Crackdown on Non-Normative People in Egypt: A Policy Brief

On 22 September 2017, the rainbow flag was raised during a Mashrou’ Leila concert in Cairo, Egypt. Following this, the Egyptian state has conducted an aggressive crackdown on individuals suspected to be members of the LGBT community. This crackdown has seen widespread human rights violations, at the hands of Egyptian authorities, including detentions without trial, torture and instances of ‘anal testing’ to determine the detainee’s sexuality. In total, 62 individuals have been arrested for ‘promoting sexually deviant activities’. Many of the arrests have taken place following police infiltration of alleged LGBT ‘safe spaces’, such as clubs and bars. This crackdown has also extended to online platforms, with many people taking to social media to hunt down, bully and harass those suspected of as ‘LGBT’. The police has also utilised dating applications, such as Grindr, and Facebook to find individuals with non-normative genders and sexualities. The situation is at a critical stage, and looks set to worsen in the coming weeks, if policy makers, diplomats and international media take no action against the government. Read our policy brief for further details.