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EGYPT - (2012): The closing down of an online magazine catering for the gay community in Egypt, believed to be first of its kind, has stirred concerns from rights activists about the status of homosexuals in the country. Ehna, which translates from Arabic to “us,” halted its online circulation earlier this year in hushed circumstances, with an abrupt statement, after launching its first issue. On the magazine’s Facebook page, once abundant with empowering slogans, links and screenshots from the magazine’s web pages, a lone message posted on May 27, reads: “We have been forced to shut down the online magazine due to security reasons. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience.” ... The magazine’s online, mainly social media, presence remains masked in ambiguity since May 27: Ehna’s creators are anonymous and appear to be isolated from homosexual rights organizations in the country. - (2012, ). - (2012): Censors of the Cairo International Film Festival have banned a gay themed film from being screened in this year's festival... ‘In regards to homosexuality, I can see no hope under the current government or any kind of improvement. Quite the opposite, I fear that they may legislate against, and continue to persecute LGBT people (like during the Mubarak years).’

(2012):  Long before Tahrir Square captured the imagination of the world as the stage for Egypt’s revolution, it was an infamous, clandestine meeting place for gay Cairenes. Gay men could be seen in Tahrir cruising with knowing glances as they leaned against the guardrails, Cairo’s traffic swirling around them. They were hidden in plain sight. In many ways, the huge demonstrations of early 2011 that took place in Tahrir Square and led to the toppling of President Hosni Mubarak inspired Egypt’s gay community to join the call for a new, more democratic nation. But now more than a year into the revolution, Egypt’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community has stepped back out of the public eye and retreated into the shadows once again... - (2012): GSN asks LGBT Egyptians who they will choose in the second-round presidential vote and finds neither candidate appeals. - (2012): As Islamists gain power, the gay community's hopes for a more open post-revolutionary society are being crushed.

(2012): In January, almost a year to the day after the Egyptian revolution began, Busk received a message from Nasreen* in Cairo. She wanted to know if there was a way to pay for films with total anonymity, anxious that any card transaction could be traced back to her... In Egypt, homosexuality is not in itself illegal. However, many LGBT individuals and groups are targeted under laws based on euphemistic terminology, such as those that outlaw “debauchery” and “public immorality”. Following the uprisings of the past 14 months, which led to the resignation of dictatorial leader Hosni Mubarak, there are signs that Egyptians are embracing a more democratic regime. The ruling military council has promised to turn over power to civilians by the end of June 2012. Yet, so far it seems unlikely that this will have any significant affect on LGBT rights in the country. The issue was omitted from a provisional Constitution endorsed by voters last year, while UN pressure to condemn homophobic discrimination has been staunchly resisted. We asked Nasreen if she would be willing to offer us some personal insight to her life in Cairo. This is her reply: As a lesbian living in Egypt, I have to keep everything under wraps. Nobody should know anything about my sexual orientation or else I will get into trouble. People don’t look so good at people who are homosexuals, due to religious reasons...

(2012): Egypt’s chief diplomatic representative to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva declared last week at a meeting about the universal right to association that gays do not warrant protections and are considered not to be “real people” in the Middle East... - (2012): Police reportedly raided beach huts in el-Arish in order to find and arrest the man, but further details and the charges he could face were not given. Being gay is not illegal in Egypt, but there have been reports of other laws being used to imprison gay men... - : One year on from the start of the Egyptian revolution, Manoj Dias-Abey talks to a gay activist about his involvement in the protests and the prospects for sexual freedom in Egypt. I met Hassan on Grindr when I was travelling around North Africa late last year. Egypt has a chequered and complicated past when it comes to the persecution of the LGBTI community. Homosexuality is not an offence per se but practicing gay men are subjected to state-sanctioned harassment and have been periodically prosecuted for a range of related offences, including debauchery and contempt of religion. This makes online forums and social media tools such as Grindr essential devices for gay men to meet each other and form the semblances of a community...

