After being arrested in a boat raid at a discotheque in Cairo which is frequented by gays, the men have been held incommunicado, without access to legal representation or to their families since May 10.

However, the identities of those arrested in the boat raid are public knowledge. On May 15, the newspaper Al-Gomhoureya proceeded to list the names, ages, and occupations of 30 members of the "Satanist organization."

Describing the detained men as members of a "Satanist" organization, Egypt State Security officers have threatened to try them before a special security court whose judgments admit no appeal.

As homosexual acts are not illegal, officials of the High State Security Prosecution Office told the press that the men would be charged with "exploiting religion to promote extreme ideas to create strife and belittling revealed religions." The authorities have chosen to treat sexual nonconformity as the mark not of a community but of a subversive cult. The Egyptian press has been also promoting fears of both religious dissent and foreign influences.

In an Action Alert issued by the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC), sources in Egypt told the commission under condition of anonymity, that they fear the men are being tortured.

IGLHRC fears that a police campaign against Egyptian gays may be underway and this incident may mark the beginning of a broader campaign of harassment against gay men in Egypt..

IGLHRC is also gravely concerned that the men are victims of a government determined to improve its own political position by taking sexual nonconformity as the sign of a subversive cult.

The present case resembles a 1997 case in Egypt where 78 teenage men were arrested, and, amid charges of homosexual practices, accused of Satanism. While the case never came to trial, their names and even photographs were widely circulated in the popular media.

The case also follows on another incident in February 2000, in which two gay Egyptians who had arranged dates through the Internet were arrested and charged with prostitution, a crime carrying a 3-6 year prison sentence.

Source: IGLHRC's Action Alert - Witch Hunt Underway