Israel passes 'harsh' immigration law

Photo by runran

By Paul Canning

A law which could lead to the indefinite detention of asylum seekers has been passed by the Israeli parliament.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voted for the bill, which his spokesman called part of a “multitiered strategy to deal with the challenge of illegal immigration to Israel.”

The bill has been sharply criticized by refugee advocates, and is seen as targeting some 50,000 Africans who have entered Israel illegally since 2005, according to Israeli government estimates.

And in a country built by refugees it has caused soul-searching with the conservative Jerusalem Post in a November 11 Editorial saying:

Now with a sovereign country of its own the Jewish people must not only serve as a moral example of how developed countries should deal with refugees and asylum-seekers, but also make sure that a strong Jewish majority is maintained in a sovereign Jewish state.

The law is the first one dealing with refugees - until now they have been managed under an emergency law from 1954.

The amended law will enable the Israeli authorities to hold in administrative detention for up to three years migrant workers and asylum seekers with their children. This is not unusual, although harsh. Australia, for example, also holds asylum seekers in detention for long periods although it is retreating from that policy because of the growing evidence that it produces serious mental harm. Contrary to that trend, the Israeli law's proponents argued that long detention periods would deter refugees.

Anyone who is fleeing from a so-called “enemy” country can be held indefinitely. This can mean those refugees and their children fleeing genocide from the Darfur region of Sudan or gays fleeing Iraq. The law stipulates that persons originating from such countries or areas are not to be bailed from detention under any conditions.

Any refugee or migrant committing the most minor infraction of Israeli law could be jailed from three years to life.

"This is extremely irregular, because in Israel today it is legally impossible to keep a person in custody for years without putting him on trial and proving his guilt in a legal procedure," Knesset legal advisor Eyal Yinon told the Constitution Committee last month.

The law will criminalize what it calls ‘irregular entry’ and makes no provision for those fleeing persecution.

It creates a summary removal procedure — within 72 hours — without giving the individual an adequate opportunity to challenge their deportation. There is no distinction made for how children will be treated.

The Justice Ministry had proposed that those aiding refugees could be criminally prosecuted - providing them with shelter could mean a prison sentence of between five and 15 years. That provision was amended at the last moment, so it no longer applies to organizations or people who provide humanitarian aid.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) has called the law:

“one of the most dangerous bills ever presented in the Knesset.”

Israeli activist Elizabeth Tsurkov wrote that:

The law is designed to target the weakest of the groups living in Israel – survivors of genocide, civil war, prolonged servitude, torture and rape – by using a law originally intended to combat armed saboteurs. Past attempts to pass this law (which was first drafted in 2006) were foiled due to a harsh public response. However, following years of systematic incitement against refugees by Israel government officials, the Israeli public now largely sees refugees as illegal migrants, undeserving of sympathy, and as a result, this inhumane law has now become reality.

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The Africans reaching Israel face appalling conditions on the way with NGO EveryOne Group reporting only yesterday about 44 more Eritreans kidnapped for ransom in the Northern Sinai, including six children. They also reported that another African released by traffickers had then been tortured and shot in the leg by Egyptian police.

There have also been multiple, grisly reports of migrants in Egypt being targeted for body parts.

Related articles

• Israel proposing indefinite detention of refugees (madikazemi.blogspot.com) 
• Video: The law that crosses the line (madikazemi.blogspot.com)

Migrants in Egypt targeted for body parts

By Paul Canning

People fleeing persecution in countries like Eritrea are being killed in Egypt for their body parts.

According to a doctor in a town on the Sudan-Egypt border quoted by South Africa's Weekend Argus newspaper, a number of “disemboweled bodies” have been discovered. Organs, especially kidneys, were missing.

A recent car crash in Sinai provided evidence. The doctor who was driving the car was killed and, inside the vehicle, officials discovered a small refrigerator containing several human organs. There is other evidence including photographs from a morgue in the Egyptian port town of al-Arish showing scars in the abdomens of refugees who did not make it.

At least 27 refugees have alleged that Egyptian Bedouin people-smugglers have threatened to steal their organs unless they or their families paid money, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) Israel says.

The Egyptian authorities are known for ignoring the treatment of migrants by traffickers and others, or, in the case of those trying for the Israeli border, actually shooting to kill. They deny the evidence of any trade in body parts.

Italian-based Eritrean agency Agenzia Habeshia provided evidence of some 300 Eritreans and Ethiopians who are being held in police stations in Aswan in Southern Egypt and in the military camp of Shelal in “inhuman and degrading conditions”.

The inter-governmental organisation International Organisation for Migrants (IOM) has listed the situation in Aswan as “very serious”.

Beatings are a regular feature of detention and political and religious refugees in particular are subjected to torture to make them sign “voluntary repatriation requests”.

IOM say that last week more than 100 Christian Eritreans who suffer religious persecution and fear for their lives in Eritrea, were beaten repeatedly until they signed.

“Refugees and asylum-seekers returned to Eritrea have been detained incommunicado and tortured upon return,” Amnesty International said. They have accused the Egyptians of denying refugees access to UNHCR.