(2012): “Many of my gay friends and I were a part of the demonstrations,” he told me, “but we absolutely never identified ourselves as gay people. Things feel different for me as an Egyptian, but not necessarily as a gay man. This revolution is still in its political phase, not a social phase. I don’t believe that people who identify themselves as gay will have an opportunity to be a part of our new government. It’s upsetting.” Yet, amidst this disappointment, Adam evinced an inner strength; a belief that while certain aspects of cultural shift had not yet arrived, they eventually would, and that he would be a part of it. “With what’s gone on, I’ve decided that I’ll not be that closeted again, that I’ll be almost out. I’ll be proud and fighting for who I am. It could take 10 or 20 years for the Egyptian community to really accept gays, but I don’t care any more about what people say. It’s not a general change yet, but it’s a personal change for me.” “Gays in Egypt have not learned to organize yet, but maybe they can learn from this moment. During the protests I received e-mails and Facebook posts from so many people I’ve met. From Spain, Sweden, Lebanon, Tunisia, and many other countries. And I felt solidarity and support. I felt that I was not alone.” When I told Adam that I thought Passport’s readers would want to offer further support to him and his gay compatriots, he told me that he felt unsafe publishing any contact information that could be tracked to him. “The revolution is not over yet,” he wrote. “We still have a lot to do.”

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(2008, Radio Netherlands): "I'm gay and I'm Muslim," says 28-year-old Mazen, an Egyptian who had to flee his country because of his homosexuality. "I'm a creation of God and He chose to make me homosexual." Homosexuality is not specifically prohibited in Egypt, but gays are regularly arrested and charged with ‘debauchery' or ‘offences against public morality and sensitivities'. - " (2009): A few days ago, the controversial book of Egyptian journalist Mostafa Fathi on the lives and struggles of homosexual men in Cairo hit book stands in the Egyptian capital. Expectedly, Fathi’s novel has created a stir in Egyptian media and among conservative Egyptian society. MENASSAT called up the author in Cairo to speak about his groundbreaking novel.  - (2010).- (2011). - (2011): Michelangelo Signorile talks with activist and scholar Rasha Moumneh about the protests in Egypt and what they mean for LGBT rights throughout the country.

(2001). - (2001). - (2002): A Gay activist in Egypt describes the nightmare of the government's crackdown on homosexuality. - . -. - (2001). - (2001). - (2001). - (2001). - (2001). - . - (2001).

(2007): Adam Aboul Naga, a twenty-something media professional also raised in the delta, felt the same way the first time he found a gay Egyptian website during his university days... - (2005). - (2005). - (2005): Like other Muslim cultures with strictures against promiscuity and drug use, Egyptians have been slow to admit to a problem. - (2004). - (2006): A novel about a gay newspaper editor was a hit in Egypt - but its movie release has caused a stir. - (2006): Egyptian MPs are demanding cuts in a popular new film, claiming it defames their country with its gritty portrayal of corrupt politicians, police brutality, terrorism and homosexuality...

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(2002): "Homosexuality itself is not technically illegal in Egypt but it is a serious taboo - culturally, socially and now politically. Gay men are vilified by the press and the public... Until last year, the government denied that homosexuality even existed. No one knows why it changed policy and decided to begin its crackdown... The chief government spokesman, Nabil Osman, is not willing to explain or apologise. "What we did was not a breach of human rights," he says. "But actually an interpretation of the norms of our society, the family values of our society. And no one should judge us by their own values. And some of these values in the West are actually in decay." - . - (2002). - (1995). - (2002).

(2004): Rights group says hundreds have been affected (2004): "Egyptian authorities have entrapped, arrested and tortured hundreds of men thought to be gay, a New York-based human rights group said in a report Monday. - (2004). - . - 2004 Report (Full Text): .

(1999): "Many girls at Alexandria University have fallen for the charms of 22-year-old Michael, an Egyptian art student with delicate features and green almond-shaped eyes. But he has lost count of the number of times he has refused to go out on dates - and not because he likes playing hard to get. He is just more interested in spending time with his French boyfriend. "I tell the girls straight away that it's not personal and that I am gay," he explains with a shy smile. "They are shocked in the beginning, but then we become friends." Michael started having homosexual intercourse when he was 12 but his first steady relationship happened when he was 16. After it was over, he got depressed and had to be medicated for a year - which was when he told his family about his sexual orientation. "Homosexuality is becoming more apparent in the Egyptian society," says Dr.Josette Abdalla, assistant professor of Psychology at the AmericanUniversity in Cairo (AUC). "This is in part the result of more exposure tomass media, western influences and more access to papers, satellite dishesand TV."..."

