Lock your door if you like, but I’m still watching: Mona Iraqi as Big Sister, in an ad for her program El Mostakhbai (“The Hidden”)
How does it feel to be unsafe in ur own house, scared and your stomach hurts hearing ur elevators doors open, random foot steps outside thinking they might be coming to get you, becoming someone else but yourself just because they can’t accept you the way you are, afraid to love and be loved, not because ur heart might get broken. NO it is because u can’t be who you are even in ur own home with someone you love. Afraid you might get killed in front of everyone and they will be happy and supportive to your killer just because u r not one of them. Happy new year.
A gay Egyptian friend wrote that on Facebook on December 31. It reflects how many in Egypt feel — whatever their identities — after a year of fear, a year of intensifying police repression and political regression.
The collusion between supposedly independent media and the state has been key to consolidating Egypt’s new dictatorship. This week Buzzfeed reported the claim by Ibrahim Mansour, editor of Tahrir News, that “There are instructions from the state apparatus” to cover sex scandals and other “silly” issues. Mansour believes “the government wanted coverage of arrests for homosexuality and other ‘morality’ charges in order to distract from political stories that could expose how the government had betrayed the hopes of the revolution.”
IloveSisiIIoveSisiIloveSisiIIoveSisiIloveSisiI IoveSisiIloveSisiIIoveSisiIloveSisiIIoveSisi: Mahmoud Saad
But it goes deeper. The state knows how to bully or buy media to mouth its political line. Help in getting salacious sales-boosting stories is merely one reward for cooperation. This week a tape mysteriously leaked, apparently recorded during last year’s presidential campaign; in it, Abbas Kamel, head of Generalissimo Sisi’s office, gives the armed forces’ official spokesman detailed orders to exploit reporters. He instructs the PR flack to reach out to “our people in the media,” and command them to “create a situation” and “rile people up.” One snippet plumbs the depths of sycophancy to which journalists can sink:
Kamel also mentions media personality Mahmoud Saad, saying he had recently received a call from Saad asking what he did wrong, and that he heard he had upset “them.” “He told me that we had already agreed and that he loves and supports [Sisi],” he said, before dismissing Saad, saying “we can leave him for now.”
In Egypt, embarrassing tapes leak so often these days you could irrigate crops with them. They may suggest cracks in the military’s support for Sisi, or perhaps fractures between the military and the security services. They also point an ambience around Sisi reminiscent of Beckett’s Krapp or the noxious Nixon, a paranoiac multiplication of microphones where nobody knows who’s wiretapping whom. But the perverse copulation between journalists and generals remains a central fact in Egypt’s loss of freedom.
Sisi’s last tape: The Generalissimo wonders whether he’s hearing voices
Two activist colleagues recently wrote essays on the implications of TV presenter Mona Iraqi’s disastrous escapade. With their permission, I’m publishing them here.
Ramy Youssef is an activist working on human rights and issues of harassment. He wrote (in English):
I was wondering: if I’d get the chance to talk to Mona Iraqi and have a discussion with her, what would I say? I tried hard to exclude any violent ideas that might be floating vigorously in my head, and focus on the verbal actions.
Not hidden for long: Mona Iraqi, played by Naglaa Fathy, listens to the shocking goings-on next door
Mona Iraqi, who became one of the most famous and controversial persons in Egypt at the moment due to her heroic action in leading the extraordinarily smart morals police department to a demonic place where people bathe — God, isn’t she a real savior, intervening with unbelievable bravery to stop all these people from bathing and get them all into a police van wearing nothing but towels. Not only did she do this, but also she took the time to video record all these people being led into the police van semi-naked, and broadcast it on her TV show.
Last Monday, January 12, the court announced the verdict after the arrestees spent 35 days in prison. There were all found innocent. While they were in jail, Mona Iraqi was on a different mission to spread awareness and deliver knowledge to our society. On her show, she declared a mere assumption about their sexuality based on zero evidence, and no right. She said that they are part of a male prostitution network, which participates actively in transmitting HIV to thousands and thousands of people. That’s what you get for having a bath, faggot!
On the second episode of the show, and after a two weeks campaign against her led by activists, journalists and movie makers that led to her expulsion from SHNIT – the International Short Film Festival – she decided to attack those who dared misunderstand her Nobel-Prizeworthy activities.
I talked on a TV channel after the bathhouse was raided, saying how I believe this is a setup to polish the image of the government. She played that interview, along with her comments that I’m just a phony who visits Europe twice a month with nothing on his mind about helping actual homosexuals. Pardonnez-moi, aren’t you just back from Paris? I will not go through explaining that everything she said is lies; that’s obvious.
