Elyoum elsaba trial#

(Several reporters snapped photos of the defendants in this chaos, which generally went unnoticed by the ecstatic relatives.) The defendants and their families joyously cried, “ Alahu akbar!” - God is great - but after the relief had subsided they began shouting for the press. The shouting was even louder after the judge quietly pronounced the men not guilty. It took several minutes for the police to calm the uproar. “Infidel!” he yelled, and suddenly almost everyone in the room was screaming.

Elyoum elsaba trial#

Cameras were banned in the room, but one of the defendants thought he saw a reporter snap a picture with his cell phone as the men were locked in a metal cage at the front of the courtroom before the trial began. Half of the court’s pew-like benches were stuffed with reporters, and the defendants stumbled as they desperately tried to pull hats or scarves over their faces. “I think it mattered that people said, ‘No, you went too far,’” El-Hameed said.īefore the judge handed down his ruling, the families’ anger at the press exploded as the defendants were dragged from the back of the packed courtroom shackled together at the wrist. The courtroom was packed with supporters when the judgment was handed down on Monday, and they didn’t hide their anger toward the police or the press. “They are articulating it as this is a battle against the state, which is fabricating these charges against these people,” El-Hameed said. In other cases, families tried to distance themselves from the scandal. A clear sign that this case was being received differently than other homosexuality charges was the fact that many family members of the defendants came to the trial. Instead, common Egyptians - especially the working-class Egyptians who rely on neighborhood bathhouses like this one for their bathing needs - actually sympathize with the accused. “That cooperation between the police and the media, I think it was supposed to sensationalize the public against LGBT people,” said Dalia Abd El-Hameed, a member of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, a human rights group whose attorneys handled the defense of 14 of the defendants. The court’s surprise decision to dismiss the charges brought a faint hope to human rights and democracy activists that it could force the press to re-examine its relationship to the Sisi regime as it extends its power deeper into Egyptians’ everyday lives. Those men were finally brought to trial last week. Even some writers at outlets that generally write approvingly of such arrests said Iraqi’s involvement in this case crossed the line. 7, 2014, a television presenter named Mona Iraqi claimed to have reported what she called Cairo’s “biggest den of perversions” to the police, and she rushed to publish pictures as the men were dragged naked to the police station. In it, Sisi’s office manager, General Abas Kamal, is heard instructing spokesperson Ahmed Ali to give orders to journalists about what to say about Sisi.įor many in Cairo, the arrest of 26 men accused of participating in a “gay sex party” at a working-class bathhouse in December was an especially egregious example of the close relationship that has developed between the media and the Sisi regime. “The problem is that there is no decency, no conscience among the people who work in the field.”ĭirect evidence of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s office seeking to dictate coverage to the media surfaced this week in the form of a phone call taped during his presidential campaign that leaked online. News outlets, eager to keep their share of the market, have eagerly picked up the government’s line also because it serves their financial interests - sex sells, and it can continue drawing readers when the hot-button political topics are off-limits. “The regime is claiming that they represent the revolution and none of the revolution’s demands have been met,” Monsour said. Monsour said he believed the government wanted coverage of arrests for homosexuality and other “morality” charges in order to distract from political stories that could expose how the government had betrayed the hopes of the revolution that toppled the 30-year rule of former President Hosni Mubarak in 2011. “These are instructions from the state apparatus” to cover sex scandals and other “silly” issues, Ibrahim Monsour, editor-in-chief of a leading Egyptian liberal newspaper, the Tahrir News, told BuzzFeed News. CAIRO - Coverage inside Egypt of people arrested on charges of homosexuality has skyrocketed as a direct result of government pressure, with one editor going so far as to say it is happening under “instructions” from the state.