the egypt blog

That Thursday Night

2007-12-03T23:33:00.001+02:00

Following is a story of true events as written by a reader of my blog, who has permitted me to post it here, without him being identified:

I think most of us have gone through the experience of having to lie about our sexuality when a direct question is put to us. Since coming-out and revealing one's sexuality in this society is not something to be taken likely or done without ample thought of its consequences.

In particular in the Egyptian or Arab context, coming-out to one person you know, might mean coming out to a dozen (at least) who you do not know. Hence the consequences have to be weighed carefully.

On a personal experience, after having been away from Egypt for a long time and returning as a gay man, my first experience of this situation was with my old school mates in my "home coming evening."

It was in 1999 when contemporary gay life was booming in Egypt. That evening my friends unknowingly chose the gayest place in Egypt to go arrange for our get together on a Thursday night.

Of course, the subject was bound to come out when, few minutes after midnight, the place became predominantly gay. I was lucky, then, that I wasn't personally acquainted with any of the gay crowd there except one tourist I had met the previous day for a coffee and found a bit too camp, hence coffee was the extent of our relationship.

The comedy started when my friends started noticing the unusually expressive hand gestures, the closeness of the bodies, and the obvious gay environment particularly as they all are well-traveled people. And there started the comments and the subject was wide open, like you know what!

I managed not to use my vocal chords to reply to any of the homophobic comments they started exchanging, and kept nodding and painting a smile on my face. However, the silence act did not last more than ninety seconds after which I found myself exploding in their faces.

Arguing their flawed logic whether it ranged from morality, decency, social or religious grounds, and, believe me, they didn't spare me any argument to throw in my face about how "unnatural," "indecent," "immoral," "anti-social," "sick," and of course the famous "sacrilegious" behavior this all was.

I found myself as if in an arena with six hounds attacking me with their collective age of social brainwashing, monolithic attitude and religious dogma (of all denominations, just to increase the open fronts.)

In my enthusiasm I got very immersed in responding, until the inevitable question came up which I should have seen coming: "Why are you so worked-up about the issue? Why are you so defensive of it?"

And there I felt like a ten-ton brick fell on my head. I should have seen it coming with how much I was so red and engrossed in the conversation. Twelve eyes stared in my face for seconds that felt like eternity.

I felt all the blood in my body rushing to my head, feeding those few poor grey cells left puzzled on how to act after my hot blood and big mouth put them in such an unenviable position!

Would they trigger that mouth to spit-out in those six dear faces the truth about my sexuality for the first time ever? Alternatively, what plausible lie could be put on those lips that would satisfy the curious questioning minds in front of me?

I was lucky, or maybe I was just being myself ("gay").

In 30 seconds, the compulsive liar in me burst into them claiming professional interest in human rights, of which gay rights are part. Although not entirely a lie, it certainly was not the main reason I was playing the defendant role.

That evening was the last with my childhood friends. I did not want to be put in that position again, and hence I found myself avoiding them for any other occasion to meet up over drinks or socially. Now that was the price for not coming out to them.

In fact, that night, I reached a conclusion that I could not comfortably socialize openly with so called friends unless they knew about one major aspect in my life: that I am gay. That is the price which some conservative societies and their taboos levy on us for staying discrete and unseen.

It is not a cheap price; it is years of intimate memories of childhood friendship that are lost.

Pity.

Questions

2007-11-21T15:13:00.000+02:00

I've been living a life of confusion for many years now about what's right and what's wrong; about the existence or non-existence of God; about many questions following the one of God's existence. Why was I born into this life in the first place? I didn't choose that. I didn't and don't think i would have chosen to live such a life full of confusion.

Is God there or is he not? Should i be Muslim or Christian or Jewish or Baha'i or what?

Why was i born in this specific time period when most of what goes on in my head seems to be forbidden? I'm even forbidden of just ending this whole misery. It is a misery to me when I am expected to be things i don't think i can be, or things that i just don't know if i should be or not.

Muslims, Christians, Jews, Baha'is, atheists, agnostics, gays, lesbians, straights, bisexuals, asexuals, transsexuals. These are just a few of the many religious and sexual groups in this world. How can you tell who's right and who's wrong? Who has this right? Why does God prefer specific groups and reject others?

Life is quite a confusing thing, life is full of confusion that it's hard to set specific rules for it.

It's even more confusing to die, because you never know what happens next, so it is also scary. When I think about this it just feels like I don't know what to do really. Life and death are both full of unanswered questions.

Will I live again after dying, or will I live a totally different type of life, or will I vanish? Will I meet God after death or will I not? Will I go to heaven or hell, or neither?

أول فيلم تسجيلي عن حال البهائيين في مصر

2007-11-20T23:13:00.000+02:00

شاهد هذا الفيلم الرائع الذي يتناول حال المصريين البهائيين ومعاناتهم في ظل استمرار الاضطهاد الذي يتعرضون إليه.

A Plastic Plate

2007-11-03T15:12:00.001+02:00

A video about a gay person with HIV/AIDS in Egypt.

Free Love

2007-10-30T21:35:00.001+02:00

Ahmad Sherif's "Free Love" video, also with English subtitles by me.

Free Women

2007-10-30T21:33:00.001+02:00

This is the "Free Women" video by Ahmad Sherif with English subtitles by me.

Researchers Knock Out HIV

2007-10-24T18:51:00.000+02:00

ScienceDaily (link) (Oct. 21, 2007) — With the latest advances in treatment, doctors have discovered that they can successfully neutralise the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The so-called ‘combination therapy’ prevents HIV from mutating and spreading, allowing patients to rebuild their immune system to the same levels as the rest of the population.

To date, it represents the most significant treatment for patients suffering from HIV.

Professor Jens Lundgren from the University of Copenhagen, together with other members of the research group EuroSIDA, have conducted a study, which demonstrates that the immune system of all HIV-infected patients can be restored and normalised. The only stipulation is that patients begin and continue to follow their course of treatment.

HIV attacks the body’s ability to counteract viruses

Viruses are small organisms that have no independent metabolism. Consequently, when they enter the body they attack living cells and adopt their metabolism. The influenza virus occupies cells in the nose, throat and lungs; the mumps attaches itself to the salivary glands of the ear; while the Polio virus plays on the intestinal tract, blood and salivary glands. In all these instances, our immune system attacks and eliminates the invading virus.

HIV is so deadly because the virus attaches itself to a crucial part of the immune system itself: to the so-called CD4+T lymphocytes, which are white blood corpuscles that help the immune system to fight infections. The Hi-virus forms and invades new CD4+T-lymphocytes. Slowly but surely, the number of healthy CD4+T lymphocytes in the blood fall, while HIV relentlessly weakens the body’s ability to defend itself from infection. Finally, the immune system erodes to such an extent that the infected patient is diagnosed with AIDS. The Hi-virus mutates constantly as it forms and this is why, scientists face a constant battle to find a cure or a vaccine.

Combination therapy knocks out HIV

Combination therapy prevents the virus from forming and mutating in human beings. When the virus is halted in its progress, the number of healthy CD4+T cells begins to rise and patients, who would otherwise die from HIV, can now survive. The immune system is rejuvenated and is apparently able to normalise itself, providing that the combination therapy is maintained. The moment the immune system begins to improve, the HIV-infected patient can no longer be said to be suffering from an HIV infection or disease, already declining in strength.

Findings from the study are published in the medical journal The Lancet - Vol. 370, Issue 9585, 4 August 2007, Pages 407-413

Adapted from materials provided by University Of Copenhagen.

من موقع EveryScreen.com:-على الآلهة: حوار مع صديقي المؤمن!

2007-10-12T02:08:00.000+02:00

س : من يوجد وراء كل هذا الكون ؟

جـ : لا نعرف !

س : كيف ، وكل شىء دقيق مضبوط ولا بد له من خالق دقيق ومبدع . يا سلام شايف الإعجاز ! خذ مثلا ، الأوكسچين نسبته فى الهواء 20% وهى النسبة المثالية بالظبط بالظبط لحياة الإنسان ، أو خذ مثلا طبقة الأوزون المصممة لحمايتنا من الإشعاعات الضارة وقد نهلك جميعا إذا ما استمر العبث بها ، أو خذ مثلا …

جـ : كفى ! كفى ! أنا أعرف كل تلك الجدليات جيدا ، وردى عليها بسيط : من وجد قبل من ؟ غلاف الأرض والأوزون أو أية ’ معجزة إلهية ‘ أخرى تخطر ببالك وجدت قبل ظهور العرق البشرى ، عندما ظهر البشر ظهروا متكيفون جدا لها ، وإلا ما ظهروا أصلا . بل هم ظهروا وازدهروا وتسيدوا لأنهم ببساطة بدوا من منظور البيئة المحيطة الأكثر تكيفا إطلاقا من كل من عداهم من كائنات . قل لو كانت نسبة الأوكسچين 5% على سبيل المثال ، لظهروا كديدان تحت التربة أو شىء كهذا ، ولما ظهرت الثدييات كما نعرفها قط . كواكب كثيرة ليس بها غلاف جوى وليس بها أوزون أو غاز يقوم بوظيفة مشابهة ، ومن ثم ليس بها نوع الحياة كما نعرفها ، وهكذا ، وهكذا .

صديقى ، كل المعجزات والحكم الإلهية الجليلة والخارقة تلك ما هى إلا أوهام ، وبقليل من الخيال ستكتشف أنها آليات طبيعية منطقية وبسيطة ، وتخضع كلية لما يسمى بالسببية . ومن ثم لا يجدر بالإنسان العاقل إلا الإيمان بما يثبته له العلم التجريبى ، ثم بما يصححه من نفسه لنفسه ، بحثا عن حقيقة أدق وأدق بلا نهاية . هو ليس مطلقا ولا رائعا كنظرياتكم الدينية التى حلت كل شىء بخبطة واحدة اسمها الإله ، لكنه كل ما نملك ، وكل ما لا نملك إلا الوثوق به كمنهج متواصل لفهم العالم والطبيعة وفهم كل شىء بأفضل فهم ممكن !

