Egypt Sentences Five Men to 3-Year Prison Terms for Being Gay

Because they're gay. Disgusting:

"An Egyptian judicial official says four HIV-positive men have been convicted of being homosexual and sentenced to three years in prison followed by three years of close police supervision. The official says on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press that a fifth man without HIV was also convicted and received the same sentence. The defense lawyer for the five, Adel Ramadan, says the judge convicted the men of the 'habitual practice of debauchery,' a term used in the Egyptian legal system to denote consensual homosexual acts."

Yesterday, I posted about reports that Egypt's recent crackdown on gays was an effort to out-moralize Islamists condemning the "perceived depravity" of Arab autocratic states. That article said that "Four of (nine men arrested) were sentenced to a year in prison for debauchery, a crime that Egyptian law defines as having sex for money or with a number of partners over an extended period. Five of the remaining eight face trial April 9 on the same charge even though they were found to be free of disease."

We now know the outcome of the other five cases.

Egypt sentences 4 HIV-positive men to 3 years in prison for 'debauchery' [iht]

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Egypt Targets Gays in Effort to Out-Moralize Islamists

Arrests and abuse of gays have become commonplace in Egypt. Similar crackdowns are happening in Kuwait and Morocco (and likely plenty of other places) as well:

"For three months, the Egyptian police have embarked on periodic sweeps of streets in central Cairo to clear them of presumed homosexuals. The raids, independent observers and human rights activists say, reflect not simply official disgust. They're part of an effort by governments throughout the Middle East to out-moralize Islamic parties that have denounced the perceived depravity of Arab societies under autocratic rule. Homosexuality is not illegal in Egypt, though it is a convenient target, said Hani Shukrallah, executive director of the Heikal Foundation for Arab Journalism in Cairo. 'Meaningless crackdowns have become a regular thing,' Shukrullah said. 'If not gays, devil worshippers. If not devil worshippers, apostates. The government needs to outbid Islamic opponents as guardian of morals.'"

Those who follow this site will remember the post about Egyptians being arrested for being HIV-positive and the tortured they endured. You see, torture and abuse are considered of higher morality than love for another person if that person happens to be of the same gender.

Gays in Egypt besieged by wave of suppression [iht]

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News: Karen Carpenter, Egypt, Jason Rae, Tuxedos, Michelle Obama

The Advocate talks to Jason Rae, at 21 the nation's youngest superdelegate: "I have not yet come out to my parents. I’m realizing that tonight I may just want to call them and talk to them. I’ve been waiting for the right moment, and now just might happen to be that right moment."

Karen Carpenter's home in Downey, California soon to be in the path of the wrecking ball? Fan: "This house is our version of Graceland. When they photographed the 'Now & Then' cover here in 1973, the house was instantly immortalized."

HIV arrests widen in Egypt: "The latest arrests took place after police followed up information coerced from men already detained, HRW said. The Egyptian interior ministry has not responded to the allegations. In a joint press release, Amnesty International and HRW warned that Egypt's efforts to prevent the spread of the deadly virus could be seriously damaged by the arrests. 'This not only violates the most basic rights of people living with HIV. It also threatens public health, by making it dangerous for anyone to seek information about HIV prevention or treatment,' said Rebecca Schleifer, who works on HIV/Aids issues at HRW."

Beef recall: 143 million pounds. "'Because the cattle did not receive complete and proper inspection, Food Safety and Inspection Service has determined them to be unfit for human food and the company is conducting a recall,' Schafer said in a statement. A phone message left for Westland president Steve Mendell was not immediately returned. Federal officials suspended operations at Westland/Hallmark after an undercover video from the Humane Society of the United States surfaced showing crippled and sick animals being shoved with forklifts." Here's the video. Warning: images are extremely disturbing.

Lindsay Lohan recreates Marilyn Monroe's nude "last sitting" for New York magazine. (warning: NSFW)

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Washington House passes measure expanding benefits to domestic partners: "The measure adds domestic partners to sections of laws where previously only spouses were mentioned, including areas referring to probate and trusts, community-property and homestead exemptions, and guardianship and powers of attorney. The underlying domestic-partnership law, passed last year, already provides hospital-visitation rights, the ability to authorize autopsies and organ donations, and inheritance rights when there is no will."

Fleshbot liveblogs the GayVN (adult film) awards at the Giftcenter in San Francisco. (warning: site NSFW

UK arsonist sentenced to 10 years for lighting gay couple's home on fire as they slept: "Sonny Lockwood, 20, targeted his victims, Nicholas Hughes and Peter Cameron at their home in North Downs Crescent, New Addington, in retaliation to the pair testifying against him at an earlier Asbo hearing."