The situation in camps run by traffickers is worse, with slavery well documented aside from the alleged, lucrative body parts trade. In the Sinai, criminals hold hostage, kill, torture, and rape migrants.

PHR Israel earlier this year published a survey based on interviews with 284 asylum seekers who made it to Israel. Some 44 per cent said they witnessed violence and/or fatalities of other asylum seekers while they were in the Sinai and the vast majority (88 per cent) stated they experienced severe hunger and food deprivation.

Many women have asked for abortions after being raped.

A leader from the largest Bedouin tribe told CNN said he was aware that rogue elements of his tribe are engaged in people trafficking, bonded labor and torture.

Several hundred Eritreans were recently released from hostage by local Bedouin police working with an NGO coalition. But authorities have been slow to act, if at all, despite being given details about individual criminals.

Related articles

• Israel proposing indefinite detention of refugees (madikazemi.blogspot.com)
• Scores freed after CNN documentary (thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com)

Video: Egyptian LGBT to occupy Tahrir Square on January 1

Source: Global Voices

By Mona Kareem

If Islamists were the ones to appeal as threatening to women and religious minorities in Egypt, then they are not alone when it comes to opposing passing LGBT rights in post-revolution Egypt. Recently, a Facebook page was established to promote the rights of homosexuals and to call on them to gather on the 1 January, 2012, in Tahrir Square to demand their rights.

Hundreds joined the page, not necessarily to support the demands, but to write homophobic comments, murder threats, and to cite Quran verses that show how Islam forbids homosexuality and defines it as a major sin. In one of the pictures posted by the page admin, a comment is written to define the page and to justify the rights of homosexuals to a normal life [ar]:

من حقنا الظهور في المجتمع بشكل علني لحمايه نفسنا و لحمايه المجتمع من اضطهاد المثليين لان المجتمع اللي لا يقبل الاخر يبقى مريض

We have the right to come out in society and to protect ourselves and protect our society from oppressing homosexuals because a society that doesn't accept the other is a sick one.

To explain why they have chosen to protest in Tahrir Square in January, the page had a post saying:

من نحن: نحن مجموعه من شباب مصر المثلي الجنس..نزلنا الميدان و شاركنا في الثوره..و نرى الان انه لنا كل الحق في العيش باحترام و علانيه..فنحن جزء من مصر الثوره ..فلا يزايد علينا احد

We are a group of gay Egyptian youth. We were in Tahrir and we took part in the revolution. We see that each of us has the right to have a life of respect in public. We are part of Egypt's revolution and we won't allow anyone to question our loyalty.

In one of its status updates, the page admin posted a message that s/he received from a gay Egyptian man, who was afraid to post it himself after he saw the insults and threats filling the page's wall:

ايه الضرر لما يكون في اتنين من نفس الجنس في مكان ما في العالم نايميين في حضن بعض؟؟ انا ضريتك في ايه؟؟

اخدت حاجة بتاعتك؟؟ اكلت اكلك؟؟ ايه؟؟ انا انسان احس واحب واكره واغضب واسامح وافرح

What's the harm if two people from the same sex somewhere in this world are hugging each other? How did I harm you? Did I take something that is yours? Did I eat your food? What? I am a human who feels, loves, hates, gets angry, forgives, and feels happy!

The page admin has also posted a note to media stating the reason behind rejecting interviews:

لكننا نعتذر لجميع الصحفيين عن عدم التواصل معهم..حيث اننا نرى ان تناول الاعلام لهذا الحدث الان سيؤدي الى احداث بلبله و ضجه اعلاميه قد تؤدي الى اجهاض اليوم من اساسه وارهاب شخصيات مثقفه وطنيه كانت قد ابدت موافقتها على المشاركه..و نرى انه من الانسب تغطيه الحدث وقت حدوثه وسيتم توجيه دعوات لجميع المؤسسات الاعلاميه في حينه

We apologize to all journalists for not responding to them. We think if media talks about this, there will be a big fuss which might lead to the failure of the national gay day we are planning. It will also make some national personages and intellectuals change their minds about attending the day after giving us their approval. We see it's better if the event gets covered at the time it takes place and we will invite media to be there then.

Another status came as a reply to all the threats that the page had on its wall:

الى الساده المصدومين من اعداد المثليين في مصر : احنا موجودين بينكم من زمان لكن انتم فرضتم علينا نعيش تحت الارض و دفنتم رؤسكم في الرمل كالنعام..ثانيا :كفايه بلطجه ومحاولات ارهاب لينا مش هانسمح لحد يشكك في وطنيتنا

To those who are shocked of how many of us exist in Egypt: we have lived with you for a long time but you forced us to live hiding. Stop you terror attempts; we do not allow you to question our patriotism.

The page has also posted a YouTube video which plays a written message from a gay Egyptian who says that he is just another citizen who contributes to the society and respects all, and expects to be treated the same in his own country.

