Earlier today, I blogged about official homophobia in the moderate Islamic world. In that post I mentioned five gay men on trial today in Cairo for being gay and associated with HIV positive gay men.
About an hour ago, a Cairo court jailed the five gay men for three years on charges of "debauchery" linked to homosexuality.
The men were arrested three weeks ago in a central Cairo restaurant and subjected to an involuntary anal inspection by a police doctor. It was that anal inspection that confirmed their homosexuality and therefore their debauchery.
Debauchery is one of the several official offenses that are used to jail homosexual men in Egypt. of sexual offenses explicitly outlawed by Egypt's Islamic-inspired legislation, it can be punished under several different laws on morality. Other charges that are commonly used are "scorning religion" and "sexual practices contrary to Islam."
While gay rights and human rights groups from around the world are officially protesting these actions, most governments, including our own stand silent.
American politicians will speak out for Tibet and the victims of Darfur, but gay men and women are little more than monkeys littering the streets. This is the truth of Washington. But the real criminals in this horrific play are American gay advocacy groups who persist in fund-raising and galas when in fact they should be leading the charge, organizing and implementing mass demonstrations and civil disobedience to protest the fact that our own government, the "role model" for democracy and human and civil rights actually stands on the side of the Egyptian court that sent innocent men to jail on this infamous Wednesday, April 9, 2008.
At least 17 Egyptian men have been jailed since October 2007 "in a spreading hunt for people suspected of being HIV-positive."
Many of the men allege they were beaten and abused, while police would arrest others whose contact details were found on detainees' mobile phones.
Convictions are solely based on medical records seized from doctor's offices and the use of forcible HIV tests and abusive anal examinations.
An Egyptian prosecutor has "explained" that the men should not be allowed to "roam the streets freely" because the government considers them a "danger to public health."
And you wonder why the Israelis build walls? Frankly, I'm looking out of my living room window right now and wondering how long it would take to build a wall on the Jersey side of the Hudson.
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