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for Same-Sex Lovemaking |
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By Rex Wockner International News Report
Mahmud Abdel Fatah was one of the 53 men arrested in the May 11 swoop on Cairo's Queen Boat gay nightclub. He was tried separately because he is a minor. Prosecutors claimed that medical exams proved Fatah engaged in gay sex. Fatah screamed and cried when the verdict was handed down. The rest of the detainees remain jailed at Tora Prison as their trials continue in an emergency state security court, the rulings of which cannot be appealed.
"We are concerned that the United States will forsake human rights consideration as it tries to forge its worldwide [anti-terrorism] coalition," said Program Director Scott Long. "If this happens, the U.S. government will have not only abandoned the [men] to an unfair and lengthy prison stay but it will also betray the very values it has sworn to defend." IGLHRC Communications Director Sydney Levy added: "Many news agencies are focusing most of their attention on the dreadful September 11 attack and its after-effects, leaving little room for anything else. The Egyptian government is using this moment to seal the fate of the [detainees], knowing that its actions will go unchallenged by the world's public opinion." |
A 15-year-old Egyptian was jailed for three years
September 18 for engaging in gay sex ("practicing sexual
immorality").