Read more »

LGBT Muslims in Europe organise conference

CALEM, the Confederation of Associations LGBTQI European and Muslim, is organising a conference in December in Brussels, "to enable inclusive Muslims, and particularly those who happen to be LGBTQIA individuals, to express their sexuality in peace, while defending their civic rights and human dignity through ideas and dialogue. "

The conference also aims to 'actively contribute to a reformed and genuinely inclusive representation of Islam' and a 'positive and constructive dialogue about Islam, within the Muslim world'

CALEM brings together four LGBT Muslim organisations, from Belgium, South Africa, France, Sudan and Egypt.

Speakers at the conference include Amina Wadud, a university professor "struggling for an Islamic feminism", Islamic Scholar Muhsin Hendricks, who is a human rights activist focusing on gender and sexual diversity in Islam, Ludovic Lotfi Mohamed Zahed, founder of the French LGBT Muslim collective HM2F, and Abdennur Prado, President of the Catalan ligue for Islamic reform  -

The conference will be attended by CALEM sister organizations from Europe, the Arabic world, Asia and Africa.

CALEM say that their network is "at the avant-garde of the reflection about Islam and sexual or gender diversity." In early 2011 they were involved in creating an International Network of Inclusive Muslims (INIMuslim).

INIMuslim (“I am Muslim” in Arabic) is a collaborative initiative of official organizations and associations worldwide, and selected experts, working internationally for the inclusivity of Muslims marginalized on the basis of their sexual or gender orientation, advocating both against “homophobia” and “islamophobia”, to defend their human rights.

The conference will include much discussion but will also include an "inclusive Muslim marriage religious celebration, thanks to our inclusive imams."

Video: New documentary on Arab Spring features Lebanese lesbian activist

Source: Ahram

Rebecca Saade

A new documentary about the Arab Spring has had its debut screening in Sweden, adding to the growing number of films about the region’s revolutions.

Zero Silence, a Swedish production, takes us on a journey through Tunisia, Egypt and Lebanon beginning in 2009, over a year before the revolutions began.

Alexandra Sandels, one of the filmmakers, has been a journalist in the Arab region for over five years and speaks Arabic. Her colleagues, Jonny von Wallström and Javeria Rizvi Kabanihave have also worked in the region before, particularly in Egypt.

The film gives an insight into the lives of activists in the three countries but offers little new material for a regular Arab viewer.

“When we started the project we felt that voices from the MENA region were missing internationally,” Sandels told Ahram Online. “Media often portrays violence and what we were interested in documenting were the ordinary people and members of the young generation pushing for change in their home countries...This might be obvious to an Egyptian but not necessarily for the rest of the world.”

Despite the intensity of the topic, the documentary has poetic undertones and an unhurried pace that gives the subjects moments of reflection. The soundtrack and the composition of shots give the film many picturesque sequences and the editing helps maintain a consistent flow.

Sandels had known her subjects before shooting began and it’s evident that most of them were at ease during the filming.

 “It was important for us that the audience would feel as if they were 'hanging out' with the subjects,” she explained.

The film focuses on Egyptian activists Wael Abbas and Hossam El-Hamalawy, Rebecca Saade from Lebanon and Lilia Wesalty from Tunisia.

In pre-revolution footage of Abbas and Hamalawy they talk about the immediacy of an uprising (Hamalawy says that the best solution is a general strike).

Wesalty in Tunisia relays the events of the Tunisian uprising and talks about the newfound ownership of public space, something missing during the Ben Ali regime.

Saade’s story is more personal, talking about her life as a lesbian in Lebanon and her LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) activism.

Read more »

In Egypt, LGBT 'increasingly visible'

Queen Boat image via Wikipedia

Source: Washington Post

By Ernesto Londono

Pop star Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” was playing on speakers set around the dimly lit dance floor. Kholoud Bidak, a 33-year-old lesbian, leaned against an old piano, scanning the entrance warily as guests paid $6 to get into one of Cairo’s increasingly common underground gay parties.

Just months ago, a raid by Egypt’s vice police would have been a concern at gatherings such as this fete for a man in red shorts who was turning 26. But on the recent sweltering Thursday night, as men in pastel-colored, V-neck T-shirts streamed in, a crackdown was the last thing on Bidak’s mind. She worried whether a certain woman might walk through the door.

Bidak doesn’t have a girlfriend. “I have drama,” she said.

Egypt’s gays emerged buoyed from the uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak in February. Increasingly visible and willing to speak up, they show how upheavals across the Arab world could prove to be social and cultural revolutions, albeit with uncertain outcomes.

Could Egyptian gays emerge as the pioneers of social liberalization in a region where a wave of revolts has forced out autocrats and raised the prospect that largely youth-led movements could upend dogmatic mores? Or in the months ahead, might gays and other liberal groups lose out against a rise of fundamental Islamists  — another long-oppressed segment of society empowered by revolution?

Here in Egypt, gays and lesbians have turned a handful of public venues into spaces where it’s safe for men to dance with men and where women sit on each other’s laps. And activists are quietly putting together campaigns they hope will enable gays and lesbians to live openly in a country where sexual minorities have long been ostracized.

