Egypt: Act *Now* Against Internet Entrapment and Renewed Persecution
06/03/2002
SUMMARY
Barely two weeks after 23 men were condemned in Cairo to serve prison terms at hard labor for homosexual behavior, two Egyptian university students were sentenced under the same law. Their crime: responding to an undercover police agent's request for gay contacts in an Internet chatroom.
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 behavior.
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 calls for an immediate pardon for both. IGLHRC again calls on Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak to pardon the 23 men convicted in Cairo in November, to investigate patterns of intrusive and abusive behavior by the Vice Squad, and to put an end to legally fostered persecution and discrimination.
Below please find: Action (with government and embassy addresses for the Arab Republic of Egypt); Sample Letter; Background. The Background section corrects information which appeared in both the Egyptian and international press, and was reflected in IGLHRC's previous release, "Egypt: One Step toward Justice, Two Steps Back" (December 19, 2001). IGLHRC's new information is based on consultation with Egyptian activists and attorneys and on perusal of the court files in the case.
ACTION
IGLHRC calls for protest letters to the Egyptian government. Condemn the new convictions, and urge pardons for the two men. Urge the President of Egypt to pardon the 23 men convicted on November 14 under Law 10 of 1961, as well as Mahmoud, the teenager who was freed in an appeals hearing on December 19--but whose conviction still stands. A sample letter follows. Write to:
- His Excellency, President Mohammad Hosni Mubarak
President of the Arab Republic of Egypt - 'Abedine Palace, Cairo, Egypt.
Tel: + 20 2 910288 / 243 1915 /245 9816
Fax: + 20 2 390 1998, 20 2 260-5417 , 20 2 355-5700, 20 2 795 3192 or 20 2 795 8016
TELEX 091 93794 wazra un
E-mail: webmaster@presidency.gov.eg
Salutation: Your excellency - His Excellency, Counsellor Farouk Seif Al Nasr
Minister of Justice - Ministry of Justice
Midan Lazoughly
Cairo
Arab Republic of Egypt
Fax: +20 2 355 8103
E-mail: mojeb@idsc1.gov.eg
Salutation: Your Excellency - Mr Ahmed Maher Al-Sayad
Minister of Foreign Affairs - Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Corniche al-Nil
Maspiro
Cairo
EGYPT
Fax: +20 2 574 9533
E-mail: minexter@idscl.gov.eg or ForMin@idsc.gov.eg
Salutation: Your Excellency
Please also write to Egypt's Embassies abroad. If your country is not in the list below, go to http://www.mfa.gov.eg/missions_a.asp?id=0505 to find contact information.
- AUSTRALIA
Embassy of the Arab Republic of Egypt - Tel: (62) 273-4437/8
Fax: (612)62734279 - BRAZIL
Embassy of the Arab Republic of Egypt - Tel.: (5561) 323 8800
Fax: (5561) 323 1039
E-mail: embegypt@tba.com.br - CANADA
Embassy of the Arab Republic of Egypt - Tel: (613) 234-4931 / 35/58
Fax: (613)234-9347
E-mail: egyptemb@sympatico.ca - FRANCE
Embassy of the Arab Republic of Egypt - Tel: (33) (1) 47 20 97 70 / 47 20 75 97
Fax: (33) (1) 47230643
TELEX 645297
E-mail: boustane.paris@free.fr - GERMANY
Embassy of the Arab Republic of Egypt - Tel.: (4930)4771048 - 4771250
Fax: (4930)4771049
E-mail: Egembassy@hotmail.com - INDIA
Embassy of the Arab Republic of Egypt - Tel.: (9111) 6114096- 6114097
Fax: (9111) 6885355
E-mail: egyembindia@vsnl.com - SOUTH AFRICA
Embassy of the Arab Republic of Egypt - Tel.: (2712)3431590/3431591
Fax: (2712)3431082 - TURKEY
Embassy of the Arab Republic of Egypt - Tel.: (90312)4684647/4261026/4266478
Fax: (90312)4270099
E-mail: egankara@yahoo.com - UNITED KINGDOM
Embassy of the Arab Republic of Egypt - Tel: (44) 020 7499-2401, 020 7499-3304
Fax: (44) 020 7355-3568 / 491-154
E-mail: etembuk@hotmail.com - UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Embassy of the Arab Republic of Egypt - Fax: 202 244 4319
E-mail: Egypt-embassy@usa.net
SAMPLE LETTER
I am writing to express my outrage over the continuing persecution of men for alleged homosexual behavior. I wish to protest the conviction, in the Court of Misdemeanors at Boulaq Abul Ella on December 5, of Sherif A. and Islam A. under Article 9(c) of Law 10/1961. These two men were entrapped by Major Essam Abul Ezz of the Cairo Vice Squad, who lured them through an Internet chatroom and then arrested them.
The reputation of Egypt is at stake. This campaign of persecution must end.
These men are victims of an abusive criminal justice system. They join the 16-year old Mahmoud, who was convicted in September under Law 10/1961, and sentenced to three years in prison, despite strong evidence that his confession was extracted by torture. (Although his sentence was reduced and he was freed on appeal this month, his conviction and the stigma it carries still stand.) These men also join the 23 who were sentenced to prison terms at hard labor on November 14, in a show trial which made a mockery of justice and has drawn condemnation around the world.
I urge you to use your powers to see that all these men are pardoned and those imprisoned are freed. I urge you to eliminate the Emergency Law of 1981 which allows trials before courts which allow no proper appeal. I urge you to end the practice of prolonged, incommunicado arbitrary detention. I urge you to see that both press and criminal justice system abide by the terms of Article 23 of the Law No. 96 Concerning the Regulation of Journalists, which bars publication of details of a trial or investigation which might influence its outcome. I urge you to investigate allegations of torture and ill-treatment of detainees, and punish those found responsible. And I urge you to review Law 10/1961, which under the pretext of protecting morals invites police to abuse privacy, to practice blatant discrimination, and to violate internationally recognized freedoms of expression, association, and assembly. I urge you to work for the repeal of provisions--whether criminalizing "contempt for religion" or "habitual practice of debauchery" or "prostitution"--which can be used to deny basic rights which Egypt, as a party to international covenants, is bound to respect.
BACKGROUND
On December 19, 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 (possibly timed to obviate any suggestion of leniency which Mahmoud's release might provide), 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 December 18, and had offered gay sex for 100 Egyptian pounds per hour.
The files in the case show many of these statements were misleading. The case was initiated by Major Essam Abul Ezz of Cairo's Vice Squad. On September 15, 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, but 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 May 10/11 of this year. It is used in Egyptian law as a catch-all to cover consensual homosexual behavior between men, and (unlike other provisions of Law 10/1961) does not entail the exchange of sex for money.
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. (Boulaq Abul Ella--a district in downtown Cairo, near the Ramses Hilton--is different from Boulaq Al-Dakrour in Giza, where IGLHRC mistakenly believed at first the men had been arrested.) They were referred to the Administration of Forensic Medicine for anal and genital medical examination (a practice IGLHRC has condemned as invasive and abusive) and, according to the file, were both found "used." They were released by the prosecutor after charges were pressed.
Only Sherif A. appeared at the trial on December 5 (not December 18, 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 December 22.
IGLHRC has monitored the Egyptian situation consistently since the beginning of what now appears to be a wave of arrests, in May 2001. Detailed information on earlier developments can be found in previous IGLHRC alerts.