س : أنت تؤمن بداروين ؟

جـ : أنا أومن بالعلم . ولو أثبت خطأ داروين لرفضت داروين ، لكن هذا لم يحدث حتى اليوم ، بل بالعكس كل شىء يؤكد هذه النظرية ، بل أنها تتوسع لتشمل حتى أمورا غير مادية كالأفكار مثلا . التطور يا صديقى يكاد يكون قانونا .

س : ألا يمكن ولو على سبيل الصدفة المحضة ، أو باحتمال واحد فى البليون ، أن تكون نظرية الأديان عن الإله صحيحة ؟

جـ : مستحيل ! اسمح لى أن أرد على سؤالك بسؤال : لماذا كان الرومان يحرقون المسيحيين أو يلقونهم للأسود ؟

س : طبعا لأنهم كانوا يرفضون إله العقيدة الجديدة .

جـ : خطأ ! الحقيقة عكس هذا 180 درجة . اقرأ مثلا كتاب ميرى ليفكوويتز Greek Gods, Human Lives —What We Can Learn from Myths أو كتاب أليكساندر كراڤيتشوك عن آخر سنوات الدورات الأوليمپية ’ الوثنية والمسيحية ‘ وهو مترجم للعربية ، [ وغيرهما ] كثير جدا ، وأضمن لك أن يشيب شعر رأسك المنتصب هلعا كلما سمعت مستقبلا عبارة ’ من لطمك على خدك الأيمن حول له الأيسر ‘ ( طبعا أنت أذكى من أن تتصور أن عمرو بن العاص كان وحده السفاح الأثيم ، وعلى أية حال ’ سماحة ‘ الإسلام قصة أخرى ، وخلينا فى سماحة المسيحية ! ) . اليونان والرومان كانوا يرحبون بظهور أى آلهة جديدة ويتعبدون لها فى معابدهم . المسيحيون ’ هم ‘ الذين كانوا يرفضون الآلهة غير إلههم . وبالنسبة للرومان كانوا بذلك شيئا شاذا للغاية وبدعة مطلقة لم يعرف عالمهم مثلها من قبل ، ومن ثم كان حرق المسيحيين أو إطعامهم للأسود هو الموقف الحضارى الوحيد الممكن فى تلك اللحظة . يا صديقى ، فى تلك العصور لم يوجد قط فى سوق الآلهة والأديان من هو أكثر تسامحا أو رحابة أفق من الديانات الوثنية ، أما التوحيد فمعناه أنك ’ وحدك ‘ على صواب وكل من عداك تجديفى ومزور . التوحيد يعنى تلقائيا التعصب ، يعنى تلقائيا الانغلاق ، يعنى تلقائيا التكفير ، يعنى تلقائيا الجهاد ، ويعنى تلقائيا الاستشهاد . أديان ما يسمى بالتوحيد يطرح كل منها نفسه على أنه الوصول الفعلى والنهائى للحقيقة المطلقة . بما أننا نتحدث عن مطلقات ، فإحتمال أن يكون غيرك على صواب يعنى تلقائيا وقطعا أنك على خطأ . ربما تعترف أديان التوحيد بما جاء قبلها ، لكنه اعتراف منقوص بل ملغى أصلا . ربما تعترف بها كحقيقة تاريخية ، لكن ليس عقائديا . العقيدة الجديدة لا بد وأن تلغى كل العقائد القديمة . العقيدة عقيدة ، وكلمة عقيدة تعنى أن كل ما سواها خطأ . هى ليست علما يحتمل الصواب والخطأ والتطوير والتعديل . الأسوأ ، بل ربما الطبيعى جدا ، أن كل عقيدة دوما ما تقول إنها نهاية المطاف . على الإنسان أن يقبل بها كوصول غائى للمطلق المفقود ، أنجز بالفعل مرة واحدة وللأبد . باختصار المسعى قد أغلق . لقد تم الوصول للحقيقة الكاملة ، وعلى الإنسان أن يلغى عقله يلغى واقعه ويلغى مستجدات هذا الواقع ، ويتجمد عند تلك ’ الحقيقة ‘ المقدسة إلى الأبد . أديان الشرق بالمناسبة لا تأتى بحقائق مطلقة ، فقط تستحث الناس السعى إليها من استطاع إليها سبيلا ، وهؤلاء ليسوا كل البشر بل قلة خاصة جدا روحانية جدا ذات عزيمة خاصة جدا ، وقبل كل شىء يعنيها الأمر ولم يفرضه عليها أحد فرضا بالميكروفونات والهراوات . وهنا ردى على سؤالك عن الصدفة فى صواب الأديان ، وهو رد قديم جدا . من عصور قالوا إن تعارض العقائد يلغيها جميعا . خذ هذا المثال : تخيل أن كل إله يقول لشعبه أنتم شعبى المختار أو أنتم أبناء الملكوت أو أنتم خير أمة أخرجت للناس ، وهلم جرا ! أو خذ مثال أن كل دين يقول إنه آخر دين ، من بعدى الدجالون المزيفون ، وطبعا من قبلى المحرفون الضالون . ستكتشف إذن أن الهراء هو نفسه ، لا يتغير من دين إلى دين ، أو من إله لإله ، ذلك أن البشر اخترعوها جميعا لنفس الأهداف تقريبا . فقط تتغير الأسماء ، وفقط من أجل وضع الأسس لحروب دينية لا نهاية لها . يا صديقى ، الدين حصد من الأرواح أكثر ما حصدت أى حروب أو أمراض أو كوارث طبيعية أو أى شىء آخر فى الدنيا . صدقنى ، التوحيد الذى اخترعه إخناتون وتلميذه موسى وبقية الشلة التى تعرف أسماءها أحسن منى ، هو أكبر جريمة ضد الإنسانية ارتكبت إطلاقا فى تاريخها كله !

س : أوه ! هناك تناقض لم أفهمه . يبدو أنك تذهب فى الطريق الخطأ ، وتريد إثبات عكس ما قصدت . بدأت بالقول إن تعارض الأديان يلغيها والآن وكأنك تقول إن تشابهها هو الذى يلغيها !

جـ : فعلا ! أول مرة آخد بالى . هذا صحيح بالطبع . لكن ما أريد قوله إنه سواء اختلفت أو تشابهت فمن المستحيل أن يكون أى من تلك الأديان صحيحا ، ليس فقط لأن تلك النظريات تتناقض مع بعضها البعض ، وليس فقط لأنها جميعا تتناقض مع ما أثبته ويثبته كل يوم العلم التجريبى ، إنما لأن كل نظرية فى حد ذاتها تتناقض أجزائها بعضها البعض على نحو مخجل لا ينطلى على طفل عنده 99% إيمان و1% عقل !

س : ليكن ! دعنى أجاريك فى نظرية السببية تلك ، والتى تسمونها المنهج العلمى . لكنك لن تقنعنى أبدا أن كل ذلك جاء من فراغ . من البديهى و’ العلمى ‘ وبناء على نظرية السببية بتاعتكم فإن لكل شىء خالق ؟

جـ : حلو الكلام ! الإله خلق الإنسان . ماشى ! ممتاز جدا منطق أن لكل شىء خالق ، فقط قل لى إذن من فضلك من خلق ذلك الإله الذى تتحدث عنه . إنها دوامة لا نهاية لها ، صدقنى أنت الخاسر فيها ولست أنا .

س : الخلاصة أنت ترفض مفهوم المطلق برمته ؟

جـ : هناك شىء اسمه النسبية . هذه النظرية ألغت كل ما اعتقدنا أنه مطلقات الكون ، ولم تبق سوى على مطلق واحد هو سرعة الضوء ، ولن أدهش إن اتضح يوما من منظور فوق‑كونى ، إن لم يكن من منظور كوننا المعروف نفسه ، أنها هى الأخرى ليست مطلقة . ربما شديدة الثبات ، لكن ليست مطلقة . صديقى ، هناك فجوة بين مفهومنا للإشياء وبين حقيقتها . من يتخيل مثلا أن الأرض كلها لو خلصت من الفراغات بين جسيماتها لأصبحت فى حجم حبة قمح ؟ فى قول آخر لا يوجد شىء اسمه جسيمات أصلا . الجسيمات نفسها ما هى إلا موجات ، وإحساسنا نحن بالأجسام الصلبة حولنا ما هو إلا وهم تعودنا عليه . وبالمناسبة ربما لأن كل شىء ما هو إلا موجات ، ربما تأتينا يوما نظرية تفسر الظواهر الخارقة كالتخاطر مثلا أو تحريك الأشياء ، والتى تولعون بها جدا أنتم المتدينون ، بأنها ترجع لتوافقات موجية من نوع ما بالغ الندرة أو بالغ الضعف أو كلاهما معا ! أو حتى تفسر بعض ألغاز الحياة العادية المستعصية ، وأذكر أمور كان داروين نفسه من أوائل من تحيروا أمامها ، وحاول معرفة دورها فى البقاء ، ولم ينجح . مثل تجاوب البشر جميعا مع الموسيقى والإيقاع ، أو مثل اتفاقهم على معايير معينة للجمال ، وكما تعلم لا توجد قوة على الأرض تستطيع أن تقنع أحدا أن صوفيا لورين ليست أكثر فتنة بكثير من بنتى عصرها المغرورتين أمك وأمى .

س : ربما تلك القوة أقنعت أباك وأبى .

جـ : هل سألتهما ؟ وكمان جايز التفسير موجات برضه !