Web sites used to meet gay men are once again wildly popular because police appear to have ceased using them to conduct sting operations. Some people have gone as far as creating an anonymous Facebook page with a provocative goal: “A Gay Pride March for Egypt in 2020.”

Most of the revelers at this second-story venue, tucked behind the courtyard of a decaying downtown building, were in their 20s and 30s. They tossed back bottles of $3 Egyptian Stella beer and glasses of lukewarm red wine. A DJ alternated between pop hits — lots of Lady Gaga — and songs in Arabic.

Scott Long, an American human rights researcher who has studied Egypt’s gay community for years, watched in amazement as hips swung on the wooden dance floor.

“For me, it’s an astonishing thing to come here and find that there is a community,” said Long, 48.

Read more »

Video: A gay Arab, Middle Eastern 'It gets better'

Via Tolerance Leads to Mutual Respect of ALL Arabs

Assem Al Tawdi, an Egyptian human rights defender and an education specialist (in Arabic & English).



Ferras Al Qaisi, a singer/songwriter of Arab origin, with a special message that "It Gets Better".

Read more »

How do you say gay in Arabic?

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Source: Goethe Institute

By Rufus Kamesh

How do you say gay in Arabic? You just don't. Because gays don't exist, or rather shouldn't exist. Arabic has no single word to express the condition of people who love people of the same sex, apart from the formal, obsolete word mithly, a literal translation of the Latin word homosexual.

Yet many words are used to address them, words of shame and anger, slur and abuse. The most common are khawal, which in the past defined men who dressed like women and performed in belly dance shows, and shaz, literally abnormal, unnatural and deviant.

It goes without saying that gay people in Arabic countries have been facing harsh times: no rights, no dignity, no public existence. I am a lesbian in Cairo, a real one, no jokes, no hoaxes. My privilege, I am a foreigner. I came back to Egypt a few months ago, with a quite short, unusual and difficult-to-manage hairstyle. From the very first day, I could not walk in the streets without attracting any insults, comments or taunts. The question enti wad walla bet ( are you a boy or a girl?) has become the leitmotif of my stay in Egypt. I have been told by women that girls are not allowed to wear such a masculine haircut; God prohibits it and suggests that women let their hair grow. I have been rejected from the feminine band wagon, because i look like a boy, I have been bothered in the masculine one, because after all I am a girl.

In Egypt, as in many other countries of the West, gender and homosexuality are two issues hard to deal with; there is a spontaneous and inborn categorization of people sexual orientation according to their sex, simply men go with women and women go with men. But then it happens also that men go with men and in this case, as a topos of ancient civilizations, if the man remains active during the relation, he can still consider himself a macho man. As a result there is not space for other kind of love, expressions of gender or androgyny.

Since the 11th of May 2001, when on an ordinary night at the Queen Boat in Cairo, 52 Egyptian men were arrested on a charge of homosexuality (actually, the initial allegation was "contempt of heavinly religions and the creation of new Satan-worshipping cult", infact in the Egyptian legal system there is not a single law condamning homosexuality), lifes of gay people in Egypt started to be harsher and harsher.

The Queen Boat night has been the worst egyptian sexual scandal in the history of the nation. After a year of tortures, investigation, brutal and obsolete anal examinations (based on Tardieu Theory dated 1857), 23 out of the 52 arrested that night have been found guilty of debauchery, according to the evidences. Evidences included: spontaneous claim (under violent beating and punishments), the results of the anal examination (an anus found to be shaped in an abonrmal way is a clear reason that that person must be gay and a passive one), the colour of the underwear dressed the night of the imprisonment and last but not least, the length of the hair.

Since the old regime fell down, hundreds of Egyptians have occupied Midan Tahrir and the main streets of the Capital to ask for rights, political transparency and democratic elections. Minority groups have been enjoying this transitional period to break cover demanding for law that protect their dignity and their interests, but the time for gay people to go and fight for their rights has yet to come. Actually, it's a little bit hard thinking about gay rights in Egypt, when the basic rights for women are denied. The machism and the patriarchalism that constitute the Egyptian society are an obstacle to the development of a legal gay community, gays are seen as women, that is to say weak, sensitive and unable to accomplish any serious assignment. And if asking for rights and respect means too much now, the Cairene homosexual community is working to give help and support to the group itself.

The 25th of January Revolution doesn't envolve gay people, doesn't envolve women. What Egypt really needs is a sexual and a feminist revolt which could open the minds and sweep away years and years of sexism, religious prejudices and taboos.

Related articles

• Homosexuality acceptance in Moroccan society today (madikazemi.blogspot.com)
• Gays in Mideast fear new political era (msnbc.msn.com)

Video: some Arab and African nations obstruct on HIV/Aids at UN, whilst South Africa makes historic pro-LGBT stand

This video is of the first person living with HIV/Aids prepared to be open about their sero-status in Egypt.

