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Day one of the trial: What Mona Iraqi accomplished
Justice, with paparazzi: Standard courthouse art from Cairo Today I went to the trial, with two Egyptian human rights activists — Dalia Abd El Hameed of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights...
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Update: Film festival fires Mona Iraqi
Not in our sandbox: Logo for Shnit’s “Cairo Playground” Shnit, the Swiss-based international short film festival, posted this on its website today: As of its annual Council meeting on December 22th in...
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Victory
UPDATE: The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights tells me (and the newspaper Al Wafd reports tonight) that the prosecution has formally appealed the not-guilty verdict against the 26 men. The...
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Why the crackdown in Egypt isn’t over, and what to do about it
Covering their faces, shackled defendants in the bathhouse case are dragged into court, January 12: Photo by Reuters It’s like watching a whole ramshackle building totter when a single brick is pulled...
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After Mona Iraqi: Some Egyptian voices
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...
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Four years
Today is the fourth anniversary of the Egyptian revolution. General Sisi’s regime has cancelled (“delayed”) any commemorations of a date it is indisposed to celebrate. Instead it is “mourning over the...
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Egypt’s Atrocity Investments Fair (Part one: The British connection)
Malouka Aldlouah in court; photo from Al Youm Al Sabbah (Youm7), January 31, 2015. I tried to blur her face; Youm7 didn’t. Look at two photographs. Above is Malouka Aldlouah, a 25-year-old transgender...
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One of Mona Iraqi’s victims tries to burn himself to death
Shameless I: Lt. Col. Ahmed Hashad of Cairo’s morals police — responsible for numerous arrests in Egypt’s brutal crackdown — appears on Mona Iraqi’s program, February 4 One of the 26 men arrested,...
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New arrests of alleged trans and gay people in Cairo
Seven victims: Still from Youm7 video, February 27 Some of us hoped the acquittal of victims in Mona Iraqi’s bathhouse raid would resonate longer than a few days or weeks; maybe prosecutors and police,...
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John Kerry to LGBT Egyptians: Enjoy jail
It’s so embarrassing. Sometimes I forget who I’ve just been torturing. Sisi meets with Kerry in Cairo, September 13, 2014. Photo: Aswat Masriya/Reuters I have on good authority from sources here in...
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Deport me!
So they’re going to deport gay foreigners from Egypt. My phone started ringing a few mornings ago, reporters wanting comments: solicitous but always with a subtext of What’s going to happen to you? I...
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Remembering the Queen Boat, fourteen years after
Defendants in the Queen Boat trial wait in court for the verdict to be read, Cairo, November 14, 2011: photo by Norbert Schiller The night of May 12, 2001 – fourteen years ago today – I worked in my...
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Tweet for Egypt on IDAHOT: Why it’s important
Image by Amr Okasha for http://www.correspondents.org/ar/ It’s the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia (IDAHOT, for short). Here’s one important thing you can do. Tweet, or...
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Paper Bird: Three years old and growing
Origami Wren by Roman Diaz, folded by Gilad Aharoni: from giladorigami.com It’s midway through this month of fundraising for A Paper Bird. Please consider giving $5, $10, $100 — whatever you can – to...
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الشرطة المصرية تلاحق المجتمع المثلي / Internet entrapment in Egypt: Protect...
الخصوصية ترقد في سلام / R.I.P. privacy (English version below) نحن نعلم الآن أن الشرطة في مصر تستخدم تطبيقات الهواتف في القبض على من يشتبه في كونهم مثليين أو متحولي/ات النوع الإجتماعي. مؤخراً تم القبض...
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Gay hanging in Iran: Atrocities and impersonations
Naqsh-e Jahan Square in Isfahan, Iran, with the Shah Mosque at its nearer end. Photo from Iranian.com I. Everybody on earth knows that last week a deal on Iran’s nuclear program was announced....
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Ahmed Seif al-Islam: In dark times
Ahmed Seif el-Islam, photographed by Platon for Human Rights Watch, 2011 Ahmed Seif al-Islam died one year ago today. I had meant to write something then, but I didn’t have the heart. No one had much...
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Oliver: Thoughts on love
Oliver, in a photo taken by a friend while I was in hospital for a week in May My little cat Oliver, whom I loved dearly, died in July. He was perhaps ten months old – with rescued street cats, of...
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تحديث: الشرطة المصرية تقوم بالقبض على من يُشتَبه في كونهم من المثليين و...
الشرطة تستخدم هويات مزيفة على شبكة الإنترنت للقبض على المُشتبه في كونِهم مثليين أو من متحولي النوع الإجتماعي. قامت الشرطة مؤخراً بالقبض على أربعة أفراد آخرين. يبدو إن تم القبض عليهم من خلال إستخدامهم...
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Entrapped! How to use a phone app to destroy a life
Love in the age of Grindr and Tinder. From http://media.giphy.com/ NOTE: For advice on how to avoid police entrapment and protect yourself on the Internet, see here (in Arabic) or here (in English and...
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