Brave undercover reporters ready to investigate something awful in a bathhouse
Mona, you are not allowed by law to film anyone getting arrested, for any reason at all. You know that. You are not allowed to lead the police anywhere, even if it was Al Qaeda Central Offices, you do know that as well. You realize that what you did was shameful, terrible and incredibly immoral. You realize that what you did has nothing to do with “sex trafficking.” If you wanted to discuss “sex trafficking,” why go after people who pay 25 pounds to have a bath, instead of making a story about the state officials who are involved in sex trafficking on an international level? Oh, I forgot, that would cut off your financial support for a while.
The interesting part is she didn’t “out” anyone, for real — she did something far worse: she made an assumption about 26 people’s identities, sexualities and practices, and then outed her presumptions, broadcasting the idea that this is truthful!
What Mona Iraqi did cannot be forgotten until she and whoever cooperated in this get the rightful punishment. People’s lives aren’t a tool for any media worker to achieve success. Mona Iraqi should be imprisoned for the sorrow she caused, in the same cell with the police officer who is bravely leading a campaign against LGBTs and presumed LGBTs.
Lt. Col. Ahmad Hashad, played by Fouad El Mohandes, prepares to put his expertise on immorality to use
Now what happens? That’s a good question. Three things: The first and most basic step is filing a complain against Mona Iraqi, Tamer Amin [a talk show host who has campaigned against “perverts” and dissenters of all kinds] – who seems to be the perfect match for her — and Ahmed Hashad (who is the head of the morals police and the officer responsible for the crackdown on homosexuals and transsexuals, according to his declarations).
Second: doing more extensive investigations on the lies behind all the homosexual and transsexual cases that Ahmed Hashad has presented to justice, and setting these victims of injustice free.
Last but not least, law needs to respect human rights, now not later. Police need to stop arresting people based on their sexualities or presumed sexualities, because that is just wrong and unjust. The law should be cleansed of all personal conservative beliefs about sexual activities.
It is about time for this country to start working according to law, and by law I mean a true law respectful of human rights that does not criminalize any consensual sexual activity by any means. Many people, LGBTs and non-LGBTs, wait for justice to take place. If you as a state do not apply justice, in time it will be applied to you.
Members of Egypt’s morality police, on hearing that immorality is taking place somewhere, are ready to go to work
“Yara” — she asked not to use her real name — is a transgender rights activist working on sexual health and rights. She wrote in Arabic; the translation was edited slightly for clarity in English. The original Arabic is at the end of this post.
Amid the latest events that Egypt is undergoing, causing changes on various levels, the issue of homosexuality has grabbed the attention of pens, papers and cameras of yellow newspapers.
To begin with, I am an Egyptian trans person from Egyptian roots. I carry no other passports and I belong to no political party or religious currents. And I am still living in Egypt. My case is the case of every homosexual living in Egypt, facing oppression on all levels, “a second class citizen” according to the criteria the society imposes on people for how they look or act. That fact won’t stop me from showing how disgusted I am by the crackdown on LGBT individuals in Egypt.
Let’s get to the point.
This is how 2014 started for me: four homosexuals were arrested in Nasr City and accused of “debauchery.” Three were sentenced to three years in prison, the other one to eight years.
Al Youm Al Sab’aa [the popular tabloid Youm7] played a major role in this case and other cases that followed, smearing the victims’ images and shaming their names by stalking them in the police stations to videotape them or take pictures of them, mentioning their full names in the newspaper in the name of “professionalism.”
Typical headline and photo from Youm7, spring 2014: “Crackdown on a network of shemales in Nasr City. Ahmed says, ‘I changed my name to Jana after being raped by the grocer and my psychologist. We get our clients from Facebook and we act like females by wearing makeup and adopting feminine attitudes. Are they going to put us in a men’s or women’s prison?” Photo caption: “Ahmed, the accused.” I blurred the face: Youm7 didn’t.
But obviously they didn’t figure in “the ethics of journalism.”
What are the ethics of journalism? Philosophies of media institutions might differ but they agree on the principles of following the truth, accuracy, subjectivity, neutrality, tolerance, and responsibility before the readers. To follow these ethics you start by collecting the information, understanding its importance, then delivering it to the audience.