Source: AlJazeeraEnglish

According to the UN specialist news source Inner City Press the Syrian representative denounced a HIV/Aids resolution on Friday at the United Nations whilst pretending to speak for all Arab countries

Matthew Russell Lee reports that Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari claimed that the Arab Group objected to the listing of vulnerable groups - which includes 'men who have sex with men' (MSM) and others often labeled 'MARPS' (most at risk populations) - in the resolution saying that such designations are up to member states and their “national characteristics.”

But Green was told by Lebanon's expert on the AIDS negotiations that Syria did not speak for all of the Arab Group: “He was speaking for himself.”

During the same session, The Holy See (the Vatican) denounced condoms, ignoring the Pope's recent historic statement.

Lee asked UNAIDS chief Michel Sidibe about Iran's speech, where they denounced “risky and immoral behavior”. He replied that he will keep speaking out on these “controversial” topics, continue to work on it. There's much work to be done in Iran, he was asked - “a lot,” Sidibe replied. 

Lee heard numerous complaints from civil society and medical groups about the politics and prejudice inside the closed UN room.

Read more »

In Dubai, fear stalks gay relationships

Image via Wikipedia

Source: Gay Middle East

By Dan Littauer and Sami Al Ali

The UAE newspaper The National reported 25 May that a man was accused today, in Dubai, of tying up his colleague and roommate, then stabbing him in the neck after accusing him of spreading rumours that he’s gay.

The Egyptian AM, 27, denied the charge of attempting to kill his compatriot MA, 37, when he appeared before the Dubai Criminal Court of First Instance.

According to records, the two worked at a glass installation company and on the day of the incident, in December 2010, they returned to their apartment in International City for a midday break.

MA told prosecutors that he took a one-hour nap in the bedroom, and when he woke, he saw AM sitting on the bed holding a rope. He said AM convinced him that he wanted to play a game that included tying him up. He testified that AM tied his hands and legs, and wrapped the rope around his body.

"When I told him that my hands hurt, he answered that its better than your heart hurting you," said MA, who then untied himself and followed AM into the living room to ask him what he meant, records show.

AM then told him he heard MA was talking about him behind his back, telling people AM was gay. MA said he denied it, but AM grabbed a kitchen knife and stabbed him in the neck while he was watching TV.

Records say AM stabbed him four more times, in the abdomen and face, shouting, "Die, die, die – you scandalized me, all of Egypt knows I'm gay."

MA said he got the knife away from AM, who bit him in the arm. Then MA went downstairs and told the security guard to call rescue workers and the police.

MA said AM followed him down and told him, "You shouldn't die – I am the one who should die."

A police officer testified that when he responded to the incident, he found MA lying bleeding at the entrance of the building and AM sitting next to him saying over and over, "I wish I was in your place."

The next hearing is on June 8.

Sami Al Ali, an LGBT activist in the Middle East commented on this incident as follows:

Perhaps it's not the first incident, and for sure will not be the last in the Arab world. The Egyptian guy's case in Dubai reveals the social fear of gay Arabs even while they are away from their countries, the fear of facing society, and even of accepting their sexual identity.

Read more »

Ten years since the Cairo Queen Boat raid

Queen Boat detainees listen to their sentences being read out in a Cairo courtroom, November 14, 2001

Source: Arabs for tolerance

A personal account of a mans experience of the Queen Boat police raid on the early morning of May 11, 2001, Cairo, Egypt:

I had a rough day and I really felt like going out. I called up a friend of mine to see if he would like to go out with me to the “Queen Boat” – a boat that is docked on the bank of the Nile River off the Island of Zamalek, opposite of the Marriot hotel. My friend said that he was tired and in no mood to go out. He suggested that his house mate and our mutual friend go out with me instead because he had had a really bad day.

Our friend Fadi was fired from his job simply for being Christian and could not do anything about it.  Fadi was reluctant at first but I kept pestering him until he agreed to go out with me. We agreed that we will meet there, outside the boat.

I finished up getting ready and then took a cab to the boat. Fadi was waiting for me, it was a little before midnight. We greeted each other with the usual kiss on each check. We walked across the path way from the sidewalk to the docked boat.

The boat had 3 levels, the club was at the bottom level. We went down the stairs, paid at the entrance and entered the club. Music was blaring, some people were dancing, others were at the bar. As we walked to our seats I remember thinking that it was unusually empty. Usually there would be a lot more men at this hour on a Thursday night.  I didn’t think much of it and continued walking to our seats.

Read more »

Will the "New Middle East" be a welcoming place for gays and lesbians?

Image by marcovdz via Flickr

Source: Trustlaw

By Hossein Alizadeh

Karim is a 27-year-old medical professional who until recently was doing everything possible to remain under the radar of former President Zine al-Abedine Ben Ali’s secret service, while trying his best to help other gay men in Tunisia.  This included organizing support groups, teaching about sexually transmitted diseases, and arranging counseling — all while  avoiding politics.

The popular uprising in late December changed all of this. He began posting images of demonstrations and victims of government crackdowns on Facebook and toward the end, even caricatures of the dictator himself. Karim is one of many gay Tunisians who overcame his fear and joined millions at the barricades to overthrow a corrupt and dictatorial regime.