س : خلينا فى موضوعنا . وبعدين ؟

جـ : وبعدين لا نعرف ، وربما لن نعرف أبدا . ربما لو عرفت الحياة الذكية الموجودة فرضا بالصدفة على أحد إليكترونات جسمك أنك موجود ، لعرفنا نحن ماذا يوجد هناك بعد هذا الكون . على الأقل هى مسألة أحجام . نحن نحتاج لفوتون واحد على الأقل لنرصد وجود شىء ما . لكن ماذا لو كان هذا الشىء من الصغر بحيث يكون الفوتون بمثابة قنبلة نووية عملاقة للغاية ، من الحجم بما يكفى لمحو أكوان كاملة فى ذلك العالم فائق الصغر من الوجود . هذا ليس كلاما جديدا من عندى هو نفس كلام أينستاين فى مناظرته الممتدة الشهيرة مع بور ، الحقيقة المطلقة موجودة لكننا لن نعرفها أبدا ، وجهدنا لمعرفتها ( بفوتون ) سوف يدمرها . بالمثل نحن فى المقابل أصغر حجما من أن نمتلك أدوات رصد لرؤية ما وراء هذا الكون ، الذى ربما هو مجرد ذرة فى كون آخر أكبر ، أو ربما رذاز تنفس أو براز كائن ما ضخم ، أو ربما أى شىء . إنها ذات القوانين أيضا بالنسبة للماكروكوزموس . حين نتحدث عن مسافات شاسعة تحتاج أزمانا طائلة وسرعات هائلة لوصولها ، فإن الكون ، أو الزمان‑المكان ، الزمكان ، ينحنى حسب تعبيرات نظرية النسبية ، ولن تستطيع الإفلات من هذا الكون أبدا ولو انطلقت بسرعة الضوء ، أو كما قيل على نحو أكثر تحديدا لن ترى فى النهاية إلا قفاك !

س : بدأنا بمشكلة وانتهينا بمشكلتين . هل يعرف ذلك الكائن الضخم أننا موجودون ؟

جـ : إذا كنا لا نعرفه فلا نعرف بالأحرى أى شىء عن طبيعة أجهزة الرصد عنده ! الأرجح أنها أيضا مسألة أحجام ، وأنه مثلك حين لا تستطيع رصد الحياة الذكية على أحد إليكتروناتك . ثم أين المشكلة أصلا : فى كلا الحالتين نحن نعرف أننا لا نعرف ، أليس هذا علما كافيا يستحق الفخر بالنسبة لعشيرة حثالية كالعشيرة الإنسانية ، لا يختلف مصيرها الأبدى عن مصير أى صرصور يدهس ويموت ، مما يشاركها السكنى ذرة الغبار الكونى المسماة الأرض ؟ وبعدين ليه كل وجع دماغ ده . بعدين ده أصلا شخص مريض ، بيقول عن نفسه أنه ما خلق الجن والإنس إلا ليعبدوه . إيه السيكولوچية المنحرفة دى ؟ أنا أعرف مليون حاجة أفيد وأنفع وأعظم ممكن تعملها غير أنك تحط وشك فى الأرض سجودا للهو خفى لا حد شافه ولا حد كلمه ، إعمار الأرض مثلا ، تنمية التقنية مثلا ، مليون حاجة . حتى لو موش مريض ، أو حتى لو صديق للإنسان زى ما بتقول أديان تانى ، هو ليه واحد عظيم و’ ضخم ‘ زى ده إللى بتقولوا عليه يهتم بسلوكيات واحد فى قرية استوائية أو فى الصعيد الجوانى ، ويحاسبه ويعاقبه ، بعد ما يحفظها له فى سجلات حاسوب أو أرشيف فى الدور الأرضى مليون ولا بليون سنة . بذمتك ده موش عبط . إزاى تعبد واحد أهبل وهايف للدرجة دى ؟

س : يعنى موش عاوزه يحاسب الناس ؟

جـ : ويحاسبهم ليه ؟

س : علشان هو إللى خلقهم .

جـ : يا سلام ؟ معنى كده الإنسان مسير . وبما أنه مسير ، نفسى أعرف يتحاسب ليه وعلى إيه ؟

س : لأ هو مخير ، وعلشان كده بيتحاسب على قراراته وتصرفاته ؟

جـ : أنت متأكد من الإجابة دى وموش هتغيرها ؟ لما هو مخير يتحاسب ليه ؟ منين مخير ومنين يتحاسب ؟ مين إللى خير الإنسان يبقى مخير ؟ مين إللى خير الإنسان يتوجد أصلا ؟ يعنى هو برضه مسير فى إنه مخير ، وفى الحالتين من الظلم إنك تحاسبه ؟ افرض إنه موش عاوز يبقى مخير يا سيدى ، ولا هى كل الحكاية إن صاحبنا إللى فوق غاوى تجارب وسادية ؟ مريض يعنى !

يا صديقى ، العملية زى ما قلت لك عبط فى عبط . ولحسن الحظ نحن نعرف على وجه اليقين من أين أتت الأديان ، وليس فى هذا أى لغز أو أية أسطورة ، بل حقائق معاشة ، وأسباب ومسببات دونتها لنا بإسهاب كتب التاريخ ، وحتى كتب العقيدة نفسها . لحسن الحظ نعرف على وجه اليقين وبالاسم الأشخاص الذين اخترعوا فكرة الإله المشخص الخفى ساكن السماء . نعرف ظروف حياتهم ومجتمعاتهم وخلفياتهم الثقافية ومستوياتهم التعليمية ، ونعرف خريطتهم النفسية المشوهة تماما التى أودت بهم لمثل ذلك الاختراع الفاحش الذى أدى لتآكل وانهيار روح الإنسان تحت نير العبودية المطلقة لذلك اللهو الخفى ولوكلائه المزعومين على الأرض المنصبين ذاتيا للقوامة والوصاية على كل البشرية بالترغيب حينا بحرق الكتب وسفك الدماء والرجم وقطع الرءوس أحيانا أغلب . وكما أن بإمكان البعض تقديس هؤلاء ، من حقنا أيضا أن نطالب بتحويلهم لمحكمة التاريخ لمحاكمتهم عن إنحرافهم النفسى وعن جرائمهم المدنية والجنائية التى تشمل السرقة والقتل والكذب ، أو للدقة شملت كل شىء دون استثناء واحد بما فيه پورنو الأطفال . وعلى رأس كل ذلك طبعا محاكمتهم على أعظم جريمة على وجه الإطلاق ارتكبت فى حق البشر على امتداد كل التاريخ وهى تزييف وجود هؤلاء الآلهة الخفية الثلاثة ، ومن ثم ما سفك من دماء بسببهم سواء عنفا ضد أفراد اتهموا بالزندقة أو بأى شىء ، أو لم يتهموا لكن ملأ الرعب قلوبهم هلعا من عذاب النار مستقبلا ، وأكل الخوف أرواحهم تحسبا لبطش السماء بهم فى أية لحظة حاليا ، أو سفكت عنفا وحروب إبادة تجاه شعوب كاملة حيث أن باسم هؤلاء الآلهة شنت حروب أودت بحياة مئات الملايين من البشر ، ولا يوجد عبر كل التاريخ سبب آخر أدى لإزهاق مثل هذا العدد من الأرواح مثلما حدث باسم آلهة التوحيد هؤلاء ، بل أن كل الأسباب الأخرى للحروب مجتمعة لم تقتل مثل هذا العدد أبدا ! إنها ‑أقصد هذه الأديان‑ لحسن الحظ ذات خصائص معروفة ومميزة : كلها ظهرت فى منطقة محددة هى الشرق الأوسط ، فى كوكب محدد هو كوكب الأرض ، وبواسطة عشيرة بيولوچية محددة هى الإنسان ، وتحت ظروف محددة هى الجهل المطلق . نعم ، هى أتت ، والأهم أنها لم تكن لتأتى إبدا بطريق غير هذا ، أتت من عقلية بدائية محدودة المعرفة والتصورات لدرجة مفزعة . إنسان العصور القديمة والوسطى ، ذو الجلابيب والشباشب الذى لا يتجاوز من حيث المعرفة والقدرة العقلية طفلا معاصرا فى إحدى المدارس الحديثة فى السادسة من عمره . فى تلك الأيام كانوا يتخيلون الهواء وقد امتلأ بالعفاريت ( لو شئت تخيل الجو حقا فقد لا تجد أفضل من الصفحات الأولى جدا من ثلاثية القاهرة لنجيب محفوظ ، وستعرف ساعتها ماذا كانت تصارع الست أمينة بالضبط طوال الليل ) . كانوا يرون فى الكوارث الطبيعية أو حتى كسوف الشمس أو شح المطر ، هى نذر غضب مشئوم ونقمات من الآلهة على عصيانهم وخطاياهم . بالمثل كان المرض خللا أصاب الجسد بسبب تجربة إلهية أو عقاب . المطر كان أما نعمة إلهية خير مطلق ، وإما نقمة غضب لو صاحبته البروق والرعود والعواصف ، أو حتى أحيانا مجرد إله يبكى ناعيا ما آل إليه حال الدنيا . كانت السماء سقفا أزرق اللون يمكن الوصول له لو أمكن بناء برج بالارتفاع الكافى ( فقط اختلفوا هل هذا السقف المرصع بالثريات مسطح أم نصف كروى ، لكن كما تعلم لم يختلفوا قط على أن الأرض نفسها مسطحة ! ) . أو بالمثل كان كل المطلوب لمعرفة أين تغرب الشمس السفر بالقدر الكافى غربا ، وأحد أبطال قرآن الإسلام مثلا تطوع وقام عنا فعلا بتلك المهمة الشاقة واكتشف أنها تنام فى عين ماء ملتهبة ( أكيد ملتهبة ، وده طبعا من الإعجاز الثرمودينامى للقرآن ! ) . ذو القرنين فى الكهف 86 والمزيد هنا والإرشاد لها من القارئ خليل اسحق على أنه من غير الواضح إذا ما كان بطل القرآن الهمام ذو القرون الطويلة الذى ربما رأى الشمس تهبط فى الأطلنطى وتخيله عينا وتخيلها ’ تطش ‘ فيه ، قد ذهب شرقا لبحر الياپان ليرى من أين تولد شمس اليوم التالى ، أو لعله ذهب ولم يفهم كيف تخرج كتلة النار الملتهبة تلك من المياه الباردة جدا هناك ، فآثر الصمت ولم يخبر أحدا ، أو لعله قال ’ فى سره ‘ الكلمة الأثيرة جدا على ألسنة أهل ذاك الزمان إن فوق كل ذى علم عليم . فى كل الأحوال الواضح أن قرونا طويلة مرت حتى دون أن يقرأ هؤلاء شرق الأوسطيين الجهلة معارف اليونان العلمانية القديمة التى كانت لها نظريات ونظريات أفضل كثيرا ، أقلها ما يذهب لكروية الأرض .