The press is committed to the principle of “doing the least harm.” This means not publishing some details, such as the name of an injured person, or news irrelevant to the subject of the article that might harm the person mentioned. That definition of media ethics the journalists of Al Youm Al Sab’aa did not follow in any way, in any case they covered about homosexuality.
I will not talk for long about this newspaper that was so unethical in their news coverage.
Defendant in another “debauchery” case from 2014. Photo published in Elhadasnews.com. Again, I blurred the features, not the newspaper.
Along the same line: another disaster which was the first of its kind.
This was the campaign Mona Iraqi started against what she supposed, from her perspective, to be homosexuals. She started her campaign to know the reasons for the spread of AIDS in Egypt. Through her program she reported a number of people in a public place called “Bab Al Bahr” to the police, in order to protect them from the wrath of people living in that area — all according to the imagination of Mona Iraq.
Who am I and why am I speaking?
As I identified myself from the start as gay/trans, I also work in the field of health in Egypt and especially on HIV. I also work in human rights activism for LGBTs in Egypt.
Journalist Mona Iraqi, you talk about the acute criticism you faced from journalists in and outside Egypt, and human rights activists in and outside Egypt, in complete shock. You do not acknowledge the reasons behind this attack. So here are the reasons, based on your first and second episodes of the show “Al Mostakhbai” [Mona Iraqi’s television show]:
Why Mona Iraqi’s ignorance on HIV/AIDS matters, I: Knowledge on AIDS among Egyptian women, 2008, from Children in Egypt 2014: A Statistical Digest, UNICEF, at
FIRST: The episode was supposed to be about AIDS and methods of transmission. But it was not. You did not discuss such questions as: What is HIV, and how is it different from AIDS; does it have symptoms or not; when do they show; what are the means of prevention; is there a cure or not?
The groups most at risk for the spread of HIV/AIDS are:
- Injecting drug users;
- Men having sex with men, and male and female sex workers;
- People who have unsafe sex with either sex.
If Mona Iraqi, as she claims, seeks the reasons for the spread of AIDS in Egypt, why didn’t she seek out all the groups most at risk of getting HIV?
What about those eight individuals whom she interviewed outside the bath [about their homosexuality]? How are their private lives related to the content of the episode? What about their own HIV status? If the goal behind the episode is to reveal the “dens of AIDS,” why weren’t the arrestees checked for HIV while they were examined anally?
Why Mona Iraqi’s ignorance on HIV/AIDS matters, I: Knowledge about AIDS among Egyptian women, 2008, from Children in Egypt 2014: A Statistical Digest, UNICEF, at http://www.unicef.org/egypt/Ch10.HIV_and_AIDS.pdf
SECOND: In the first episode Mona Iraqi gave a speech about how it was impossible for her to enter this den full of naked men, as they were having group sex. But it is normal for her to record these men semi-naked on her phone! In her second episode she accused her critics of masculine bias, saying: “Are you attacking me because I’m a woman who did this?”
No activists objected to your being a woman among semi-naked men, but to your recording a video of them on your phone. However, if we look to the principles, values, traditions, and religious values that you and your supporters claim to apply in this case, then your being there and among these semi-naked men goes against all those values and traditions. It contradicts everything you previously said about those values.
THIRD: You demanded why activists and organizations in Egypt who are receiving funding don’t help this category of society.
The answer: this category is being prosecuted on all levels. We — activists — or anyone else cannot help directly. That doesn’t mean that we do not provide in one way or another — despite you.
CONCLUSION: Over one hundred persons were arrested and prosecuted in a few months, accused of debauchery, sentenced to between one year and twelve years in prison. The Egyptian yellow press and the likes of Mona Iraqi joined in smearing the image of the defendants and of homosexuals generally – in order to achieve fame, or sales.
The episodes of El Mostakhbai have nothing to do with HIV or AIDS or professionalism or press ethics.
Mona Iraqi referred to what is happening in European countries with arrests of male and female sex workers. But we do not see a picture of any journalist recording one of these arrests with his mobile phone. We didn’t hear about journalists reporting the places where they live.
What we can conclude from 2014 is that the issue of homosexuality in Egypt is a blown-up case pursued by those who want fame, or want to join in morally policing the lives and the privacy of many other people.
The December 7 bathhouse raid: Photo from Mona Iraqi’s Facebook page. Iraqi is on the right.
في ظل الاحداث الأخيرة التي تمر بها مصر من تغيرات على جميع الأفق,
شغلت قضية المثلية الجنسية أقلام وأوراق وكاميرات الصحف الصفراء في مصر.
