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BullShnit: Egyptian homophobia’s Swiss defenders
Mona Iraqi, in an Egyptian Internet meme ACTION: Please write to Shnit and Olivier van der Hoeven in protest at the film festival’s decision to support homophobic informer Mona Iraqi:...
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Egypt: Tweeting and blogging against informer journalists and homophobia
Stop informer journalists Tomorrow, December 21, is the first hearing in the trial of men arrested in Mona Iraqi’s December 7 bathhouse raid in Cairo. I will post updates here. Meanwhile: Protest this...
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Day one of the trial: What Mona Iraqi accomplished
Justice, with paparazzi: Standard courthouse art from Cairo Today I went to the trial, with two Egyptian human rights activists — Dalia Abd El Hameed of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights...
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Update: Film festival fires Mona Iraqi
Not in our sandbox: Logo for Shnit’s “Cairo Playground” Shnit, the Swiss-based international short film festival, posted this on its website today: As of its annual Council meeting on December 22th in...
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Why I am not Charlie
There is no “but” about what happened at Charlie Hebdo yesterday. Some people published some cartoons, and some other people killed them for it. Words and pictures can be beautiful or vile, pleasing...
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Victory
UPDATE: The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights tells me (and the newspaper Al Wafd reports tonight) that the prosecution has formally appealed the not-guilty verdict against the 26 men. The...
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Why the crackdown in Egypt isn’t over, and what to do about it
Covering their faces, shackled defendants in the bathhouse case are dragged into court, January 12: Photo by Reuters It’s like watching a whole ramshackle building totter when a single brick is pulled...
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After Mona Iraqi: Some Egyptian voices
Lock your door if you like, but I’m still watching: Mona Iraqi as Big Sister, in an ad for her program El Mostakhbai (“The Hidden”) How does it feel to be unsafe in ur own house, scared and your...
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Four years
Today is the fourth anniversary of the Egyptian revolution. General Sisi’s regime has cancelled (“delayed”) any commemorations of a date it is indisposed to celebrate. Instead it is “mourning over the...
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ISIS kills gays: A history of violence
Hands shove them forward, bound and blindfolded. Then comes the step when the stone beneath them stops and nothing is there. The photographs appall but they have the solidity of things you can see;...
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Egypt’s Atrocity Investments Fair (Part one: The British connection)
Malouka Aldlouah in court; photo from Al Youm Al Sabbah (Youm7), January 31, 2015. I tried to blur her face; Youm7 didn’t. Look at two photographs. Above is Malouka Aldlouah, a 25-year-old transgender...
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I misremember Iraq
Everyone misremembers something. We mostly draw our lives’ meaning from the private world, so we tend to misremember sex: doing it better than we did, with somebody sexier than they were. Many of my...
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One of Mona Iraqi’s victims tries to burn himself to death
Shameless I: Lt. Col. Ahmed Hashad of Cairo’s morals police — responsible for numerous arrests in Egypt’s brutal crackdown — appears on Mona Iraqi’s program, February 4 One of the 26 men arrested,...
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Help, I’m being persecuted: Hypocrisy and free speech
Trans activists in Mexico City protesting violence against LGBT people and sex workers, August 13, 2011. Photo: Alfredo Estrella for AFP In long years of human rights work, I’ve seen plenty of hatred...
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On death threats, trolls, and truth
Violent transgender activists cooking up a juicy free speech stew The center has shifted in the debate over last week’s Observer letter. What was once an argument about grave human rights abuses...
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New arrests of alleged trans and gay people in Cairo
Seven victims: Still from Youm7 video, February 27 Some of us hoped the acquittal of victims in Mona Iraqi’s bathhouse raid would resonate longer than a few days or weeks; maybe prosecutors and police,...
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John Kerry to LGBT Egyptians: Enjoy jail
It’s so embarrassing. Sometimes I forget who I’ve just been torturing. Sisi meets with Kerry in Cairo, September 13, 2014. Photo: Aswat Masriya/Reuters I have on good authority from sources here in...
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Fashion police
Accessorized at the altar: Model Bianca Balti displays devotion in the Dolce & Gabbana Fall/Winter Collection. Shot by Pierpaolo Ferrari for Tatler Russia, September 2013 I agree; fashion is an...
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Indiana: It’s more than marriage
The furor over Indiana’s on-and-off “religious freedom” law is a strange one. Left and right argue about not only the bill, but whether it even matters. If you’re against it, this is a historic battle,...
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