س : الإنجيل والقرآن يقولان بكروية الأرض !

جـ : هراء ! إنها عينها الكلمات المبهمة شبه الشعرية التى تتكون منها كل مادة كل الأديان ، والتى قال عنها على بن أبى طالب يوما ’ القرآن حمال أوجه ‘ . أنا متأكد أن لو حدث وثبت أن الأرض مسطحة ، لما وجدتم فى هذه الحالة مجرد آية مفردة مبهمة شعرية مثل ’ الجالس على كرة الأرض ‘ أو آية مفردة مبهمة بلا معنى تقريبا مثل ’ دحاها ‘ التى ربما قصد كاتبها بها انبعاجات الجبال والهضاب ، بل المؤكد أنكم كنتم ستجدون ساعتها مليون آية وآية تقول إن الأرض مسطحة ، ثم تقولون انظروا ها هو الإعجاز العلمى للنص المقدس . أرجوك دعنى أولا أكمل كلامى عن العقلية الخطلة لإنسان القرون القديمة والوسطى . الجهل لم يقتصر على المطر وأجرام السماء وغيرها من ظواهر الطبيعة ، بل كان جهلا جامعا شاملا . طبعا وإذا كان الحال كذلك ، فإن الإنجاب والتكائر ناهيك عن الخلق والحياة نفسيهما ، كانت بالنسبة لهم معجزات مخيفة الجبروت لدرجة لا يمكن أن تتم بها دون نفخة مباشرة من روح الرب شخصيا . لم تكن هناك فيزياء نووية ولم تكن هناك بيولوچيا جزيئية ، ولم يكن هناك داروين ولا فرويد ، ولم يكن هناك أنثروپولوچيا طبيعية أو حتى علم أمراض جيد . فقط كذلك كانوا يفكرون ، وتلك ’ الأديان ‘ هى علومهم التى كانت تفسر لهم كل شىء ، وبدرجة مرضية جدا من وجهة نظر عقولهم المسكينة !

س : ليكن . لكن أتنكر أن الأنبياء أتوا بحكمة عظيمة تستحق التفكير والتأمل ؟

جـ : طبعا لا أنكر ! حكمة عظيمة ، تساوى عقلية طفل معاصر فى الثانية عشرة ! هنروح بعيد ليه ؟ أنا عندى موقع على الإنترنيت بأتنبأ فيه مليون مرة أحسن من أى نبى من بتوعك ؟ إللى بيقوله الموقع غالبا بيحصل . عارف ليه ؟ لأنه بيحاول يتمسك بالعلم والتفكير العلمى . مفيش حاجة بتجينا م السما !

س : ما هى المرجعية إذن ؟ لا بد أن ثمة مرجعية ما لهذا الكون .

جـ : بالطبع هناك مرجعية . إنها الكون نفسه . على الأقل بالنسبة لنا هذا هو ما نعرف ، أو بالأحرى أقصى ما نعرف بقدر ما يعطينا إياه العلم التجريبى . دورنا وخطوتنا التالية أن نستلهم من هذه المعارف والقوانين ، حقيقة ما تريد المادة ، أو كيف تفكر المادة . والواضح أنها تسير نحو مزيد من التطور والتقنية والاستعقاد ، وما إليها .

س : وكأنى أسمع أصولية تريد العودة بنا بلايين السنين للوراء !

جـ : سمها ما شئت ، لكنها ليست أصولية تتمحور حول تهاويم مريضة لنجار رث أو بدوى جاهل عاشوا فى أحد الأركان المنزوية لعصور الظلام الغابرة ، ولم يرتدوا قط الكراڤتة أو البنطلون مثلنا . أصولية أساسها العلم والمنطق وقوة التاريخ الطبيعى وجبروت التاريخ الكونى . أصولية تستلهم 4 بلايين من السنين من التاريخ البيولوچى للأرض ، بل قل 14 بليون سنة من تاريخ الكون وصراع القوة الرهيب فيه . لو لم نفعل هذا لن تكون لدينا البوصلة الصحيحة للمستقبل ، وسنتمحور حتى نموت حول ذواتنا الإنسانية ندلك فيها غريزة التميز والكبرياء ، بنظريات إنسانية سواء كانت دينية أو حتى ’ ملحدة ‘ بمصطلحاتكم ! دفع عجلة المادة ، أقصد التطور والتقنية والاستعقاد للأمام ، سوف يعطينا كائنات بعد‑إنسانية حاسوبية أو بيولوچية خارقة الذكاء والقدرات ، وهلم جرا ، بل ومما لا نعرفه الآن بالضرورة . هذه حتمية لا فكاك منها ، وإلا كانت عجلة التطور قد وقفت يوما عند الصرصار أو الحمار أو القرد .

س : الخلاصة أنت عاوزنا نسيب الدين .

جـ : إطلاقا ! مين قال كده ؟ تسيبوا الدين تروحوا فين يا عم ؟ ما عندكومش تعليم ، ما عندكومش اقتصاد . ما عندكومش أى ميزة تنافسية فى الصراع الرهيب إللى حوالينا . حتى ما عندكومش فكرة عن أن حكاية المنافسة دى موجودة أصلا . أنا لو متدين فعلا زيك وشايف كل يوم إسرائيل بتعمل فينا إيه ، لقلت من دون أى تردد ولو لثانية واحدة إن الله بتاع الإسلام ده إله مزيف والإله الصحيح هو يهوه القديم العبيط بتاع التوراة . لسوء حظى أنى موش متدين وموش معترف بده ولا ده . حبيبى ، أقولها لك بصراحة ، لو هتسيبوا الدين كنتوا سبتوه من زمان ، زى ما عملت بقية شعوب الدنيا . دى مسألة چيينات ، موش حاجة تانى . انتوا لاقيين تاكلوا ؟ تسيبوا الدين تروحوا فين يا عم ؟ كده كويس قوى ! بص ، وبصراحة أكتر ، العلمانية موش نادى مفتوح ، وموش عاوز أتوههك أكتر وأقول لك هى نادى لليهود والپروتستانت بس ، أو أقول لك لاحظ أن اليهود ( إللى ما عادوش دين طبعا إنما شعب علمانى بل أول شعب علمانى فى العالم منذ ظهور الأديان ) إنهم تاريخيا ‑وعكس كل الأديان‑ لم يبشروا بل لم يسمحوا لأحد بالانضمام لعقيدتهم . أو بالمثل لاحظ أن الاستعمار الإنجليزى ‑وعكس كل الاستعمارات‑ ما كانش بيحاول يخلى حد من الشعوب المستعمرة يبقى زيه . علشان كده الأنجلو‑يهود ، أو إللى بأحب أسميهم شايلوك وچيمس وات ، هم حضارة الثورة الصناعية وهم حضارة النهار ده وهم حضارة العالم مليون سنة لقدام . العلمانية حكاية موش سهلة زى ما أنت فاهم ، وموش أى چيينات تنفع ليها . أنتم ما لكوش مكان فى الدنيا . جايز لكم فى الآخرة ، لكن فى الدنيا لأ !

س : يعنى عاوز تقول أنتم صفوة وإحنا حثالة ؟

جـ : أنتم إيه ما أعرفش . إحنا صفوة أيوه . الغالبية الكاسحة من أعضاء الجمعيات العلمية الكبرى فى الغرب ، يعنى إللى أنتجوا العلم والتقنية بجد ، لا يؤمنون بالأديان . وبعدين يخترعوا إزاى أو يخلقوا إزاى إذا كانوا عبيد لحد ؟ حثالة وصفوة ؟ حلوة ! كل إللى أنا متأكد منه أن فيه فارق واضح جدا فى مستوى الذكاء بيننا وبينكم ، ونروح للمكن يحكم بيننا .

س : أنا فعلا تهت ، والحوار واضح رايح حته تانية . هذا كان رأيى على أية حال ، كما أن موعد الصلاة قد حان !

جـ : چيينات ! مسألة چيينات ! لا أعرف لماذا كلما أجريت حوارا مع أحد ، أتصرف وكأنى أسمع چييناته وأكلم چييناته ، وكأنه هو غير موجود ؟

س : ماذا قلت ؟

جـ : لا شىء ! وأنا أيضا ذاهب لكن للاستمتاع بزجاجة من النبيذ الأحمر ، مع وجبة شهية ، وبعض الأفكار ’ المنحرفة ‘ الجديدة . ألا تسموننا ملحدين أى منحرفين ؟

س : لماذا لا تستمع لنصيحتى يوما وتجرب أن تكون عف اللسان ، ولو على سبيل التغيير ؟

جـ : چيينات ! مسألة چيينات !

س : ماذا قلت ؟

جـ : لا شىء ! لم أقل أى شىء على الإطلاق . أنا أيضا لا أقول أى شىء على الإطلاق !

Normal relations with Israel

2007-10-06T02:30:00.000+02:00

It's been about 30 years now since Egypt and Israel signed their famous historic peace treaty, but, from a normal friendship aspect, did any kind of real change happen in the everyday relations between the two countries?

Egypt makes it very hard for Egyptians to visit their Israeli peaceful neighbor (come on, people, it's been damn peaceful for quarter a century and more), while Israelis are very much free to visit Egypt, because apparently it is okay with Israel that Israelis come to Egypt for vacation every now and then.

On the other hand, it seems to be a really big deal for Egypt if an Egyptian ever thinks of paying a little visit to an Israeli friend on the other side of the border (that is if there is a chance to make an Israeli friend, in the first place). Israel has always been a big red limit for the normal Egyptians to ever think of paying a visit to. Why is Egypt always scaring Egyptians from Israel and the Israelis? Why isn't any step of a normal relationship on Israel's part given the chance to occur?

Why does Egypt deal with Israel any worse than it would deal with India, or Canada, or Turkmenistan for instance? Why is Israel always seen as a threat, or at least shown to the public as a little red devil that no-one should ever approach or think of approaching?

Why do you need to get a special governmental permission to visit Israel? No, seriously, why the hell?