بداية انا مصري مثلي الجنس ذو أصول مصرية ,لا أحمل أية جنسيات اخري ولا انتمي الي اي حزب سياسي أو توجه ديني صارم ولازلت مقيم في مصر.
قضيتي هي نفس قضية كل مثلي يعيش في مصر,يعاني من الاضطهاد علي جميع المستويات, بمعني اخر “مواطن درجة تانية“, وذلك طبقا للمعايير والمواصفات التي فرضها المجتمع من هيئة الاشخاص و تصرفاتهم, ولكن هذا بشكل ما أو اخر لم يمنعني من اظهار مدى استيائي كشخص تجاه ما يحدث من غارة علي مثليين/ات الجنس في مصر.
إلى صلب الموضوع ….
هكذا بدأت سنة 2014 معي تحديدا في شهر ابريل حيث تم القبض علي اربع مثلي الجنس في مدينة نصر بتهمة ممارسة الفجور,و قد حكم على ثلاثة منهم ب 3 سنوات و اخر ب 8 سنوات,
حيث لعبت جريدة اليوم السابع دورا هائلا في هذه القضية, و القضايا الاخرى التي تبعتها, من تشويه وتشهير صور المتهمين عن طريق ملاحقتهم في الاقسام و تصويرهم” فيديو” و “صور فوتوغرافية” و ذكر اسماءهم الكاملة في صحيفتهم وذلك تحت شعار “المهنية “.
ولكن لم يات في الحسبان ما يدعي بـ “اخلاقيات الصحافة” !!
ما هي اخلاقيات الصحافة ؟؟
* قد تختلف فلسفات المؤسسات الصحفية إلا أنها تجمع على مبادئ اتباع: الحقيقة والدقة والموضوعية والحياد والتسامح والمسؤولية أمام القراء. ويبدأ اتباع تلك الأخلاقيات في الحصول على المعلومات ومراعاة أهميتها ثم توصيلها إلى الجمهور.
وكما هو الحال بالنسبة لأنظمة احترام الأخلاقيات فتلتزم الصحافة هي الأخرى بمبدأ «إلحاق أقل ضرر». وهذا يتعلق بعدم كشف بعض التفاصيل في النشر مثل اسم مصاب أو بأخبار لا تتعلق بموضوع المقال قد تسيء إلى سمعة الشخص المذكور.
هذا كان تعريف اخلاقيات الصحافة و الذي لم يلتزم به صحفيو جريدة اليوم السابع بشكل او باخر في اي قضية تم تداولها في ما يخص المثلية الجنسية.
لن أكثر الحديث عن هذه الجريدة لالتزامهم بتطبيق اللااخلاقية في اخبارهم.
و علي غرار ما حدث..
كارثةاخريهيالاوليمننوعها ……..
فقد كانت هذه هي الحملة التي شنتها مني عراقي على ما يفترض أنهم مثليي الجنس وذلك من وجهة نظرها في سبيل معرفة اسباب انتشار الايدز في مصر,و قد ابلغت عن طريق برنامجها علي عدد من الاشخاص يتواجدون في مكان عام يسمى (باب البحر) خوفا من فتك اهالي المنطقة بهم و ذلك حسب ما جاء في مخيلة مني عراقي.
من انا و لماذا اتحدث ؟
كما عرفت عن نفسي في البداية عن كوني مثلي الجنس, انا ايضا عملت في مجال الصحة في مصر و خاصة “فيروس نقص المناعة المكتسب“, و أعمل أيضا في مجال النشاط الحقوقي للمثليين في مصر .
الاعلامية مني عراقي:
تتحدثينعنالهجومالحادالذيوجهاليكمنخلالالصحفيينفيمصروخارجهاوالناشطينالحقوقيينفيمصروخار
جهامدعيةعدمفهماسبابهذاالهجوم ,لذلك ها هي الاسباب مستعينا بالحلقتين الاولي و الثانية من برنامجك “المستخبي” :-
ا/ كان من المفترض ان مضمون الحلقة عن الايدز وعن اسباب انتشاره .
” كأي شخص مهني يطرح موضوع للنقاش يجب علية اولا ان يكون على دراية تامة بموضوع الطرح,وأقصد هنا في هذه الحاله (الايدز).
* فما هو “فيروس نقص المناعة البشري“, و ما الفرق بينه و بين الايدز؟
و هل له اعراض ام لا, و متي تظهر اعراضة, و ما هي طرق الوقاية ؟
و هل يوجد علاج ام لا؟
*انتشار فيروس نقص المناعة المكتسبة :- (الفئات الاكثر عرضة)
1- المدمنيين بالحقن.
