Gay life in Egypt is harsh and dangerous. Egypt’s population is mostly Muslim and its society and politics are heavily influenced by Muslim attitudes and teachings which are intensely intolerant toward gays. Consensual sex between same-sex individuals is not expressly criminalized in Egyptian law, “but it is a serious taboo” where “gay men are vilified by the press and public.”
Worse still, starting in 2000 or so, Egypt began exploiting the “Public Order & Public Morals” to arrest, charge, torture, and sentence gays to prison and hard labor. The charges tend to be based on references to “debauchery” or some similar “moral” allegation.
LGBT life was arguably getting slightly better in the 1990’s. Then in 2000, an Egyptian gay couple was arrested and charged with “violation of honor by threat” and “practicing immoral and indecent behavior.” These two arrests were widely covered and became a media sensation and led various Egyptian public figures to demand that Egypt “execute homosexuals or send them to mental institutions to be reformed.” Soon after these demands, Egypt began a very organized and public crackdown on homosexuality initially by way of police raiding private parties attended by Egyptian gay men.
The first of these raids took place in 2001 when the police stormed a private boat party in Cairo. There, the police arrested fifty-two Egyptian gay men who would become known worldwide as the “Cairo 52.” Despite intense pressure by international governments and human rights organizations, twenty-three of the Cairo 52 were sentenced to prison with hard labor. Subsequent raids and arrests have continued In 2003, police set up checkpoints in a popular cruising area in downtown Cairo and arrested 62 men. In 2004, a 17-year old male student was sentenced to a 17-year prison sentence (with 2 years of hard labor) simply for posting a personal profile on a gay dating site.
A 2004 Human Rights Watch (“HRW”) report entitled “In Time of Torture” stated that HRW knew of at least “179 men” charged “under the law against ‘debauchery,’” but HRW suspected the true number of defendants charged with this crime was much, much greater. And HRW nevertheless reported that hundreds of others above the 179 men charged were known to have been harassed, arrested, and/or tortured simply based on their sexuality. According to HRW, police “routinely torture men suspected of homosexual conduct, sometimes to extract confessions and sometimes simply as a sadistic reminder of the burden of shame their alleged behavior incurs.”
It is too early to tell whether the recent revolution that toppled the Hosni Mubarak’s regime will usher in greater acceptance of the LGBTI community. Keli Goff of the Huffington Post and others remain skeptical that better days lie ahead and note that a “big question mark remains regarding what this new era in Egypt will mean for gays and lesbians.”
The Unites States Department of State recognizes that country conditions for the LGBTI community in Egypt remain hostile. In its Country Conditions Report for the year 2011, the United States Government found that Egypt “allows police to arrest lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons on charges of ‘debauchery,’” and that “[g]ay men and lesbians faced significant social stigma in society and in the workplace, impeding their ability to organize or publicly advocate on behalf of the LGBT community.”
Not surprisingly, gay life in Egypt has gone back to being mostly underground. Gays are forced to find solace on the Internet and secluded places away from public view. They understand that they will face intense hostility if they are even perceived to be gay, let alone if they are caught displaying any sort of same-sex intimacy. Like so many other Middle East (and African) countries, Egypt persecutes its LGBTI community in stark and unequivocal ways, and it does so, ironically, in defense of morality.
The conditions are so brutal that most gay Egyptians who make it to the United States will be eligible for asylum so long as they (i) have a clean criminal record, (ii) have not married a member of the opposite sex, and (iii) file within the one-year filing deadline. But (again) every case is different and it is important to discuss asylum with an experienced asylum attorney to determine whether it is a viable option. This is so even if you do not meet the three forgoing factors (e.g., 1-year filing deadline), because waivers and exceptions may be available depending on the particular circumstances of your case.
I am able to represent clients in all 50 states, and will be glad to speak with anyone who has questions regarding gay asylum at no charge.
George Tenreiro
BALDASSARE & MARA, LLC
570 Broad Street, Suite 900
Newark, New Jersey 07102
Office: 973.200.4066; Fax: 973.741.2482
E-Mail: gtenreiro@mabalaw.com
Admitted in New Jersey and New York
References:
- United States Department of State, “2011 Country Report on Human Rights Practices: Egypt” at page 31, available at:http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/186635.pdf.
- Gender Across Borders, “Popular Uprisings: Marriage Equality and Gay Rights in Egypt” (February 24, 2011), available at: http://www.genderacrossborders.com/2011/02/25/popular-uprisings-marriage-equality-and-gay-rights-in-egypt/.
- LGBT Asylum News, “Egyptian dissident a double outsider” (June 10, 2010), available at:http://madikazemi.blogspot.com/2010/06/egyptian-dissident-double-outsider.html.
- Gay Middle East, “For gay Egyptians, life online is the only choice” by Liam Stack (May 18, 2007), available at: http://www.gaymiddleeast.com/news/article137.html.
- Human Rights Watch, “In Time of Torture” (February 29, 2004), available athttp://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/egypt0304_0.pdf.
- El Akhbar, “Egyptian Teenager Sentenced for Gay Internet Posting” (February 25, 2004), available at http://www.gaymiddleeast.com/country/egypt.htm.
- BBC News, “Egypt crackdown on homosexuals” (March 6, 2002), available at:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/crossing_continents/1858469.stm.
