t ya n d Human Rightsin EgyptAn analysis of this case file within the con-text of the human rights movement inEgypt and within the broader political andlegal environment indicates three mainparadoxes. The case raises the question ofthe universality and specificity of the humanrights agenda; it highlights the controver-sial area of the rule of law and Egypt's legalstructure; and it also emphasizes the effectsof the political atmosphere on issues ofhuman rights in Egypt.Human rights and sexualm i n o r i t i e sSome contradictions within the humanrights movement and its agenda in Egypthave arisen from this case and its ramifica-tions. For instance, only one out of 17human rights organizations – among the sixthat work in legal aid – has offered legal ser-vices to the accused. Since most of these or-ganizations have not explicitly declaredtheir opinion on the case, it can be inferredthat they are not willing to take a clearstance on this issue. This reticence stemsfrom the fact that homosexuality is frownedupon in Egyptian society. Supporting thoseaccused of homosexuality would put thesealready peripheral organizations in an evenmore delicate position vis-à-vis the rest ofsociety. The fine line between the universaland the relative in human rights standardshas come to the fore in this case. The issuesthat raise the most controversy in this bor-derline area, even among human rights ac-tivists in Egypt, are the limits of freedom ofexpression when it comes to religion,women's rights, and the rights of minorities,specifically Copts. This case, however, in-volves a new minority.Because human rights groups are accusedby the state of pursuing a Western agenda,they are sometimes more anxious to take upcontroversial rights cases.1 It is true that thisagenda may be inspired, practically speak-ing at least, and because of insufficient localresources, by a generalized 'Western' agen-d a .2 For example, political and civil rightsoften take precedence over social, econom-ic and cultural rights due to these agendaconsiderations. However, it is not complete-ly true that a 'Western' agenda is used insupporting the rights of sexual minorities.The UN human rights committee issued thefirst international case that highlighted theprotection of sexual minorities in 1994.Human Rights Watch maintains that only bythe beginning of the 1980s was protectionfor homosexuals embodied in a humanrights agenda, to the extent that only in1981 was the so-called AIMGLC (AmnestyInternational Members for Gay and LesbianConcerns) established in the USA.3In addition to the controversial humanrights scene in Egypt, both the legal struc-ture and the partial rule of law have affectedthe outcome of the case. The legal structurein Egypt is a complex mixture of modernlaws that guarantee human rights, and oth-ers which do not. In some cases, the penalcode (which is not linked to the foundationsof Islamic law) itself is discriminatory. For ex-ample, in cases of adultery, the penal code'sstructure of punishment is very severe anddiscriminates between the penalties re-ceived based on gender. This suppressivenature of the criminal code, in some cases,has forced the Egyptian Supreme Constitu-tional Court to affirm the unconstitutionali-ty of a particular law (ruling no. 49, for theconstitutional year 17, issued on 15 June1996) and to call for criminal codes to bewritten more clearly. It has stated that thelegislature should not issue laws that can beused to entrap citizens, who should be as-sured of their security and privacy. The am-biguous definition of obscenity made it easyfor the government to accuse the men inthis case. Since the definitions of pornogra-phy and obscenity have evolved over they e a r s4 the legislative authority should con-sider changing the laws that deal with theseissues. The Egyptian gays were sentencedaccording to Egyptian Criminal Law, article98 (on establishing an illegal association)and in this context more importantly to lawno. 10 for the year 1960 which deals withprostitution. In the explanatory regulationsof the latter, while prostitution is defined asbeing committed by females, obscenity isdescribed as committing sodomy with morethan one person with the intent of prostitu-tion when it concerns males. Even so, it canbe argued that most human rights abuses inEgypt do not exist as a result of the suppres-sive or ambiguous laws, but because of thepartial respect of the rule of law. This disre-spect transforms laws into a means withinthe jurisdiction of the executive authoritiesat any particular moment.The political shadowThe political environment has also affect-ed the final outcome of this case. Four issuesmake it clear that we can not understandthe case without linking it to the broaderpolitical theatre in Egypt, and in particularthe struggle between the government andthe Islamists. In this regard, the politicalgame between the government and the Is-lamists is setting the agenda for intellectualdiscussion in Egypt.5 In this case, the gov-ernment wants to appear as religiouslycredible to counter the Islamists. There areseveral examples that prove this argument,among which is the contradictory manner inwhich the government behaves towardscivil freedoms and human rights – in favouror against according to its interests at spe-cific times. One example is its role in defend-ing its publishing of the novel entitled W a l y-eema Li A'ashaab Al-Bahr (A Banquet for Sea-weed) in spring 2000, while banning threenovels published by the ministry of culturein early 2001.The government also fears that the elec-tion of 17 members of the Muslim Brother-hood in November 2000 to the Peoples As-sembly (PA) might generate a more Islamistdiscourse within the PA. Moreover, there isno reasonable or legal justification for theuse of the state security court, which ispurely an exceptional court, in this case. Theruling tried to justify the use of a state secu-rity court by claiming that contempt of reli-gion is a matter of state security. Finally, ac-cording to Ahmed Saif,6 director of theHisham Moubarak Law Center, the onlyhuman rights organization that offered itslegal aid services to the accused, '[t]here areseveral grave errors that cannot be justifiedlegally in the court's ruling. The ruling, forinstance, has no concrete evidence exceptfor medical reports for each of the accusedand their confessions. Both are inadequateas evidence: the former is ambiguous andsome of the confessions referred to commit-ting sodomy more than 5 years prior to thearrests. The statute of limitations for misde-meanour suits in Egyptian law is only 5years. An additional grave mistake is thatthere is no real evidence of sodomy havingbeen committed with several persons.' Ifthere is no evidence of sodomy committedwith more than one person, then the judgehas criminalized homosexuality per se, aswas indeed the case for some of the ac-cused. An additional problem within thestate security court is that the accused haveno right to appeal. These legal errors anddetails probably indicate the political shad-ow over the case. The above-mentioned'game' forces the government's hand to actsometimes, as it is the paramount protectorof Islamic and religious values in general.If the previous information shows that thelegal, political and human rights environ-ment affected the case, societal pressuresalso played their part. Those accused werenot only deprived of their right to privacy,they were portrayed in a very negative lightby all the Egyptian media. Just a week afterthe rulings, the government arrested morehomosexuals. Other cases concerning (dif-ferent) moral issues include that of ShohdyNaguib Sorour, web-designer at the A h r a mW e e k l y newspaper. Sorour was arrested bythe government on 22 November for havingpublished on the web his father's poetry(Naguib Sorour is a former controversialplaywright and poet), considered indecentand even pornographic. In fact, the govern-ment has established a new Internet crimeunit at the Ministry of Interior, which mightbe the cause of these recent arrests.I agree with El Amrani (Cairo Times, 22–28November 2001) when he argues that thiswas not a criminal and legal case but a caseon morality. Sociologists and human rightsactivists need to study the government'schange of heart regarding issues of morali-ty. Taking into consideration Foucault's ar-gument (i.e. the linkage between power, re-pression and the evolvement of the dis-course on sexuality in modern bourgeoisies o c i e t y ) ,7 different channels of repression,including economic ones, should be studiedwith respect to the Egyptian case.It is clear that human rights activism inEgypt has not developed to the point ofbeing able to defend issues involving sever-al controversial freedoms. This can onlyoccur if the social and political atmospherein the country begins to change. F i f t y - t w os u s p e c t e dE g y p t i a nh o m o s e x u a l sarrive at a Cairoc o u r t .

Homosexuality and Human Rights in Egypt

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Homosexuality and Human Rights in Egypt

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