Like all other citizens, Arab lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) individuals suffered through decades of injustice and oppression from despotic rulers and their regimes. In the headiness of the current moment, there is an expectation that the “new wave of freedom” will benefit LGBT people. But will they equally enjoy the fruits of this struggle? Is it time for LGBT Arabs to step out of the closet and demand basic human rights?

Read more »

In Israel, asylum seekers building fence to keep out other asylum seekers

Source: Haaretz

The government is employing Eritrean asylum seekers to help build a border fence designed to keep out other migrants seeking to enter the country from Africa via the Sinai Peninsula.

A man who gave his name as August, one of four Eritreans working for a contractor along the fence route, said he had sought work for a long time before he was told a construction job was available near Eilat.   

He had arrived in Israel five months ago. According to August, the hardest part of the journey was trekking through the African desert. Now, once the border fence along the Egyptian frontier is completed, migrants will find it even more difficult to enter the country.

August laughed when asked if he felt guilty that he was helping put up a structure designed to keep fellow Eritreans out of the country. "I have a family that remained in Eritrea," he said. "While they would love to come here, they know the journey isn't easy." As August tells it, he simply has no choice but to earn a living any way he can.

While the state has legally barred its citizens from employing asylum seekers from Africa, it doesn't enforce the ban. Months ago, the Interior Ministry's Population Registry inserted a clause in the temporary-status visas given to asylum seekers stating that under no circumstances could they be hired.

Read more »

Egypt is no safe haven for refugees: will things improve? Or worsen

Source: Huffington Post

By Lindsey Parietti

Ghada El-Khafagy fled Iraq four years ago with her two young children, in a journey that took her to Jordan, back to Baghdad and then finally to Egypt, but after two weeks of an often violent uprising, this second homeland is no longer a refuge.

“Please do not ask me about how I spent the past week. It was really terrible. I spent most of the time crying at home,” the 31-year-old single mother said. “I’m afraid to go out, to see anyone. I don’t know what might happen.”

Her decision to leave underscores the desperate condition of many of the roughly 100,000 refugees and asylum-seekers living in Cairo. Facing shortages of food and fuel, marauding street gangs and tanks in the streets, many have decided to flee.

For years, Egypt has provided a new home for hundreds of thousands of African and Middle Eastern refugees, a safe haven in the middle of a tumultuous region.

Read more »

Will Ban Ki-Moon back up his positive words on LGBTI rights?

Image via Wikipedia

By Paul Canning

Inner City Press, which covers the United Nations beat, reports that the application for observer status by the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) has been tossed out again - they've been trying for it for ten years or more.

At the UN's Economic and Social Council the vote called by Pakistan to throw out ILGA's application went:

Peru No, Russia Yes, Senegal Yes, Sudan Yes, Turkey No, USA No, Venezuela Yes, Belgium No, Bulgaria No, Burundi Yes, China Yes, Cuba __, India No, Israel No, Kyrgyzstan Abstain, Morocco Yes, Mozambique Not present, Nicaragua Yes, Pakistan Yes

In the UN's committee on non-governmental organization last week an application for accreditation of the Autonomous Women's Center from Serbia, which mentioned discrimination against lesbians, was questioned and opposed by Pakistan, Morocco, Russia and Sudan.

Pakistan's representative asked sarcastically if the discrimination of lesbians was “against men.” He mocked the application's reference to disability, asking if “lesbianism is a disability.”

An application by the Australian Lesbian Medical Association was similarly mocked:

Pakistan's delegate asked if homosexuals are more prone to sexually transmitted diseases, in terms of having and transmitting those diseases. He asked the NGO support its response with medical documents...

Egypt's representative said:

He did not recognize there was any legally bounding definitions for terms as sexual preferences or orientation or that such terms had been defined by any internationally recognized instrument in the human rights arena.

This is the same argument brought up in the December vote in which lesbians and gays were added to a UN resolution against extrajudicial executions.

Pakistan is pushing the point. Last week they argued at the UN that whatever UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon may have said, it was on his own behalf, not on behalf of member states. Discrimination against gays and lesbians is “not recognized by the UN,” says Pakistan.

Ban Ki-Moon has spoken about LGBTI rights numerous times. In December, and notably in relation to the debate on extrajudical killings, he said:

“Where there is tension between cultural attitudes and universal human rights, universal human rights must carry the day. Personal disapproval, even society's disapproval, is no excuse to arrest, detain, imprison, harass or torture anyone - ever.”

Last week he said:

"We must reject persecution of people because of their sexual orientation or gender identity -- who may be arrested, detained or executed for being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. They may not have popular or political support, but they deserve our support in safeguarding their fundamental human rights."

"Cultural practice cannot justify any violation of human rights. Women's treatment as second-class citizens has been justified, at times, as a 'cultural practice.' So has institutional racism and other forms of inhuman punishment. But that is merely an excuse. When our fellow humans are persecuted because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, we must speak out. That is what I am doing here, that is my consistent position. Human rights are human rights everywhere, for everyone."

