The ruling authority in Egypt often manipulates the issue of homosexuality to assert its position as a protector of morality and a controller of its citizens’ behavior.
The Egyptian state occasionally exercises its support for ethics by emphasizing its attitude against the Egyptian gay community.
The ruling authority in Egypt often manipulates the issue of homosexuality to assert its position as a protector of morality and a controller of its citizens’ behavior.
The Egyptian state occasionally exercises its support for ethics by emphasizing its attitude against the Egyptian gay community.
Through reproduced stereotypes, incidents related to the arrests and trials of gay citizens are reported every now and then, in a bid by the state to project itself as a protector of morality. Such events are usually accompanied by extensive media coverage aimed at scandalizing and slandering ‘outlaws of nature’.
Although gay groups have not caused any harm to others and have never infringed upon the privacy of others, they often fall victims to the violence perpetrated by the police force on the pretext of ‘regulating’ social behavior.
Since June 2013, there have been more than nine cases of homosexuality being targeted— the latest of which was the storming of an apartment, east of Cairo, and arresting four people who were tried and sentenced within one week.
Homophobic agenda
Saber Qazaz, researcher at the National Center for Social and Criminal Research, attributed this heightened homophobia to several changes in politics and the corresponding agendas that come with those political shifts.
In other words, the arrests are usually carried out to meet political expectations, not to mention the anti-gay tendency held by criminal justice personnel.
Since 2001, the Egyptian police have been consistently involved in trapping the gay community by setting up fake dates on social networking sites.
This trend is coupled with a prevailing feeling of hatred and repugnance towards same-sex relationships, which transcends the measures taken by the police, as well as the scandalizing manner in which the media have addressed the issue.
Homosexuality a political conspiracy?
The views presented by a considerable number of Egyptian psychiatrists are not based on scientific grounds when dealing with homosexuals as patients.
In 1973, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Illnesses (issued by the American Society of Psychiatry) removed homosexuality as a listed mental disorder.
Yet in his ‘The Healing Love Program’, Egyptian psychiatrist Awsam Wasfi regards homosexuality as a disease and “offers hope” for patients. Much to the horror of human rights organizations, the author of several books specializes in the ‘treatment’ of same-sex relationships and provided an analysis based on the existence of a ‘political conspiracy’ planned in 1973.
“Not a single scientific study has been presented. Gay activists arranged a meeting with the Nomenclature Committee of the American Psychological Association, responsible for the above-mentioned diagnostic manual,” he said.
“The head of that committee consequently presented the concept that same-sex behavior often does not reflect a psychological disorder and that the diagnostic manual needs to reveal this new concept,” he said, linking the manual to political pressure.
Wasfi also linked homosexuality to the spread of AIDS in Egypt and presented the outcome of a biological and behavioral survey’s rates of HIV infection prepared by the National AIDS Program of the Egyptian Ministry of Health in (2006).
The study linked homosexuality to the spread of the disease by 6.2% while the HIV rate among sex workers has not exceeded 0.8% and incidence of the disease via intravenous drug use has amounted to only 0.6%.
In prison with HIV
Psychiatrist Ibrahim Sayed explained that medical examinations of homosexuals by forensic doctors revealed whether or not there was sexual interaction, but this does not provide evidence that the person concerned has committed a sexual act at the time of his arrest.
He, however, referred to the hypocritical attitude of the interior ministry, which frequently arrests gay persons while failing to recognize the existence of homosexual practices in prisons.
Analyzing the situation, he said: “This attitude is tantamount to recognition of same-sex relationships within the community— which is viewed as an evil that must be eliminated— which brings us back to the concept of a welfare state in which citizens are mere subjects. But, the ministry itself does not acknowledge the existence of these practices inside prisons.”
Recognition of these practices is interpreted as an admission of the presence of a mismanagement problem in prisons and that there are health risks involved considering in particular that AIDS is an epidemic disease and can spread in specific environments, most notably prisons. However, there is a difficulty to convince the Interior Ministry to allow the Health Ministry to have an early detection of AIDS among prison mates.
