Current Affairs

Student arrested for organising ‘homosexual concert’ accused of ‘debauchery’ in Egypt

Feb 12 2018
Written by Meka Beresford

Egyptian riot police stand in a line to prevent voters from approaching a polling station in the rural town of Kafr Duwar, 200 kilometers north of Cairo, during the second parliamentary electoral run-offs 26 November 2005. The fourth day of voting in the month-long election was marred by claims of voter intimidation and widespread irregularities. (Photo credit should read CRIS BOURONCLE/AFP/Getty Images)

A student has been arrested in Egypt after he was accused of committing “debauchery” by organising a “homosexual concert”.

The student from Giza, Egypt manages a company which organises concerts in the city.

(Photo by STRINGER/AFP/Getty Images)

He was arrested after he was accused of hiring a venue in order to host a concert.

The concert was allegedly only for LGBTQ people and was due to take place on Saturday.

The owner of the venue was also arrested.

Both have since been released but have been charged with “debauchery”.

The student has also faced criminal charges for organising the concert without a permit from authorities.

CAIRO, EGYPT: Egyptians with their faces covered, charged with engaging in homosexual activities and scorning Islam, enter a Cairo court under the protection of security men 14 November 2001. One of the 52 men was sentenced to five years in prison and several to three years at the end of their trial. The men were arrested in May following a party on a Nile riverboat. AFP PHOTO/Marwan NAAMANI (Photo credit should read MARWAN NAAMANI/AFP/Getty Images)

Men charged with homosexual activities in Egypt in 2001 (Getty)

Their arrest is one of many in a crackdown launched by Egyptian authorities on LGBTQ people.

A report released by the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights said that authorities are deliberately fuelling an anti-LGBT ‘moral panic’ in order to build support for a crackdown.

The report charts the horrific extent of the crisis, which has caused a dramatic surge in arrests of LGBT people.

It states: “The EIPR has observed an exponential increase in the number of individuals arrested because of their private sexual practices and/or sexual orientation.

“In what is now known as the as the Public Morality Investigation Unit’s campaign against LGBTQ individuals and men who have sex with men or those perceived as such.”

Egyptian family members of victims of the Port Said massacre react outside the Court of Cassation following the court's ruling in the case, in Cairo, on February 20, 2017. An Egyptian court upheld death sentences against 10 people convicted over rioting that claimed 74 lives at a stadium in Port Said in 2012, judicial and security officials said. The riot, the country's deadliest sports-related violence, broke out when fans of home team Al-Masry and Cairo's Al-Ahly clashed after a premier league match between the two clubs. / AFP PHOTO / MOHAMED EL-SHAHED (Photo credit should read MOHAMED EL-SHAHED/AFP/Getty Images)

(Getty)

EIPR estimates based on media monitoring that 232 people were arrested between the end of 2013 and March 2017.

The report alleges that morality police were also responsible for fuelling negative stories about LGBT people in order to stoke public fear, manufacturing “the creation of major sex scandals that receive exceptional media attention”.

Sources on the ground have repeatedly raised the alarm about Egypt’s so-called ‘Public Morality Investigation Unit’, which actively targets the gay community with raids and entrapment.

The situation worsened in September last year when the waving of a rainbow flag at a music concert was extensively derided in the press.

Sarah Hegazy, 28, and Ahmed Alaa, 21, were fined 2,000 Egyptian pounds ($113) and released.