Pakistan's statement has led Inner City Press has asked for "the Secretariat's - ideally, the S-G's -- response to this characterization of the S-G's statements and whether discrimination against LGBT is “recognized by the UN.”" And also whether Ki-Moon will defend those NGOs asking to be recognised by the UN.

Related articles

• Anger as pan-African human rights body rejects lesbian observers (madikazemi.blogspot.com)
• At the United Nations, Arab and African nations get gay reference cut from violence measure (madikazemi.blogspot.com)
• Historic UN vote on 'gay killings' sparks international reaction (madikazemi.blogspot.com)

Video: Egyptian gays are revolting

Edited: A previous version of this story included references to an individual who has told us that he is not gay, We have deleted and removed any reference to him.

By Paul Canning

Amongst the crowds protesting the 30 year dictatorship of Hosni Mubarek in Egypt are many lesbians and gay men.

They have also been amongst the opposition during the past years.

Bahaa Saber

Another out gay political activist is Bahaa Saber, who last year was arrested, beaten and sexually assaulted by police. Egyptian security forces are frequently accused of sexually abusing suspects; a 2007 video that ended up on the Internet showed police officers assaulting a bus driver with a stick.

Saber, a very brave man whose name deserves to be more widely known outside Egypt, has been arrested, tortured and thrown in jail many times.

"After a while," he told the LA Times last year, "you stop paying attention to the charges they stack against you."

With each jailing, he said, he met activists, laborers, professors, taxi drivers, Islamists, journalists and others arrested by security forces. Saber is not the ideal Arab dissident; his homosexuality has made him a curiosity to opposition groups and an easily vilified target for police and religious conservatives.

He told the LA Times that he was contemplating seeking asylum in another country, but didn't want to betray all those years on the protest line, all those months spent in prison.

His body shook. He wiped his eyes; he said that no matter what, he would never fit in here.

He stepped out, turning the corner toward riot policemen peering through the wire mesh of transport trucks. About 200 protesters were chanting for better wages. He rushed toward them, throwing his fist into the air.

Last Thursday the website GayEgypt issued this call to action:

Egypt's gay and lesbian community has had enough of years of police brutality and torture and GayEgypt.com calls on all lesbians and gays to join their brothers and sisters on the street to peacefully express their demand for immediate change.

It is now carrying news and information about the protests including this photo gallery (nb: download speed is slow due to authorities imposing internet restrictions). There have been reports of many lesbians and gays joining the protesters in Alexandria and Cairo's Tahrir Square.

Last October we published this everyday tale from the Rebel With A Cause blog of police harassment and torture of gay, or in this case 'gay appearing', people in Egypt:

It's not very clear why they decided to be that violent and abusive; although it seems to be basically driven by homophobia as Kareem's appearance looked “different”. Kareem screamed and ran towards police informers nearby but they didn’t bother to help the boy.

Appalled by what they saw, a group of friends sitting at a downtown café decided to intervene and help Kareem from the brutal attack. The one who stepped in first; Mohamed was met by violence and he was slapped and hit too. He was told by the perpetrators “Why do you want to help him? Are you a faggot too?”

Since the fight started to involve more people, the police finally started to take action and step in. They automatically took the side of the perpetrators because the victim seemed to be a homosexual.

The police tortured Kareem and decided to perform a rectal examination to determine if he was a homosexual! This was done using violence and in front of the perpetrator! Mohamed was met by sarcasm and ridicule. Police informers harassed him.

In 2005 Human Rights Watch reported that the Egyptian government arrests and routinely tortures men suspected of consensual homosexual conduct.

African migrants report torture, rape on way to Israel

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Source: Al-Masry Al-Youm

African migrants en route to Israel are subject to torture, rape and assault by traffickers in Egypt's Sinai desert, Israeli Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) said, citing interviews it conducted with victims.

"From January to November 2010 we referred 165 women who travelled through Sinai to (Israeli) hospitals for abortions. We believe half of these women were sexually assaulted in Sinai," said Shahar Shoham, a case worker in PHR's open clinic in Jaffa.

PHR has been collecting testimony from migrants who say Bedouins whom they pay to smuggle them through Egypt's border with Israel hold them for days and sometimes weeks, demanding more cash and abusing them physically until the money is paid.

"I was beaten, electrocuted, tied up and thrown outside at night. We ate once in three days. There was one woman -- the traffickers raped her," Germai Omar, a 30-year-old Eritrean farmer, told Reuters in Tel Aviv.

He said he was detained for a month in the Sinai by the traffickers who demanded he add US$1,500 to the original fee of US$2,500. Omar contacted his family by cellphone and they gave the cash to the smugglers' contacts in Cairo.

Israel says some 35,000 migrants from Eritrea, Sudan and other African countries have entered the country illegally mostly in search of work.