Sayed has had the opportunity of meeting many AIDS patients who share the common destiny of spending part of their lives inside Egyptian prisons. He believes that the certificates and medical history of these prisoners reveal their gay behavior, but are not infected with HIV before imprisonment, which confirms that they were infected with HIV while they were in prison.
Easier being gay in prison
Sayed said that in his job as a psychiatrist, he met many former prisoners who said imprisonment time provided them with a safe place to practice homosexuality without others complaining about it.
“There was an HIV patient, whose situation was followed up by us, and who was denied medication by the prison authority. That patient was said to have been sentenced to a criminal penalty and his health should not have been compromised and he should not have been left to pass the disease on to the other prison mates, as they all faced the risk of being infected should a quarrel or blood or biological fluid transfusion take place,” he said.
Spokesperson for gay community?
A digital petition demanding to stop the imprisonment of homosexuals has been recently initiated and was planned to be submitted to the Egyptian government.
The petition is an initiative aimed at urging homosexuals to come out or adopt a political position against being targeted.
In 2012, a page on Facebook dedicated to gay Egyptians organized an opinion poll entitled ‘Who Is the Most Likely Candidate for the Homosexuals?’
A small percentage of homosexuals had thus formed a ‘political position’ as a lobbying group.
Several activities were also organized to publish blogs on social media networks against homophobia in Egypt and the reaction of the enforced laws towards homosexuals.
Homosexuality and the law
There is no explicit provision in the Egyptian law that criminalizes homosexuality, but the anti-prostitution Law No. 10 of 1961 included ‘debauchery’ which is commonly used to condemn gay Egyptians. They are often sentenced three months to three years in prison.
The most notorious conviction against such persons was the arrest of more than 50 people in what was known as the ‘Queen’ Boat Case, in which the arrested groups were tried by the Emergency State Security Court in 2001.
Saber Qazaz, Researcher at the National Center for Social and Criminological Research, stressed that there is a gay community in Egypt.
“This community is supported and communicates through certain online sites and special meeting places,” he said, adding that the gay community gathers un-officially, and has its own jargon and rules that are sometimes seen as negative in nature, such as unsafe sexual practices.
Two schools of thought
Saber described the way psychiatrists deal with homosexuals in Egypt as being confined to two main aspects. The first and least common regards homosexuals as normal people whose problem is not necessarily related to a choice of being gay as a way of life.
These psychiatrists are mainly doctors who have been exposed to other open cultures (Western culture, for example) or have a long and distinctive experience in this particular field or are themselves homosexuals.
The other largest category of psychiatrists view homosexuality as a disorder needing intervention or assistance. They are divided into psychiatrists who deal with the problem in accordance with psychiatric history or older schools of psychiatry, including those who view homosexuality as a hallucination, disorder or stunted psychological growth.
The other group of psychiatrists is more experienced about homosexual community and looks upon the problem as a prevalent addiction that has to be accommodated within the framework of a set of steps and principles, according to Qazaz.
Saber also indicated that there are some Egyptian psychiatrists who treat homosexuality as a moral aberration that deserves legal punishment and social ostracism, in addition to divine retribution.
“Some doctors have ignored the development achieved in the field of international diagnostic management of these cases, which means that the problem has assumed a conspiratorial political framework (citing Awsam Wasfi’s book ‘Love Healing’).”
“In other words, the gay community has engaged in political lobbying to eliminate the diagnostic evidence that considers homosexuality to be a disease. This opinion has occurred as a reaction to the western perverted behavior and its use of science to justify these aberrations,” he said.
On the other hand, psychiatrist Ibrahim Sayed attributed the policy pursued by the police and law-enforcement agencies to the prevailing religious and ethical principles that determine the manner in which we deal with homosexuality, in addition to considering these individuals as socially ostracized persons.
Sayed also believes that the desire to get rid of homosexuality is not confined to Muslim communities alone, given that the prevailing general mood view it as perverted and deserving of prosecution. Homosexuals, according to this widely shared sentiment, are no more than a group of eccentric people who must be exterminated.
