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Egypt 'gay' trial convicts 23
14/11/2001 20:51 - (SA)
Andrew Hammond and Heba Kandil
Cairo - An Egyptian court on Wednesday sentenced 23 men to jail on charges including "practising sexual immorality", a local euphemism for homosexuality, amid scenes of pandemonium, a court source said.
The state security court trial has been condemned as unfair by international rights groups. Homosexuality is regarded as taboo in Egypt, but is not expressly prohibited by law.
As some family members and friends sobbed and cursed the court, Sherif Farahat, 32, received five years for "forming a group which aims to exploit the Islamic religion to propagate extremist ideas" and "denigrating monotheistic religions", as well as "practising sexual immorality", the source said.
Of the other 22 found guilty, one received the maximum three years for "sexual immorality", 20 more received two years, and another man received one year. Twenty-nine men were acquitted.
All were standing in a large iron cage, as is customary in Egyptian trials.
Strong passions
As the men were led out afterwards, women collapsed into each others' arms weeping, and some relatives of convicted men walked around with glazed expressions on their faces.
"This is a dirty government!" a woman screamed outside as a police van ferried her convicted husband away.
"You dogs! He's innocent," shouted one Egyptian gay activist called Maher, before collapsing on the ground in tears after Farahat's verdict was announced amid scenes of pandemonium.
The case has aroused strong passions in conservative Egypt. Defendants' families had accused the local press of giving the men a "trial by media" in lurid coverage of the case.
Individuals have been tried before for "sexual immorality", but this is the first mass trial and the first trial using Egypt's emergency laws, a court source said.
Under the emergency laws, the convicted men have no right of appeal and can only overturn the sentences through a petition to President Hosni Mubarak.
Rights groups say Egypt misuses the emergency laws, introduced after Islamic militants assassinated President Anwar Sadat in 1981. They say the men were on trial for their sexual orientation and exercising freedom of speech and association.
"Of course we condemn it," one Western diplomat who attended the court session said of the verdict.
Egypt rejects criticism
The case follows a string of publicised incidents involving homosexuality in the past year, including reports of gay soliciting on the internet and claims by Egypt's homosexual community of a co-ordinated campaign against them.
Egypt has rejected criticism of the case, saying its courts were free and fair. One government official said the West should not impose its sense of values on Egypt.
"We have to judge every society by its norms. If homosexuality is accepted in other societies, that's their business ... In this society, homosexuality is a shameful act," the official said.
The men were arrested in May after a raid on a floating nightclub called the Queen Boat, known locally as a popular gay venue. Others were rounded up elsewhere on the same evening.
The verdict was read out after a large number of journalists and defence lawyers were unable to enter the courtroom.
"An attempt to put on the show of a fair trial was missing," said Scott Long, programme director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, referring to the absence of some lawyers from the old, musty courtroom.
But relatives of the 29 acquitted men were ecstatic.
Two women clad in black veils chanted "The trial was fair," ululating loudly inside the courthouse.
A teenager arrested in the same case was sentenced in September to a maximum three years in juvenile detention. He is now appealing.
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