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Wikileaks, the US Embassy Cables and Migration Issues

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Source: Franck Duvell: Diary on Human Migration Research

When ‘Cable gate’ – Wikileak’s publication of the US embassies’ reports to the US State Department Washington - hit the headlines in November and December 2010 I was wondering whether there is anything in it for migration and migration policy researchers. So far, I am not aware whether anybody else has already gone through the documents, so I had a quick look. Unfortunately, only a fraction of all cables – 2000 out of 251,000 - are already published on Wikileaks’ website (http://213.251.145.96/cablegate.html).

In short, migration and refugee issues only play a very minor role in the set of documents I have sifted through. And where these are mentioned this is mostly in the context of terrorism, general threats to regional stability and security or with respect to Muslim minority communities. The first impression from these cables is that from the US American consular perspective migration as such is not considered a major issue and is not causing great anxiety whilst Muslim migration and minorities and to some extent border security are issues of concern.

Worldwide: Some reference to migration can be found in the already notorious ‘reporting and collecting needs’ issued by the Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. For instance, the request for West Africa lines out to collect information on ‘population and Refugee Issues’, including ‘population movements in the region, and governments' involvement and response, indications of actual or potential refugee movements within or into the region, locations and conditions of refugee camps and informal refugee and internally displaced persons (IDP) gathering sites and transit routes’ government capability and willingness to assist refugees and IDPs, health and demographic statistics of refugees and IDPs, dynamics and impact of migration and demographic shifts’ (2009, http://213.251.145.96/cable/2009/04/09STATE37566.html). And also in Hungary information is requested on ‘demography, including ...migration’ and ‘plans and efforts to respond to declining birth rates, including through promotion of immigration’ (2009, http://213.251.145.96/cable/2009/06/09STATE62393.html). Similar requests were sent to many other countries.

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In Egypt, lesbians 'pass' as heterosexual

Source: Consultancy Africa

By Milandré van Wyk (1) 

The last thirty years of Egypt’s history have told a tale of regression, oppression and the slow erosion of democratic institutions. The Egyptian state, under the leadership of Hosni Mubarak, has been in a state of emergency for almost the entire duration of his presidency. Human rights have been shifted to a back burner in this military regime, with tyranny, harassment, and torture being the order of the day. The Queen Boat Trial (2) of 2001 was a very clear and pronounced display of the Egyptian state’s homophobia. This CAI paper addresses the issue of female homosexuality in Egypt as experienced on a micro level.(3) Theoretical approaches to homosexuality in the Middle East are considered along with the political, religious and social forces which interplay in the lives of homosexual women in Cairo. 

The ‘debauchery law’ renders male homosexuality de facto illegal through allowing the state to persecute men who are suspected to be gay.(4) This law does not, however, apply to female citizens and the distinction between the sexes begs for debate on the existence and discourse of lesbianism in Egypt.

Military rule and homosexuality

The current political culture in Egypt is one that completely disregards human rights and alternative gender identities. Declaration of emergency law in a state virtually suspends all democratic institutions, putting everything under the iron fist of the military. Egyptians live in fear of the military and have no legal support in a case of confrontation. Ryn Gluckman (5) argues that militarism decreases civil liberties, freedom of expression and dissent. Marginal groups are silenced by political realities. It is during times of militancy that hate crimes increase and homosexual groups are amongst the first to be victimised in cultures of violence and fear. Militancy encourages a climate of fundamentalism, and this has been the case par excellence in Egypt.(6)

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Fact-checking the Israeli government’s incitement against migrants and refugees

Source: +972 Magazine

By Elizabeth Tsurkov

The public debate raging in Israel today about migrant workers and refugees is full of misleading statistics, slogans and bombastic headlines, which makes it hard to get to the core of the debate. Are migrant workers “taking over” cities across Israel, driving the crime rate up? Are the African “infiltrators” actually migrant workers exploiting Israel? Do migrant workers come to Israel to have babies that will anchor them to Israel? Here I’ll attempt to dispel some of these myths with statistics and a dose of common sense that often seems to elude this debate.

The most common myth about migrant workers and especially refugees is that they are prone to criminality (whether because of their culture/race or due to want). Reports in Israeli media abound quoting scared Israeli neighbors of foreigners who complain about the uptick in crime in their area since the migrants arrived, the foreigners “scary stares”, “hot temper” and “uncleanliness”. Even a report by the Israeli police stated that asylum seeker’s “appearance is threatening and harms the public’s sense of security”. However, the same police department, when pressed for details, provides data that shows an interesting trend – crime rates drop in Eilat as the number of asylum seekers in Israel increases (23% drop in crime since refugees began entering Israel five years ago). Similar data exists for the cities of Arad and Tel Aviv showing the same trend.

A second common myth that is aggressively promoted by the Israeli government is that migrant workers take jobs from Israelis, while the government continues to “import” 30,000 migrant workers per year. However, there is no correlation between the rate of unemployment and the number of migrant workers in Israel. According to Dr. Roy Wagner of Kav LaOved, “migrant workers are a growth engine and help create jobs: they work hard, make little money, and use services and products in the local market.” Wagner explained that unemployment can arise “when restrictive government policies force migrant workers and the local population to compete for the same segment of the labor market.”

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