A presidential ruling has overturned the verdict passed against 21 men convicted of "debauchery" last year, referring their case back to prosecutors. Jailan Halawi examines the prospects of the men released on bail President Hosni Mubarak has rescinded a verdict passed by an Emergency State Security Court against 21 men accused last November of "habitual debauchery". All 21 were released on bail after Mubarak referred their files, as well as those of 29 others who were acquitted, to prosecutors to review their case. Meanwhile, the president endorsed prison verdicts against the two key defendants in the case. The case was dubbed by the press as the "Queen Boat" case because most of the arrests, according to prosecutors, were made during a gay party held at the Queen Boat nightclub, moored along the banks of the Nile last May. On 14 November 2001, an Emergency State Security Court for Misdemeanours in Cairo reviewed the case of the 52 men arrested on charges of debauchery and deriding religion. Twenty-one men were convicted with habitual debauchery and sentenced to prison terms of one to two years. The key defendant, Sherif Farahat, was given a five-year sentence for scorning religion and debauchery, while his alleged aide, Mahmoud Allam, received a three- year term for deriding Islam, but was acquitted of debauchery. Twenty-nine others were acquitted. Farahat allegedly saw prophetic visions that led him to establish a religious group named "God's Agency on Earth". These visions and religious ideas were supposedly further elaborated in written form as a book. He was further accused of promoting deviant religious practices, most notably an alternative manner of prayer. Allam, on the other hand, was accused of spreading these ideas, particularly in gay meeting places, such as the Queen Boat. When Mubarak last week overturned the convictions of the 21 men the stated reason was that "the Emergency State Security court does not have the authority to hear the charges." "The president did not order a retrial, he only referred the case back to prosecutors for review, which means that they can either decide to shelve the case or refer it to a criminal court," Farid El- Deeb, the key defendant's attorney, told Al-Ahram Weekly. But, according to Taher Abul-Nasr, of the Hisham Mubarak Legal Aid Centre, in charge of defending the 50 men, the case's dismissal is unlikely, even if it will be some time before a retrial date is set. "Those are men who have already served a year in prison. Their case cannot just be forgotten," he said. "Shelving their case would open up the possibility of law suits for compensation being filed against the government by those convicted." Further, Abul-Nasr expects that those acquitted will be cleared once more in the retrial, since there was no evidence against them in the first place. He also expects that the 21 convicted men will be given one-year suspended terms. All men, according to Abul-Nasr, were released on a LE500 bail following the president's ruling. Under the emergency laws in force in Egypt since 1981, the president is the only official in the country who can ratify or rescind verdicts passed out by the high state security court. The court, which was set up under the emergency laws, is a special tribunal that rules on cases deemed to be a threat to national security. Following the initial trial, human rights groups and the international community condemned the arrests. But Egyptian officials said the West had no right to impose its values on Egypt, a country where cultural norms make overt homosexuality unacceptable. Since the Queen Boat arrests, more men accused of being gay have been quietly detained in Egypt. Some have been convicted and jailed. An Egyptian court gave five men three-year sentences in March for "practicing sexual immorality". They were also accused of wearing women's clothes and make-up. No one seems to know what prompted the string of arrests after years of tolerance. Some cite an attempt to divert attention from a battered economy. Others say Egypt's gay community was becoming too organised, too vocal and, most of all, too visible. The Egyptian government has denied claims by a group of US Congress members that it is persecuting gays. In March, 40 US lawmakers sent a letter to the Egyptian Embassy calling on the government to stop persecuting homosexuals. In his reply to the letter, Egyptian Ambassador to the US Nabil Fahmy maintained that his country does not persecute gay men and stated that there is no law explicitly forbidding homosexuality in Egypt. Fahmy said that a group of gay men arrested at a boat party on the Nile "were convicted essentially under a law which penalises promiscuity/prostitution" and that "there is no distinction or discrimination based on a person's sexual orientation." Activists say gay life in Egypt has not died out completely. But the continued crackdown has injected caution into a community adjusting to changing rules on what is safe and what is out of bounds. A web site geared to Egyptian gays warns readers about the perils of being gay in Egypt. "Guess who's watching? Egyptian state security. Try to avoid always logging on from the same location," the site warns. Gay men meet in small circles or talk over the Internet. They do not give out real names or personal phone numbers to strangers, at least not anymore. Some have already left Egypt for the West, and more are thinking about it. "Almost everyone I talked to wants to leave," one gay activist was quoted as saying. "I personally know four people who got political asylum in the United States," he said. Whatever the reason for the crackdown, the men's case has brought the issue of homosexuality to the dinner table in a country where gender roles are clearly defined and young men and women are expected to follow them. Most people agree that open debate over homosexuality, or a full-fledged gay rights movement, remains a long way off, if not impossible.