Natacha Atlas - Mon amie la rose

2007-10-04T15:48:00.001+02:00

This is the first song I ever heard for the GREAT NATACHA ATLAS, that was back in 2001. ENJOY!

Nicole Saba - Tab'ee Kidda ("This Is Just How I Am")

2007-10-03T00:16:00.000+02:00

Actually I'm not a big fan of Nicole Saba, but i just love the rebellious kinnda feminist spirit of this song...

نيكول سابا - أنا طبعي كدة

أنا طبعي كدة، وبحب كدة،
وبحب أعيش، وماعنديش إلا كدة.
دي حياتي أنا، دي ملكي أنا،
وأنا مهما يكون بردو هاكون زي ما أنا.

عايشة سني وباغني وبحب الحياة،
قلبي عايش سنينه وحياته بهواه،
باعمل اللي بحبه وباحسه أكيد،
ثانية ثانية يا دنيا هاعيشك أنا.

عايزة أفرح وأرقص وأدحك يا ناس،
هي دنيا وبنعيشها مرة وخلاص،
ياما قالو وعادو ولامو كتير،
بس بانسى وباكبر دماغي وخلاص.

في حياتي حاجات تتعبني ساعات،
مابقولش في يوم مهما يكون "عمر وفات."
دنيا هاتتعاش، ويا كدة يا بلاش،
الجاي والفات، دول حسابات ماحسبهاش.

Here I come!!!

2007-08-26T01:24:00.000+03:00

Okay, it's been a long while since I last posted anything here. The thing is since May 2006 I moved to a new house on the Suez Road (the road itself; somewhere between Rahab and Shorook). So I literally live with my family in a house built in the desert.

The more important part of why I'm posting this, is to also mention that I don't yet have a phone line here, as there are no phone centrals anywhere nearby. Hopefully when Madinati starts we'd be able to buy a phone line from there (we live right across from Madinati).

So, this being said, I won't be publishing as much posts as I used to, for the time being.

Rare reproductions

2007-04-23T17:20:00.000+02:00

© Bassatine News

An advertisement on October 4, 1913 in Al-Ahram newspaper announcing that Egyptian Delta Railways Ltd. is providing a special train service from Bab al-Louk to Bassatine Jewish Cemetery via Torah Station on the occasion of the High Holiday on Friday October 10. The schedule lists eight return trips. The advertisement says:

Egyptian Delta Railways Ltd.

Helwan Line

Visit to the Israelite Cemetery

We are honored to announce to the public that concerning the visit to the Israelite Cemetery in Bassatine on Friday, October 13, 1913, it has been decided that special trains will leave Bab El Louk heading directly to Bassatine. These trains will not stop at the Torah Station.

They are only to be used by passengers going from Bab el Louk directly to Bassatine, non-stop.

Why they love to hate us

2007-03-06T01:50:00.000+02:00

Some 1,500 years of anti-Semitism have taught us that there is something about us that annoys the world

Yair Lapid, YNetNews.com (Yedioth Ahronoth). Published: 07.23.06, 22:12 / Israel Culture

One hundred years of conflict, 6.5 years of war, billions of wasted dollars, tens of thousands of people killed, not including the boy lying next to me on a rocky beach at Lake Karon in ’82, with his guts spilling out of his body. Both of us staring the wound until he was evacuated by helicopter. Until this day I do not know if he is alive or dead. All this, and it is still impossible to understand.

It’s not only what has happened. It is also what did not occur – the hospitals that were never built, the universities that never opened, the roads that were never paved, three years stolen from the lives of millions of young people in uniform. Despite everything, we are still clueless as to the core of the riddle.

Why do they hate us so much?

I am not talking about the Palestinians this time. The conflict with them is intimate, focused, and has a direct impact on their day to day living. Without getting into who is right or wrong, it is clear their reasons for not wanting us here are very personal. We all know that in the end it will be resolved: Between us, in blood, sweat and tears that will soak the pages of the agreement that is signed. Until then, this is a war we can understand, even if no sane person can understand the way in which it is being waged.

But the others. They are impossible to understand. Why does Hassan Nasrallah - together with his tens of thousands of minions - dedicate his life and his considerable talent as well as the fate of his country in order to wage a war against a country that he has never seen, people he has never met and an army he has no reason to fight?

Why do children in Iran who cannot even point to Israel on a map (mostly because it is so small) burn its flag in the city square and volunteer to commit suicide in order to destroy it? Why do Egyptian and Jordanian intellectuals incite the naive and helpless against the peace treaties, knowing full well that revoking them will set their countries back 20 years.

'So many ways to love your brother'

Why are the Syrians willing to stay a pathetic and oppressive third world country in exchange for the questionable privilege of serving as patron to terror organizations that in the end will threaten them too? Why do they hate us in Saudi Arabia? In Iraq? In the Sudan? What have we done to them? How are we even relevant to their lives? What do they even know about us? And why do they hate us so much in Afghanistan where they are starving. Where do they even have the strength to hate?

So many answers to this question and yet it is an enigma. There’s the religious issue but religious people make their own choices. The Koran (together with the ‘Shariya’ – like the Halacha or Jewish code of laws) has thousands of laws. Why do we preoccupy them so much?

There are after all a number of other countries that have given them more of a reason to be angry. We didn’t start the Crusades, and we didn’t rule over them during the Colonial era, and we never forced them to convert. The Mongols, the Seliceans, the Greeks, the Romans, the Crusaders, the Ottomans and the English, all occupied them, destroying and pillaging the entire region. We did not even try so how is it that we are the enemy?

Is it about solidarity with their Palestinian brothers and sisters? If so then where are the tractors from Saudi Arabia for rebuilding Gush Katif? Where is the Indonesian team that is supposed to come and build a school in Gaza? Where are the doctors from Kuwait with the latest in surgical equipment? There are so many ways to love your brother, why do they prefer to help him to hate?

Is it something that we have done? 1,500 years of anti-Semitism have taught us an excruciatingly painful lesson – there is something about us that annoys the world. So we did the thing that everyone wanted – we left. We established our own tiny country where we could annoy each other without bothering anyone else. We did not ask for much to do this. Israel sits on an area comparable to maybe one percent of the total area of Saudi Arabia. We have no oil, no natural resources. We did not occupy the territory of another sovereign country.

'The Iranians are responsible'

Most of the towns and cities bombed this week were not stolen from anyone. Nahariya, Afula and Carmiel never existed until we founded them. Other Katyushas fell in places that no one ever doubted our rightful ownership on them. Haifa has history of Jewish presence since the third century before the Common Era. Tiberias played host to the last Sanhedria so no one can claim we stole these places from someone else.

Nevertheless the hatred continues as if we do not share a common fate. The hate is operative, toxic, and insatiable. Last week the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinijad called for the State of Israel ‘to be eliminated’ as if we were some kind of bacteria. We’ve become so accustomed to his declarations that we don’t even argue.

Israel never wanted to see Iran disappear. There were even diplomatic relations for as long as Iran wanted them. We don’t have a common border or even bad memories. But they are still ready and willing to confront the entire western work, to face international sanctions, put their standard of living at risk, destroy what is left of their economy all for the privilege of rabidly hating us.

I am trying but cannot remember: What did we do to them? When? How? Why is the Iranian president saying that ‘The Moslem world’s main problem is Israel.’?

There are more than a billion Moslems in the world. Most live in substandard conditions. They suffer from hunger, poverty, ignorance; blood soaked conflicts that extend from Kashmir to Kurdistan and from Darfur to Bangladesh. And we are their main problem? How exactly are we bothering them?

I refuse to accept the argument that ‘that is the way they are’. ‘They’ used to say that about us and we’ve grown to suspect the statement. There has to be another reason, a dark secret that convinced residents of southern Lebanon to escalate things along a quiet border, to kidnap soldiers of an army that had withdrawn from their territory, and to turn their country into islands of rubble precisely at a time that they had finally extricated themselves from 20 years of rack and ruin.

We have become accustomed to telling ourselves things like: ‘The Iranians are responsible,’ or ‘Syria is stirring things up behind the scenes.’ But that is really too simplistic.

What about the people? What do they think? What about their hopes, their loves, their aspirations and dreams? What about their children? Do they really believe that hating us is enough of a reason to send their children off to die?

HIV/AIDS in Egypt

2007-02-25T01:25:00.000+02:00

Things seem to be getting better for people living with HIV/AIDS in Egypt, unlike how it was few years ago. According to a slideshow published by the Egyptian Ministry of Health's National AIDS Program:

- HIV/AIDS prevalence in Egypt remains "low (<0.01%)".
- There are "835 cases" of people living with AIDS in Egypt, by the end of 2005.
- 83% of those infected with AIDS are men, 17% are women.
- A recently-established HIV/AIDS toll-free hotline service is available at 0-800-700-8000.
- Free HIV testing, counseling, and medication are now available.
- National AIDS Program now has support groups where people with AIDS meet and share experiences in different aspects. Support groups are made of 10-15 people each.

إن ماقدرتش تدحكIf You Can't Laugh

2007-02-23T02:39:00.000+02:00

English translation follows below...

كلمات: محمد الناصر
غناء: وجيه عزيز
حمـِّـل الأغنية (على هيئة WAV أو RA)*
*انقر بالزر الأيمن على الرابط، ثم اختر "...Save Target As"

إن ماقدرتش تدحك،
ماتدمعش ولا تبكيش
وإن مافضلش معاك غير قلبك،
إوعى تخاف، مش هاتموت، هاتعيش

وإن سألوك الناس عن ضي
جوة عينيك مابيلمعشي، ماتخبيش
قللهم العيب مش فيا، دا العيب في الضي

وأنا مش عاشق ضلمة، ولا زعلت الضي
مسير الضي لوحدو هايلمع،
ومسير الدحك لوحدو هايطلع...
مابيجرحش ولايئزيش

Original Arabic poem by: Mahammad el-Nasser
Performed by: Wagih Aziz
Translated into English by: Mamduh Schauki
Download Arabic-language song (WAV or RA format)*
*Right-click then choose "Save Target As..."

If you can't laugh,
Don't shed a tear, and don't cry.
And if all you have is your heart,
Don't worry; you'll live, not die.