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Oscar Men's Fashion Watch: "Fashion is reaching back to the classic look of old Hollywood and giving it a modern, sexy twist. Thanks to designs like Dior Homme's with its skinny cut, men look slimmer in luxury fabrics such as lightweight wool. This year, expect to see '60s-inspired velvet dinner jackets in rich purples or blues. There will be vests and regular ties instead of bow ties."

Five Anglican leaders to boycott once-a-decade world Anglican summit because the Episcopal church ordained a gay bishop: "Friday's announcement came from Archbishops Peter Akinola of Nigeria, Emmanuel Kolini of Rwanda, Benjamin Nzimbi of Kenya, Henry Orombi of Uganda and Gregory Venables of the Southern Cone, which is in South America. 'There is no serious space for those of an orthodox persuasion ... to be themselves or to be taken seriously,' the archbishops said in a statement. They lead some of the largest or fastest-growing Anglican provinces in the world. 'The gathering will be diminished by their absence, and I imagine that they themselves will miss a gift they might have otherwise received' by attending, Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said."

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Group: Egypt Arresting, Torturing HIV-Positive Men

Human Rights Watch this week reported on a number of arrests in Cairo, Egypt "sparked by one man’s admission to police that he was HIV-positive" that began in October of last year. It all began after two men had an "altercation" in the street and were reportedly stopped by police:

"When one of them told the officers that he was HIV-positive, police immediately took them both to the Morality Police office and opened an investigation against them for homosexual conduct. The two men told human rights defenders that they were slapped and beaten for refusing to sign statements the police wrote for them. They spent four days in the Morality Police office handcuffed to an iron desk, sleeping on the floor. Police later subjected the two men to forensic anal examinations designed to 'prove' that they had engaged in homosexual conduct. Human Rights Watch has documented that such examinations to detect 'evidence' of homosexuality are not only medically spurious but constitute torture. Police then arrested two more men because their photographs or telephone numbers were found on the first two detainees. Authorities subjected all to HIV tests without their consent. All four are still in detention, pending prosecutors’ decision on whether to bring charges of homosexual conduct. The first two arrestees, who reportedly tested HIV-positive, are being held in a Cairo hospital, handcuffed to their beds and only unchained for an hour each day."

Following these arrests, the police reportedly placed their apartment under surveillance and detained four additional men who came to inhabit it for homosexual conduct, with no evidence.

According to Human Rights Watch, "People who have spoken to the four men since their arrest told Human Rights Watch that a non-commissioned officer in the police station beat one detainee on the head several times. Police allegedly forced the four men to stand in a painful position for three hours with their arms lifted in the air. They were provided no food, drink, or blankets during their first four days of detention. Authorities also tested these men for HIV without their consent. One of the men reportedly said that the prosecutor, when informing him that he had tested positive for HIV, told him: 'People like you should be burnt alive. You do not deserve to live.'"

The BBC reports: "While not explicitly referred to in Egypt's legal code, homosexuality can be punished under several different laws covering obscenity, prostitution and debauchery. Egypt has come under repeated criticism by both human rights groups and the international community for its treatment of homosexual people."

Egypt: Stop Criminalizing HIV [human rights watch]
Egypt 'torturing HIV sufferers' [bbc]
HIV-positive men in Egypt reflect ignorance, injustice [iht]
Egypt chaining HIV men to hospital beds: rights group [afp]

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News: Giant Bug Fossil, Lourdes, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Egypt

The reason for Jonathan Rhys-Meyers recent arrest for drunk and disorderly behavior in Dublin revealed: his mother's death.

Fossil of world's largest bug discovered: "Found in a German quarry, the claw is 46cm (18ins) long, suggesting the sea scorpion was 2.5m (8ft) long - almost two feet longer that it was previously thought the aquatic creatures grew to. Because land-based scorpions and spiders are believed to have descended from the sea scorpion, scientist believe the discovery means that they also may have been even bigger than had been believed."

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Bush pushing through regulations that will further restrict the ability of HIV-positive people to enter the United States: "This is a big disappointment, given the rhetoric of the Bush administration that the US was making it easier - because the new regs simply add more heavy burdens for the HIV-positive traveler."

