Seven alleged ‘transsexuals’ have been arrested under charges of “debauchery” as part of a wider crackdown on Egypt’s LGBT community, the newspaper Youm7 reports.
Speaking to Youm7, Major General Magdy Moussa from the Morality Police said that the suspects are part of a wider network of gays and transsexuals that the government has been tracking through social media. He added that they have collected evidence and naked pictures from the individuals to prove their charges.
The police say they arrested the group at a club on Haram Street, after they had arranged a meeting with them and were told they would go to an apartment afterwards and practice “debauchery”.
Youm 7 posted an interview YouTube with the group, showing the suspects' blurred faces speaking to police, along with pictures some of the men had posted on social media dressed in drag.
No reports have yet been released whether the group has been subject to the controversial anal examinations, though it is routine procedure performed on virtually all men suspected of being gay.
In the previous high-profile raid of an allegedly ‘gay’ bathhouse in Ramses, 21 of the 26 men on trial were subjected to the examination, Hesham Abdel Hameed, the Justice Ministry's forensics department spokesperson, told Ahram Online.
In an interview with BuzzFeed, the deputy director of the Justice Ministry’s Forensic Medical Authority Dr. Maged Louis, who oversees the examinations, attempted to explain the shoddy science behind the practice, claiming that homosexual activity causes a man's anus to ressemble a female vagina.
“The shape of the hole will change [and the anus] won’t be normal anymore and will look like the female vagina,” he told BuzzFeed.
Though homosexuality is not explicitly illegal in Egypt, men are often arrested under blanket charges of “debauchery” and can see the results their forced anal examinations used against them in court as evidence of their homosexual activity.
International human rights organizations and medical professionals have condemned the controversial practice, saying it has no medical or scientific basis. Amnesty International has declared the examinations violate international treaties against torture.
“We run a clinic where we do anal examinations of thousands of patients,” Dr. Joel Palefsky, president of the International Anal Neoplasia Society, told BuzzFeed. “Never in my 20 years of doing this have I seen an anus that looks like a vagina.”
The crackdown of Egypt's LGBT community has intensified since the ouster of Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsy in summer of 2013. Many analysts say the campaign is part of an effort by the new regime to appease a conservative public and show the military-backed government is upholding Egypt's Islamic family values.