(1998): Some Egyptian "lesbians" say they're just practising for the real thing... In North America we like our sex the way we like our clothes ­ with labels. Perhaps reducing sexuality to categories makes us feel safe. Maybe we hope that by naming something we can understand it. But can we? What if the picture blurs? Those are the kind of questions which interest education professor Didi Khayatt. She is conducting a six-year study of how "lesbian" desire is expressed in Egypt. "In the West, we've come to believe in the existence of discrete sexual categories, and use them to describe our identities as if they were immutable, and understood and accepted by everyone," says Khayatt. Curiously, Arabic has no words for homosexuality or heterosexuality, although there are words in the language for acts considered to be perversions (such as sodomy or bestiality). "Arabic recognizes same-gender sex for men, but there is no equivalent recognition for women...

(2009): This Bachelor thesis deals with the sexual identity of Egyptian women who love and have relationships with other women. I theoretically study the state of existing literature on homosexuality in the Middle East, and I do this from a gender perspective. By looking closer at four recent books on this topic I derive two main, and contradictory, theories. The first is put forth by Joseph A Massad in his book Desiring Arabs, where he rejects the existence of homosexuality in the Middle East, declaring that same sex acts in this region don’t constitute identities, as in the West. The second theory, best represented in Samar Habib’s work Female homosexuality in the Middle East, sees past and present histories of same sex love as representations of homosexuality. The empirical basis for my analysis is five in-depth interviews with Egyptian women having sexual relationships with women. Examining my material I find a negation of Massad’s theory and a confirmation of Habib’s, the women indeed describe sexual identities.

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Pratt N (2007). The Queen Boat case in Egypt: sexuality, national security and state sovereignty. Review of International Studies, 33: 129–144.  - . "The government’s targeting of homosexuality in May 2001, following years of ‘turning a blind eye’ to Cairo’s gay scene, is studied here in terms of the links between the sphere of interpersonal relations and notions of national security within international relations. The persecution of men for alleged same-sex relations not only filled newspaper columns and created a spectacle to divert people’s attention away from the government’s failings. More importantly, the event represented an opportunity for government officials, the media and other civil society activists – both within Egypt and abroad – to ‘perform’ a discourse of national security through which national sovereignty was (re)produced and political order was maintained. However, this national security threat was not only posed by the external threat of Western governments, international NGOs and other transnational actors concerned with respect for human rights within Egypt. More importantly, this threat was constructed as originating with those people failing to conform to the ‘norm’ of heterosexual relationships..."

El Menyawi H (2006). Activism from the closet: gay rights strategising in Egypt. Melbourne Journal of International Law, 7.  .  . Abstract: "Recently the Egyptian Government has been systematically attacking gays by putting them on trial, detaining and torturing them. The author suspects that there are two reasons behind the Government’s attacks of gay men: firstly, as a strategy to divert attention from its failure to address the declining economic situation in Egypt, and secondly, to increase the perception that it takes the Islamic faith seriously. The latter is particularly important to the Egyptian Government as it owes its increasing popularity largely to the Muslim Brotherhood. By attacking gays, the Egyptian State successfully distracted the public’s attention from its woes, while also shoring up the State’s Islamic credentials. The author also considers mistakes made when engaging in gay rights activism before his ultimate exile from Egypt. The author, who used the language of gay identity and of ‘coming out of the closet’ as part of his activism, examines the problems associated with such language. In particular, the author points out that by deploying the language of gay identity, he played into the hands of the Egyptian State, which then successfully appropriated the same language to distract the Egyptian public from its own problems. The author considers the problems with his activism to be his engaging in a ‘Stonewall’ model of gay rights in which one openly comes out of the closet and declares one is gay. The author concludes by considering a new form of activism that is not open, but hidden, which he calls ‘activism from the closet’. The hope behind the article is to allow LBGTQ groups to express their sexuality, as well as engage in activism, while reducing potential threats directed at them..."

  (2009, Video)

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