Gloves are off. Clinton mocks Obama over foreign policy experience: "Voters will have to judge if living in a foreign country at the age of 10 prepares one to face the big, complex international challenges the next president will face. I think we need a president with more experience than that, someone the rest of the world knows, looks up to and has confidence in." Obama shoots back: "Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld have spent time in the White House and traveled to many countries as well, but along with Hillary Clinton they led us into the worst foreign policy disaster in a generation and are now giving George Bush the benefit of the doubt on Iran. The real choice in this election is between conventional Washington thinking that prizes posture and positioning, or real change that puts judgment and honesty first."

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Canadian Polar Bear "harvest" risks population collapse: "In Canada, government hunting quotas encourage killing male polar bears over female ones. The theory is that, because females rear the bear cubs, losing one female polar bear will have a more serious impact on the population's ability to sustain its number. As a result, at least two thirds of polar bears killed in Canada each year are male, according to a separate study that will appear in a forthcoming issue of the journal Wildlife Biology. Research has shown that the policy has significantly reduced the ratio of males to females in polar bear populations across the Canadian Arctic."

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"Ex-gay" therapy hits Egypt.

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King Tut: Egypt's Ancient Ruler Unmasked

Following a two-year restoration, during which the famous Egyptian King's male member was thought lost and then found, King Tut went on display, unmasked to the general public for the first time in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, Egypt.

The Independent writes: "Naturally, the face the world can now see is a lot less idealised than the lustrous and splendid golden mask. It is shrivelled and leather-like from the embalming process. But, if less idealised, it is a lot more human and exhibits one very human characteristic in particular: he might have been the lord of all he saw, but young King Tut had buck teeth. The mummified face clearly display the "overbite" which was characteristic of the Thurmosid royal line to which Tutankhamun belonged."

The restoration also saw the mummy be put into a CT scanner so researchers could perhaps determine the cause of his death. The results ruled out a violent death for the ancient ruler (who many thought was assassinated) but revealed a fractured left thigh, leading some researchers to speculate that Tut may have died of an infection brought on by the injury.

Archaeologist Howard Carter opened King Tut's tomb 85 years ago, in 1922. Carter's benefactor, Lord Carnarvon, died seven weeks after the tomb was opened, giving rise to the legend of the "curse" of King Tut's tomb. Carter lived another ten years.

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Ancient Crossdressing Pharaoh Queen Hatshepsut Identified?

Scientists believe DNA from bones confirm the identity of Queen Hatshepsut, ancient Egypt's most powerful female pharaoh. When she ruled Egypt in the 15th century B.C., Hatshepsut "was known for dressing like a man and wearing a false beard."

This from Wikipedia, so take it for what you will: "Many existing statues show her in both a feminine and masculine form. Statues portraying Sobekneferu also combine elements of traditional male and female iconography and may have served as inspiration for the works commissioned by Hatshepsut.[14] However, after this period of transition ended, all depictions of her showed her in a masculine form, with all of the pharaonic regalia and with her breasts omitted. Her reasons for doing this are a topic of great debate in Egyptology. The traditional explanation is that her motivation for wearing men's clothing was sexual. However, most modern scholars believe in a more recent theory: that by assuming the exclusively male symbols of pharaonic power, Hatshepsut was asserting her claim to be King or Queen regnant and not "King's Great Wife" or Queen consort. Even after assuming the male persona, Hatshepsut still described herself as a beautiful woman, often the most beautiful woman, and although she assumed almost all of her father's titles, she declined to take the title 'The Strong Bull'." She also had a stunning mortuary temple (right).

Via AP: "The discovery, announced Wednesday at the museum in Cairo, has not been independently reviewed by other experts. While scientists are still matching those mitochondrial DNA sequences, [molecular geneticist Yehia Zakaria] Gad said preliminary results were 'very encouraging.' [Egypt’s antiquities chief Zahi] Hawass also said that a molar found in a jar with some of the queen’s embalmed organs perfectly matched the mummy. 'We are 100 percent certain' the mummy is that of Hatshepsut, Hawass told The Associated Press."

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German Chopped Up in Egypt After Refusing to Pay for Gay Sex

An Egyptian pharmaceutical company employee confessed to murdering and chopping up a German drama teacher after he allegedly refused to pay the man for sex.

Mustapha Maher left the remains of the teacher, an expat instructing drama students in Cairo, in a suitcase on a rocky plateau overlooking Cairo.

"Police were able to identify the victim and the alleged perpetrator because the dead man, who taught at a German school in Cairo, had been packed into the case along with his cellphone."

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Matthew McConaughey beached...

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