And if people ask you
About a light in your eyes that's not glowing, don't hide.
Tell them: "it's not my fault, it's the light's;...

"...I'm not in love with the dark, nor did i upset the light.
A light is bound to glow someday,
And a laugh is bound to show someday,
Not hurting, and not harming."

The oppressed life of a gay guy in Cairo

2007-02-17T15:14:00.000+02:00

A homosexual friend has been living a difficult life, especially these days, he says. He told me that one day, as he was thinking about his miserable life, he just started writing about how he felt. And he asked me if I'd post it on my blog, in his name. I agreed.

This is what he'd written:

"I had too much problems with my family especially in the last couple of weeks because I'm gay. I guess being gay is starting to stress me because of the problems i had with my uncle, aunt, dad, stepdad and mother this last month. Now i have mixed thoughts about my homosexuality, i keep telling myself i did not choose this and i deserve to be accepted like anybody else, and most of the time i totally understand this fact and am convinced with it. But then i sometimes start having negative thoughts about it, to the extent that i actually looked a couple of times at a couple of those ex-gay propaganda websites. My stepdad encourages me that i'll pass thru thisand that im going on the "right path", even though to this moment i don't know which path is right. I'm not scared of my family, but they're expecting me to be going on the right path to curing my homosexuality or something, and i don't believe this is happening or will ever happen.

"I'm gay and i don't feel like changing, nor do i feel that this is ever possible, but then this is causing me too much problems with my family, which stresses me altogether. My life is so full of shit these days, i don't know what to do.

"Sometimes i think of leaving the country, but then how would this ever happen, and do i really have or want to live in a country other than mine? Why me? Why do i either live a fucked up life in my country or leave my country? Both options aren't the greatest. I have to choose between two options neither of which i feel i want.

"Sometimes i wish i was never born to live such a life, i never have the courage for suicide and whenever i think of it i know i wouldn't really have the courage to actually do it, but i simply wish i wasn't born, or maybe born anything but human."

Prisoners of Sex

2007-02-05T03:28:00.000+02:00

By NEGAR AZIMI
Published in New York Times Magazine, on: December 3, 2006

Mostafa Bakry has a knack for reinventing himself. He is an old-school Arab nationalist, newspaper editor and parliamentarian, and has managed to keep himself in the middle of the Egyptian political scene for almost two decades. He rails against decadence, against corruption — anything that can get the otherwise sleepy Egyptian public excited. This past July, he took on the issue of homosexuality, introducing a motion in Parliament calling for censorship of several scenes in a popular new film, “The Yacoubian Building,” and denouncing the racier parts of the movie as “spreading obscenity and debauchery.” One of the central characters in the story — a mosaic of downtown Cairo life complete with political intrigue, love triangles, the specter of extremism and more — is an affluent, dashing, Francophone newspaper editor who happens to be gay. He has an affair with a simple soldier from the countryside, and thus begins a tale of lust that ends in murder.

“It is a travesty,” Bakry told me not long ago when we met in the downtown Cairo office of his newspaper, Al Osboa (“The Week”). Shelves around his desk were stuffed with plaques, honorary degrees and dozens of gilt replicas of Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock. He fingered fancy prayer beads as he expounded in the way one would to an adoring crowd. “The American agenda is promoting the rights of homosexuals,” he said in Arabic. “I am not against freedom of expression, but this abnormal phenomenon should not be presented as natural. Even if it has roots here, it is rejected by society. And by Islam.”

In the end, 112 parliamentarians from across the political spectrum signed onto Bakry’s motion. The gesture, however, had little effect. By the beginning of September, the film was still doing well at the box office, and no censorship was in sight. But it didn’t matter. The parliamentarian had made his point; he had raised the flag of morality, religion and public virtue.

The politics of homosexuality is changing fast in the Arab world. For many years, corners of the region have been known for their rich gay subcultures — even serving as secure havens for Westerners who faced prejudice in their own countries. In some visions, this is a part of the world in which men could act out their homosexual fantasies. These countries hardly had gay-liberation moments, much less movements. Rather, homosexuality tended to be an unremarkable aspect of daily life, articulated in different ways in each country, city and village in the region.

But sexuality in general and homosexuality in particular are increasingly becoming concerns of the modern Arab state. Politicians, the police, government officials and much of the press are making homosexuality an “issue”: a way to display nationalist bona fides in the face of an encroaching Western sensibility; to reject a creeping globalization that brings with it what is perceived as the worst of the international market culture; to flash religious credentials and placate growing Islamist power. In recent years, there have been arrests, crackdowns and episodes of torture. In Egypt, the most populous country in the Arab world, as in Morocco, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates — even in famously open and cosmopolitan Lebanon — the policing of homosexuality has become part of what sometimes seems like a general moral panic.

Egypt’s most famous crackdown got under way at a neon floating disco, the Queen Boat, docked on the wealthy Nile-side island of Zamalek, just steps from the famously gay-friendly Marriott Hotel. In the early-morning hours of May 11, 2001, baton-wielding police officers descended upon the boat, where men were dancing and drinking. Security officials rounded up more than 50 of them — doctors, teachers, mechanics. Those who were kept in custody became known among Egyptians as the Queen Boat 52. The detained men were beaten, bound, tortured; some were even subjected to exams to determine whether they had engaged in anal sex. In the weeks that followed, official, opposition and independent newspapers printed the names, addresses and places of work of the detained. Front pages carried the men’s photographs, not always with black bars across their eyes. The press accused the men of sexual excesses, dressing as women, devil worship, even dubious links to Israel. Bakry’s newspaper, Al Osboa, helped lead the charge.

The Queen Boat was just the beginning. Agents of the Department for Protection of Morality, a sort of vice squad within the Ministry of Interior’s national police force, began monitoring suspected gay gathering spots, recruiting informants, luring people into arrest via chat sites on the Internet, tapping phones, raiding homes. Today, arrests and roundups occur throughout the country, from the Nile Delta towns of Damanhour and Tanta to Port Said along the Suez Canal and into Cairo.

The city’s central Tahrir Square is a vast plaza with awkward pedestrian islands separated by traffic, lined with a Kentucky Fried Chicken, the Arab League headquarters and the Egyptian government’s hulking bureaucratic headquarters, the Mugamma. On summer evenings, it is full of people. Men whistle at passing women, couples linger, tourists are accosted by the oddly seductive call of “You look like an Egyptian” and hawkers promote their wares — not the least of which is sex. In early July of this year, 11 men, said to be conspicuously homosexual, were picked up.

Many of the police reports on arrests of homosexuals have cited “the protection of the society’s values” as a motivating factor, adding that the arrested threatened to harm “the country’s reputation on the international level.” The country’s image is of the utmost importance for the officials responsible for these campaigns. Still, homosexual acts are not against the law in Egypt; most men caught in these roundups are charged with fujur, or the “habitual practice of debauchery.” Some countries in the region, like Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates, expressly criminalize homosexual acts. But in Egypt, the charges have increasingly involved a creative interpretation of a law introduced in 1951 to combat prostitution — drafted as a response to what was viewed as a remnant of Egypt’s colonial past. (The British introduced the licensing of brothels.)

The Queen Boat affair roughly coincided with a number of circuslike controversies in Cairo surrounding public morality: the outrage following the publication of the Syrian author Haider Haider’s novel “Banquet for Seaweed” (which incited riots at Al Azhar University in Cairo, as the book, about two Iraqi exiles in the 1970s, was interpreted as offensive to Islam); the trial of Saad Eddin Ibrahim, an Egyptian-American university professor and human rights activist accused of embezzlement, illegally accepting foreign funds and sullying Egypt’s image abroad; and the trial in 2002 of a prominent businessman who had taken 19 wives. Meanwhile the Muslim Brotherhood, which often positions itself in opposition to what it describes as a decadent, secular regime, won 17 seats in Parliament in 2000.

Public regulation of morality is an area in which the secular regime — often through its mouthpiece religious institution, Al Azhar — is in harmony with the Islamists. Al Azhar, Sunni Islam’s highest authority, was brought under direct state control by President Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1961. Through Al Azhar, the secular regime throws the occasional bone to the religious opposition — most often on issues of women and the family. Sometimes, avowedly secular officials and politicians even try to outdo the Islamists in this tug of war over who can win the public’s favor as the guardian of morality.

Tanta is a drab industrial town on the Nile, halfway between Cairo and the Mediterranean city of Alexandria. With a population of about 350,000, Tanta has a university and a plethora of cotton-gin and oil factories. It is probably best known for its moulid, a gathering celebrating Al-Sayyed Ahmed Al-Badawi, a 13th-century holy man of Moroccan origin credited with being the founder of the Badawiyyah Sufi order. Al Badawi died in Tanta in 1276, and each year in October, just at the end of the cotton harvest, some two million Egyptians descend upon Tanta and Al Badawi’s shrine for a week of recitations, performances, dancing and devotion.

The rest of the year Tanta is remarkably quiet. One afternoon in August, I met a young man named Hassan at a baroque, upscale hotel steps away from the shrine. Though it is difficult to speak of a gay community in Tanta (not all men who sleep with men in Egypt use the term “gay,” much less identify themselves as such), Hassan is a ringleader of sorts, a thread between generations. A youthful 37, he comes from a working-class family — his father runs an auto-parts shop — and he told me, mischievously, that he got out of military service because he is the only son among girls. For Hassan and many gay men in Tanta, the last few years have been especially hard. “First, there was Shibl’s death, then the affair of Ahmed, then Adel’s death and the arrests,” he explained.

Shibl was a friend of Hassan’s, caught with another man in the baths of the shrine — a gathering ground for many gay men at the time. In 2002 he was beaten so badly in detention that he died of cardiac arrest. Ahmed, another friend, was arrested from his home later that year, accused of having sex with two other men in his flat and “forming a group of Satan worshipers.” In prison, he was forced to strip down to his underwear, then was humiliated and beaten to the point of hemorrhaging. After his release, he lost his job as a schoolteacher. One local paper wrote, “A male teacher puts aside all principles and follows his perverted instincts, putting on women’s clothes and makeup on his face to seduce men who seek forbidden pleasures.”

