34 arrested in Egypt’s LGBTQ crackdown

CAIRO— At least 34 people have been arrested in Egypt as part of an expanding crackdown on the gay and transgender community following a rock concert last month when audience members waved a rainbow flag.

The crackdown has been fuelled by social media, where images of the flag-waving were widely shared, and by dating apps and other websites, which the Egyptian police have used to entrap suspected gay and transgender people, activists and officials say.

Photographs and video of Ahmed Alaa and others waving the flag at the concert by Mashrou’ Leila, a Lebanese band with an openly gay singer, stoked public outrage and vituperative news coverage that described the flag-waving as an assault on Egypt and its morals.

Ahmed Moussa, an influential talk show host, suggested last week that Alaa and the others had been funded by unidentified enemies who wanted to “disgrace” Egypt by making it appear to accept homosexuality.

Homosexuality is highly taboo in Egypt among Muslims and Christians alike, but it is not explicitly prohibited by law. In practice, authorities prosecute individuals under such charges as “immorality” and “debauchery.”

The crackdown has primarily targeted gay men and transgender women, groups that the Egyptian state and mass media do not consider distinct from each other. Hundreds of them have been arrested since 2013 as part of a broad crackdown on social freedoms by the government of Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, which has killed hundreds of protesters and jailed thousands of political opponents.