Email from Gay Egyptian (heartbreaking)

Just remember before you read
Egypt, receives $2 billion annually (right behind israel) and at the U.N. Egypt votes against the United States 79% of the time





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My name is Khalid Hussein Hassan, the co-founder and president of
Gay-pride Action League (GAL) Cairo, Egypt. The purpose of the letter is
to intimate you of the prevailing circumstances affecting the homosexual
community in my country and to ask for your cooperation in ensuring that
this rapidly growing community is not undermined by an authoritarian
government, denial of basic human rights, and the twin evils of religious
extremism and conservatism. Before I proceed to the crux of the matter I
want to congratulate you for ensuring your country is a free and open
society where gays can live, work and even aspire to positions of
political and religious authority.

THE SITUATION IN EGYPT

Egypt is in Africa but politically situated in the restive Middle East.
We are about 75 million people. Out of the adult male population of
25million, about 2 million are either gay or bisexual. However, we have
continued to suffer routine persecution in the hands of a totalitarian
government and its agents. To suppress gay rights and activism, security
services infiltrate Internet chat-rooms, place adverts to entrap gays and
enlist a highly organized web of informers. Once you are suspected of
being gay your home is raided, you are arrested, tortured, subjected to
humiliating medical examinations, forced to undergo HIV test and
subsequently detained with or without trial. This has resulted in an
entrenched conspiracy of fear from civil society. Government and
religious propaganda has depicted homosexuality as a disease. But
historical studies have shown that homosexuality was acceptable in
ancient Egypt and the Islamic Ottoman Empire.

MY EXPERIENCE

In January 2002, I was arrested, tortured and detained for 7 months
without trial based on illegal wiretaps and searches on my residence. My
partner Wahid Ahmad was also arrested and unfortunately died of
tuberculosis in prison. Twice supposedly heterosexual prison guards who
claimed it would cure me of my homosexuality raped me.
To now more about our suffering you can read the reports of Human rights
Watch (an American organization) at:

www.hrw.org/reports/2004/egypt0304
www.hrw.org/english/docs/2004/02/07/egypt7675.htm
www.sodomylaws.org/world/egypt/egaction04.htm


OUR ORGANIZATION, OUR ACTIVITIES:

Upon my release, I secretly convened a forum for selected gays residing in
Egypt. It has now become the Gay-Pride Action League (GAL). Membership is
now nearly 3,500 and I was elected president in 2003. We have members in
El-Qahira (Cairo), El-Iskandariya (Alexandria), Al-Jizah (Giza) and
El-Suweis (Suez). We operate in total secrecy and are organized into
compact cells not exceeding 22 members.

GAL creates a forum for gays to interact and to take steps to ameliorate
our common problems. Specifically, we are sponsoring the treatment of 498
members who are HIV positive. Hospitals report to government personal
details of HIV positive people so we clandestinely hire the services of
sympathetic doctors and smuggle anti-retroviral drugs from Europe. We are
constrained to limit the number of HIV positive persons we admit because
the cost of the drugs and treatments are so expensive. We also provide
safe houses and passage for gays being hunted down by security agents. We
rent houses in six cities, pay for transportation and bribe border guards
to allow passage to Libya and Sudan en route Western Europe.

Before the end of 2004 we intend to triple our membership and increase the
tempo and scope of our activities. To actualize our plans we have decided
to take the following measures.

1. Establish an underground press to publish "Gay-life" newsletter,
souvenirs, flyers etc.

2. Establish a mobile pirate radio station to enlighten the general
populace on gay rights.

3. Anonymously donate/support financially candidates in local and
parliamentary elections who may be sympathetic to our cause.

4. To assist financially and otherwise in the formation of a lesbian
society since the position of the Egyptian lesbian is more precarious than
ours.

IE - it's ok that we discriminate against gays, because we don't throw them in jail and rape them. We could do one of the above though, because that still wouldn't make us as bad.

i am not surprised by this. at the un ,some islamic nations and the vatican opposed kofi annan giving benefits to employees who are gay and are in a marriage/civil union relationship as is given to opposite sex married couples.

...I was particulalry struck by his goal of a pirate radio station. I don't know how practical these things really are, but I feel compelled to support them, as I really do feel that the airwaves (not just in the U.S.) are free and for the people.

"Information is power," or whatever. I know it's a cliche, but...

All power to him and his goals.

marriage is between a man and woman in every culture, but tehn want to spread democracy to every culture, as well as christianity. Talk about picking and choosing

I don't really ever hear anything about that.

they are given pretty fair treatment in Israel.