Adel, a third friend of Hassan’s, was killed by an occasional lover. The ensuing investigation, not far removed from a witch hunt, resulted in many suspected homosexuals in Tanta being arrested, including Hassan. He and others arrested told me that they were held in a police interrogation room called “the refrigerator,” marked by a carpet brought in by the police that was caked in Adel’s blood. Detainees were tortured nightly for more than two weeks, from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m., according to the same sources. Hassan estimates that at least 100 men were detained and tortured. Some men were forced to stand on their tiptoes for those hours; others got electric shocks to the penis and tongue; still others were beaten on the soles of their feet with a rod called a felaqa, to the point of losing consciousness.

Most men were held until they broke, agreeing to work as informants, walking the street to pick up other homosexuals and reporting in each night. “They told us Adel deserved to die,” Hassan told me. “They said they wished all gays would die.” This went on for at least a month, Hassan and others say, in a pattern of detention, torture, informing, more torture.

On my second visit to Tanta, in August, I sat down for a lunch of kapsa, a sweet Saudi rice specialty, with Hassan and Mo, a slight student of English literature at Tanta University. The discussion turned to Islam and homosexuality. Both of them considered themselves practicing Muslims. Mo has combed the Internet for signs as to whether homosexuality is at odds with Islam. He said he had browsed the popular Egyptian lay preacher Ahmed Khaled’s Web site and found nothing. But he did see that Sheik Yussuf Al-Qaradawi had called homosexuals “perverts.” Al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian cleric generally considered a liberal, is best known for his television program “Shariah and Life” on the satellite channel Al Jazeera, and for his Web site, Islamonline.

“There is nothing clear about homosexuality in the Koran,” Hassan said. “It reads that the man who does it should be hurt. What does it mean ‘to be hurt’? In the Arabian peninsula they used a stick the size of this pencil (he raises my pencil) to punish men. It’s not like thievery or adultery. And anyway the Prophet was promised boys in heaven. Not girls.”

“I read that one should have their head cut off or be thrown from a mountain,” Mo continued.

Hassan disagreed: “There is no explicit punishment for gays in the Koran.”

Mo countered, “The problem is not the punishment, it is the scandal.”

Hassan, looking triumphant, told us that Pope Shenouda III, the head of Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Church, had also spoken out against homosexuality. (Most famously, in 1990, he asked, “What rights are there for homosexuals?”) “It’s more complicated than you think,” Hassan said to Mo.

Countless interpretations of the story of the prophet Lot — the source of much of the commentary on homosexuality in Islam, as well as in Judaism and Christianity — have been offered. Ambiguities abound, and while there is no consensus on where Islam stands, popular and legalistic reinterpretations take liberties in selecting the bits that suit particular worldviews — whether they are liberal or intolerant. In October of last year, the Iraqi Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a fatwa against homosexuals on the Arabic-language version of his Web site. It was inexplicably removed last May (some say international outrage swayed the image-conscious cleric). And while Al-Qaradawi did call homosexuals sexual perverts, he also noted “there is disagreement” over punishment.

Perched on a hill at the end of a windy road in Helwan, an industrial town south of Cairo and once the summer romping ground for the city’s well-to-do, is the Behman Hospital. With its pruned bushes and tennis courts, Behman looks more like a country club than a psychiatric institute. Dr. Nasser Loza is the medical director there; he is also an adviser to the Ministry of Health and runs a clinic in the upscale neighborhood of Mohandiseen. I had heard through friends that Loza counsels homosexual couples, so I went looking for him.

“They come in with quite banal relationship problems,” Loza told me when we met one afternoon at the hospital. “They manage to have very normal, quiet lives despite society’s negative views about being gay.” He added that on average he sees about one new couple every two or three months. “I suppose most are high-level professionals, some are of mixed cultural backgrounds.” Loza’s patients are the people you hear less of in the din of discussion surrounding homosexuality in this part of the world. Take M., for example, a successful businessman who was among the 52 arrested on the Queen Boat. He has since moved to the States, and recently wrote me in an e-mail message: “Money gave me security. I met my partner at a dinner party. I could travel. And I didn’t have my family on my back because I had moved out. I had a normal life until this happened.”

Most often, Loza sees families. “Typically, a family comes in with their son or daughter who has just announced that they are homosexual,” Loza explained. “They want me to help. The first reaction on the part of the family is denial, and then incredible blame.” In 1990, the World Health Organization removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders, but Loza told me that “whether it is treated as a disease or not really depends on the doctor.” While a combination of counseling and antidepressants seems the norm, you still sometimes hear of the application of electroshock therapy.

L., a lesbian originally from Alexandria, is seeing a Cairo psychiatrist. Women have not been subject to the same kind of attacks that men have been in Egypt, perhaps because of their relative invisibility — an invisibility that can itself be oppressive. It can be virtually impossible to meet other gay women. For L., the brunt of the problem is her family. “I’ve been to three psychiatrists, each time taken in by my parents,” she told me. “The first two prescribed antidepressants, they told me it was a phase, that I should ‘cheer up.’ The third prescribed electroshock therapy. I never went back.”

In Cairo, L. is studying communications. She has nothing to do with her family and, through the Internet, has found a supportive partner. The weight of the stigma remains. “When a Muslim dies, there is a required 30 minutes of prayer,” she wrote to me in a recent e-mail message. “When a gay person dies, they bury him and flee.”

There is a searing scene in the Moroccan writer Mohamed Choukri’s 1973 novel “For Bread Alone” in which a desperate young man, having recently moved from the country to the city in colonial Morocco, sells himself to an elderly Spaniard. The scene is explicit (they have oral sex in a car), and the novel, which has been banned or caused controversy in many Arab countries, serves as a stunning condemnation of the power disparities engendered by colonialism. Symbolism like Choukri’s is common in Arabic literature and cinema, providing for what the British writer Brian Whitaker has referred to as a “reverse Orientalism,” in which sex, and specifically homosexual sex, is presented as a foreign incursion, a tool of colonial domination.

Sometimes a stigma hangs over efforts to protect homosexuals from repression or attack. Negad Al Boraei, an Egyptian attorney and human rights activist, has irritated many in the local human rights community by a number of his stances, including his willingness to accept American financing for his work. (He readily dismisses his critics as “communists” and “revolutionaries.” He was one of the first recipients in Egypt of financing from the State Department’s Middle East Partnership Initiative.) I went to Al Boraei to talk about how sexual rights fit into the broader human rights agenda.

“I was telling a friend of mine who works for Amnesty International, we have a lot of problems here — torture, violations against street children, we are full of problems,” he told me. As he spoke he gesticulated wildly with his ring-covered hands. “To come in and talk about gays and lesbians, it is nice, but it’s not the major issue. It’s like I am starving and you ask me what kind of cola I want. Well, I want to eat first. Then we can talk about cola! It’s a luxury to talk about gay rights in Egypt.”

When the raid on the Queen Boat occurred, much of the human rights community declined to take the case on, Al Boraei included. (Some activists even attacked those who met with the defendants.) Hossam Bahgat, a young Alexandrian working at the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, told me he was quietly dismissed after he wrote an article calling upon the human rights community to overcome its fears about working on the case. In the West, however, the Queen Boat became something of a cause célèbre. Amnesty International supported protests in front of the Egyptian Embassy in London. A Web site called GayEgypt.com called on Egypt’s homosexuals to wear red on the two-year anniversary of the Queen Boat raid (an invitation to be arrested, it seems), while 35 members of the U.S. Congress wrote to Egypt’s president, Hosni Mubarak, asking for a stop to the anti-homosexual crusade. It was no wonder that amid this, the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram al-Arabi proclaimed, “Be a pervert and Uncle Sam will approve.”

“This was framed locally as an attack from the West,” says Bahgat, who eventually collaborated with Human Rights Watch on the case and later opened his own organization, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. “It was important to show that working for the rights of the detained was not a gay agenda, or a Western agenda, that this was linked to Egypt’s overall human rights record. Raising the gay banner when most sexual and other human rights are systematically violated every day is never going to get you far in this country.”

In the end, Human Rights Watch avoided laying itself open to easy attack as the bearer of an outsider’s agenda, packaging Queen Boat advocacy in the larger context of torture. Many of the arrested men were tortured, and torture is something that, at least in theory, most people agree is a bad thing. In Human Rights Watch’s 150-page report on the crackdown, references to religion, homosexual rights or anything else that could be seen or used as code for licentiousness were played down. Torture was played up, and it may very well be the first and last human rights report to cite Michel Foucault’s “History of Sexuality.” Upon release of the report in March 2004, Kenneth Roth, Human Rights Watch’s executive director, and Scott Long, director of the organization’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights Project, met with Egypt’s public prosecutor, the assistant to the interior minister and members of the Foreign Ministry. Their effort seemed to have had some effect; although occasional arrests continue, the all-out campaign of arrest and entrapment of men that began with the Queen Boat incident came to an end. One well-connected lawyer noted that a high-ranking Ministry of Interior source told him, “It is the end of the gay cases in Egypt, because of the activities of some human rights organizations.”

When I spoke to Long about his work on the Queen Boat case and its aftermath, he reflected on his advocacy methods in a context in which human rights, and especially gay rights, are increasingly associated with Western empire-building. “Perhaps we had less publicity for the report in the United States because we avoided fetishizing beautiful brown men in Egypt being denied the right to love,” he said. “We wrote for an Egyptian audience and tried to make this intelligible in terms of the human rights issues that have been central in Egyptian campaigns. It may not have made headlines, but it seemed to make history.” Whether the effort made history or simply interrupted it remains to be seen. Long himself noted, “The fact that the crackdown came apparently out of nowhere is a reminder that the repression could revive anytime.”

The possibilities for official repression exist across the Arab world. Early one morning this past August in Saudi Arabia, the police raided a wedding party in the town of Jizan, arresting 20 men “impersonating women,” according to the newspaper Al Watan. Similarly, late last year, 26 men were arrested when a party in Ghantout, a desert region on the Dubai-Abu Dhabi highway in the United Arab Emirates, was raided. The press went into typical scandal mode, and images of some of the men in women’s clothing circulated on cellphones. A government spokesman was quoted in The Khaleej Times, “Because they’ve put society at risk they will be given the necessary treatment, from male hormone injections to psychological therapies.” Arrests have also taken place in Lebanon — despite its being perceived as having more liberal social mores — as well as Morocco.

