Egypt: Overturn Boy's Conviction for Homosexuality

Egypt: Overturn Boy's Conviction for Homosexuality

(New York, November 20, 2001) - A sixteen-year-old boy's prosecution and
conviction for engaging in sexual relations with men violates
international standards, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to Egyptian
authorities released today.

Convicted of "debauchery" on September 18 after police coerced him into
giving a confession, the boy received a sentence of three years'
imprisonment with labor followed by three years of probation. His
appeal, originally set for October 31, will be heard on November 21.

Human Rights Watch called on Egypt's prosecutor general to ask the
appeals court to overturn the conviction, citing discriminatory
application of the law, charges of torture during interrogation,
prolonged pretrial detention, limited access to counsel and family
members, and a failure to protect the boy's privacy during the court
proceedings.

"This case has been marred by a host of human rights violations," said
Clarisa Bencomo of the Children's Rights Division of Human Rights Watch.
"It should never have come to trial."

The youth has said that police extracted a confession from him after
subjecting him to painful beating on the soles of the feet. He did not
have access to a lawyer during his interrogation, and he was not allowed
to contact his family during the first two weeks of his detention. Press
and spectators were allowed to attend and report on the September and
October hearings, and the boy's name, photo, and accounts of the charges
and sentence have appeared in Egypt's semi-official press.

The boy was one of fifty-six people detained and charged with similar
offenses after a crackdown in May against men presumed to be gay. The
others, all adults, were prosecuted separately before an Emergency State
Security Court, which reached a verdict on November 14. Twenty-three
were sentenced to between one and five years of hard labor; twenty-nine
were acquitted.

Last week, Egyptian authorities made four additional arrests of men
presumed to be gay, according to reports in the Egyptian press.

Egypt does not expressly outlaw homosexual acts. Instead, authorities
initially accused the boy of "abuse of religion" (istighlal al din).
Interrogated before he was allowed to contact a lawyer, the boy denied
the initial accusation but admitted to engaging in sexual acts with men,
leading prosecutors to charge him with debauchery (mumarasat al fujur).
Three years' imprisonment followed by a similar period of probation is
the maximum sentence that can be imposed under this provision, contained
in Law No. 10 of 1961 on the Combat of Prostitution.

"Egyptian authorities targeted these individuals solely because of their
presumed sexual orientation," Bencomo said. "By discriminating against a
group of its citizens in this way, Egypt has violated a fundamental
principle of human rights law."

In addition, criminalization is not an appropriate response to sexual
activity on the part of a child, Human Rights Watch argued.
International law does not permit the criminalization of sexual
relations between consenting adults of the same sex; a child should not
be held criminally responsible for an act that would not, under these
standards, be subject to criminal responsibility if committed by an
adult.

The arrests and convictions also take place in a climate of serious
erosion of basic civil rights for Egyptian citizens. The country has
been under continuous emergency rule since October 1981, following the
assassination of Anwar Sadat. Following a resurgence of political
violence in the early 1990s, the government introduced antiterror laws
that gave the security and intelligence services greater powers of
arrest and detention, enabling them to round up thousands of suspects.

A copy of the letter sent Counsellor Maher 'Abd al-Wahid, Egypt's
Prosecutor General, can be found at
http://www.hrw.org/press/2001/11/egyptltr1119.htm

For more information on the trials of gay men in Egypst, please see:

Egypt: Gay Men Convicted in Politically Motivated Trial (HRW Press
Release, November 14, 2001) at
http://www.hrw.org/press/2001/11/egypt1114.htm

Egypt: Release Child Imprisoned for Alleged Sexual Orientation (HRW
Press Release, October 30, 2001) at
http://www.hrw.org/press/2001/10/egypt1030.htm

Egypt: Emergency Court Trials for Homosexuality Suspects (HRW Press
Release, July 4, 2001) at http://www.hrw.org/press/2001/07/egypt0704.htm

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