2- الرجال الذين يمارسون الجنس مع الرجال و بائعين/ات الجنس.
3- ممارسة الجنس الغير امن.
فاذا كانت مني عراقي كما تدعي انها تبحث عن اسباب انتشار الايدز في مصر لماذا لم تبحث عن الفئة الاكثر عرضة للاصابة بالفيروس؟
و ماذا عن الثمانية الذين قمت بتصويرهم خارج الحمام, وما علاقه حياتهم الخاصة بمحتوي الحلقة ,وماذا عن اصابتهم بالفيروس ؟
و اذا كان الغرض من الحلقة الكشف عن اوكار الايدز لماذا لم يتم فحص المتهمين باحتمال اصابتهم بفيروس نقص المناعة في حين ان تم فحصهم شرجيا؟
ب/ في الحلقة الاولي وجهت مني عراقي كلمة بانها لم يكن من المستحيل ان تدخل هذا الوكر المليء بالرجال العرايا, حبث يمارسون الجنس الجماعي, و لكن من الطبيعي بالنسبة لها ان تقوم بتصوير هولاء الرجال شبة عرايا بـ هاتفها المحمول .
ثم قامت منى في الحلقة الثانية باتهام مهاجمينها بذكوريتهم قائلة
“ولا علشان واحده ست هي اللي عملت كدا” !!!!
لم يعترض احد من النشطاء علي وجودك كامرأه وسط رجال شبة عرايا و لكن الانتقاد الذي وجه لك كان عن تصويرهم بهاتفك المحمول, و لكن اذا نظرنا الي القيم و المبادئ و العادات و التقاليد و الدين و العرف و الذي تدعي انت والكثير من انصارك في هذه القضية بتطبيقه.
فـوجودكفيهذاالمكانامامهذاالعددمنالرجالشبهالعراياينافيتماماكلالقيموالا
عرافوينافيايضاماسبقوقدقمتباعلانهفيحلقتكالاوليمتحدثةعناستحالةوجودكفيوسطهذاالمكان.
ج/ كنت قد ذكرت لماذا لا يقوم النشطاء والمنظمات في مصر الذي يتم تمويلهم بمساعدة هذه الفئة من المجتمع؟
الاجابة :-
فيظلوجودمايدينهذهالفئةعليجميعالمستوياتلايوجدفياستطاعتناأننقومبالمساعده نحن النشطاء اوغيرنا بشكل مباشر , و لكن هذا لا يمنع اننا نقوم بمساعدة هذه الفئات بشكل او باخر.
و عليكي مني عراقي ان تتفهمي خطورة الموقف بالنسبة لثمانية شباب قمتي بتصويرهم في اماكن تواجدهم ,و قد اعترفوا بممارستهم علي شاشات التلفيزيون, فما بالك عن اهل المنطقة بـ هؤلاء ؟؟؟
الخلاصة :-
* تم القبض و الحكم علي اكثرمن مئه شخص خلال عدة اشهر بتهمة ممارسة الفجور وتم الحكم عليهم باحكام تتراوح بين سنه واثنا عشر سنه .
* ساهمت الصحافة المصرية الصفراء وامثال مني عراقي في تشوية وتشهير صورة المتهمين و صورة المثليين بشكل عام علي حساب الشهرة و” مين يبيع اكتر“.
*حلقات برنامج “المستخبي” لا تمت بصلة عن فيروس نقص المناعة البشري و الايدز كما انها لا تتصف بالمهنية واخلاقيات الصحافة .
*بالنسبة لما قمت باذاعته مني عراقي عن ما يحدث في بلاد اوربية او غيرها فيما يختص بالقبض علي العاملين والعاملات بالجنس. فنحن لم نري صورة اي صحفي قام بتصوير قبضية معينه علي فئة معينة بـهاتفه المحمول و لم نسمع عن صحفي قام بالابلاغ عن أماكن تواجدهم.
ما نستطيع استنتاجه من الفترة السابقة في عام 2014 ان قضية المثلية الجنسية في مصر هي قضية دسمة و لكن للاسف يشتهيها كل من يبحث عن الشهرة و كل من تخول له نفسه في تطبيق الفضيلة و الاخلاق و ذلك علي حساب حياة و خصوصيات ارواح اخري .
Victims of the bathhouse raid, in a screenshot from Mona Iraqi’s television show: From Al Masry Al Youm