In Egypt, religiosity — along with an associated emphasis on public involvement in the private sphere — continues to rise. For the 2005 campaign the Muslim Brotherhood listed beauty pageants, music videos and sexy photographs as issues needing public debate; banning female presenters (even in veils) from state-run television and expanding religious education in public schools were also on the agenda. The brotherhood won 88 seats. And in most cases, there has been complete impunity for perpetrators of attacks on gay men; individual officers responsible for attacks have been promoted or shuffled around. As recently as September, at least one entrapment case occurred in Cairo; a young man was lured via a chat site and tortured — badly beaten and subject to electroshock on his genitals — by the same office of the public morality squad that had conducted Internet-based entrapments.

In the meantime, routine scapegoating of the West, and of its real and perceived agendas in the region, seems to be reaching new highs. The Egyptian government, despite its intimate strategic relationship with the U.S., has been increasing its rhetorical assaults on what is blithely reduced to an imperial, meddling West — ostensibly to parade its nationalist credentials in the face of America’s disastrous exploits in the Middle East. (In September, Gamal Mubarak, the president’s smooth-talking, Western-educated son and heir apparent, went so far as to dismiss Western initiatives designed to foster democratization in the region at a policy conference of the ruling National Democratic Party). Blanket attacks on what is vaguely referred to as “human rights” continue; in late August, Mostafa Bakry’s newspaper, Al Osboa, assailed Hossam Bahgat’s organization, along with an NGO that works on AIDS, for defending “perverts.” The ingredients for another crackdown exist in abundance in Egypt and the region at large.

Today the Queen Boat continues to sit docked on the Nile, its name clumsily respelled “Queen Boot” in garish green neon. It is hardly the gay hangout it once was, instead catering to the very occasional budget tourist. Many dragged away by the police that evening five years ago have since left the country, and others keep a low profile, although there are signs that young people have begun cruising the Nile banks again and meeting on the Internet.

As I prepared to leave Cairo at the beginning of the fall, I received an e-mail message from M., the businessman from the Queen Boat, since relocated to the States. “I sit here, and the Americans talk about something called Islamic fascism, the Arabs go on about their values,” he wrote. “All of us, and I don’t mean gay men, I mean all of us who don’t fit the norm — democracy activists, queens, anything — it’s us who get branded as Western, fifth columnists. We pay the price.”

Published December 11 06:Egypt Internet video sharpens torture debate (Reuters)

2007-01-06T05:46:00.000+02:00

(Please note graphic content in paragraphs 1 and 5)

by Cynthia Johnston

CAIRO - The grainy video purports to show an Egyptian man, naked from the waist down, writhing in agony as he is sodomised with a stick by a police officer. A handful of other officers stand by watching.

The video, which circulated on Egyptian blogs last month, has sparked uproar on the Internet in a country where rights groups say torture is commonplace in police stations. Authorities say such cases are isolated and not police policy.

Rights activists say the tape -- the authenticity of which has not been confirmed -- highlights mistreatment that many detainees face in Egyptian jails, and the apparent impunity with which it can be carried out.

Elijah Zarwan, a Cairo-based consultant for Human Rights Watch, said: "Nobody would be surprised if it were authentic ... While there is nothing to positively identify the tape as authentic, torture is certainly pervasive."

In the video, the unidentified Egyptian man, his hands bound behind his back and his legs held in the air, screams as he lies on a white tile floor and is abused with what appears to be a wooden broomstick or baton.

Several other people, whose faces are never shown, stand by watching as the man screams: "Never mind Pasha, I'm sorry Pasha," addressing his abuser with a term commonly used in Egypt to refer to police officers or people of higher social status.

Based on some of the words in the recording, human rights activists think the victim might be a minibus driver.

An interior ministry spokesman declined to comment on the tape. Rights groups said it was consistent with documented reports of torture in Egypt, but several said they did not yet have enough information to confirm it was authentic.

The sodomy video is not the first tape of purported police violence to surface on the Internet in Egypt, but it may be the most jarring because of its explicit sexual nature, activists say. Egypt is a conservative Muslim society.

Lawyer Naser Amin of the Centre for the Independence of the Judiciary said he filed a complaint last month with Egyptian prosecutors over the sodomy video and two other tapes that purport to show Egyptian civilians being beaten by police.

He said he felt prosecutors took the complaint seriously, and at least two officers were being questioned.

CONSISTENT WITH TORTURE REPORTS

Local and international rights groups say they have no reason to believe the sodomy tape is not real, although some are hesitant to vouch for its authenticity because the source of the tape is unknown and the victim has not come forward.

"It looks very authentic," said Ragia Shawky, a medical doctor at Egypt's Nadim Centre, which assists torture victims. "It matches very much with what we have seen and what we know and what was reported and documented by many local and international human rights organisations."

"What is still to be revealed is who took these pictures. Was it from the police themselves, playing as in Abu Ghraib (prison in Iraq), or was it somebody standing by who wanted to help?"

The low-quality video appears to have been taken by an onlooker in the room, possibly using a mobile phone, activists said.

Shawky said police violence in Egypt often includes beatings and sexual abuse, and the subjects of such abuse are often undressed and threatened with rape or public humiliation.

An Egypt researcher for Amnesty International in London said he was still trying to verify the authenticity of the video, which was recorded in a room without distinguishing features. Of the abuser and onlookers, only the feet are visible.

Blogger Mohamed Khaled, who first posted the tape on his blog Demaghmak (Mak's brain) (http://demaghmak.blogspot.com), said he got the video from a neighbour who had received it on his mobile phone through bluetooth technology.

But he said he does not know the original source. Since the sodomy video surfaced, a flurry of fresh torture allegations have appeared on Egyptian blogs.

The Misr Hura (Free Egypt) (http://misrhura.blogspirit.com) blog posted pictures of a prison inmate with his back covered in red bruises, which it says were sustained during a beating.

Ikhwanweb (www.ikhwanweb.com), affiliated with the banned Muslim Brotherhood, also recently accused a state security officer of beating a 54-year-old man to get a confession that he had taken part in a pro-Palestinian vigil.

FERTILE ENVIRONMENT?

Zarwan, the Human Rights Watch consultant, said Egypt's emergency laws, which allow prisoners to be held incommunicado, provide little police accountability and create "a fertile environment for torture to flourish".

Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif has said Egypt would hold a referendum next summer on constitutional changes to pave the way for ending the emergency laws, in place since the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in 1981.

Nazif said work was underway to replace emergency laws with anti-terrorism legislation. But analysts and rights activists expect little to change on the ground.

"There is totally no political will to face this (torture) phenomenon. In fact, it has the support and the consent of the authorities, totally. Systematic support also," said Shawky of the Nadim centre.

Rights activists said the sodomy video -- while it prompted an outcry on the Web and in leftist and human rights circles -- has met a muted public reaction. Most Egyptians are unaware the tape exists, they said.

The main government-owned newspapers, on which many Egyptians depend for daily news, have not written about the video. Just one opposition paper has done so. An anti-torture protest last week drew only a few dozen protesters.

"It hasn't created the uproar it should have because of a lack of focus and the government's indifference," publisher and rights activist Hisham Kassem said.

"There is very high apathy in the country. With things like this people just suck on their lips and say what a horrible thing it is and that's it."

Egyptian court rules against Bahá'ís, upholding government policy of discrimination

2006-12-17T13:26:00.000+02:00

CAIRO, 16 December 2006 (Bahá'í World News Service) -- In a closely watched case that has become the focus of a national debate on religious freedom, Egypt's Supreme Administrative Court today ruled against the right of Bahá'ís to be properly identified on government documents.

The decision upholds current government policy, a policy which forces the Bahá'ís either to lie about their religious beliefs or give up their state identification cards. The policy effectively deprives Egyptian Bahá'ís of access to most rights of citizenship, including education, financial services, and even medical care.

"We deplore the Court's ruling in this case, which violates an extensive body of international law on human rights and religious freedom to which Egypt has long been a party," said Bani Dugal, the principal representative of the Bahá'í International Community to the United Nations.

"Since this was the last avenue of appeal in this particular case, the Court's decision threatens to make non-citizens of an entire religious community, solely on the basis of religious belief," said Ms. Dugal.

"Our hope now is that the public debate over this issue will cause the Egyptian government to rectify its discriminatory policies," said Ms. Dugal. "This could be accomplished either by allowing Bahá'ís to be listed on government documents, by abolishing the religious affiliation listing entirely or, simply, by allowing the word 'other' to be legally included on state identification forms."

The case stems from a lawsuit filed against the government by a married couple, Husam Izzat Musa and Ranya Enayat Rushdy, who had their identification cards and passports confiscated after they applied to have their daughters added to their passports, which listed the Bahá'í Faith as their religion.

In Egypt, all citizens must list their religious affiliation on state ID cards and other documents, and current policy requires that they choose from one of the three officially recognized religions - Islam, Christianity or Judaism.

In April, a lower administrative court ruled in favor of the couple, saying the state must issue them ID cards that properly identified their religion. The ruling said that even if the government did not recognize the Bahá'í Faith, adherents should still have their religious status properly stated on official documents.

That ruling provoked an outcry among extremist elements in Egyptian society, who objected to any official mention of a religion other than the three mentioned in the Qur'an, opening a vigorous debate over issues of religious freedom and tolerance here.

Since April, more than 400 articles, stories, commentaries and programs have appeared in the Egyptian and Arabic news media about the case or its fallout. As well, independent human rights organizations here and abroad have closely followed the issue.

In May, the government appealed the lower court's ruling, which brought the case before the Supreme Administrative Court.

On 2 December, a final hearing was held on the case, at which Bahai lawyers argued for rejection of the government's appeal, on the basis that the lower court's ruling is fully supported by Egyptian law. The Court said at that time that it would release its final ruling today.