In a garage behind a row of parked cars sleeps Mostafa near a pile of litter left behind by a street dog and its newborn puppies. A couple of dusty blankets and pieces of cardboard serve as his bed. He earns his money as a parking attendant, shoe shiner and handyman; anything that will make him a few pounds. A little over a year ago, the 25 year old university graduate was living with his parents in a working class neighborhood in Cairo. He worked as a salesman in an electronics shop and spent his weekends with his friends at the local tea-house. In the summer of 2014, he and a friend went to a hotel bar to have a beer. Two hours later, he was locked up in a police cell, handcuffed and with a black eye. “I was charged with being a homosexual,” he explains. “Apparently, that hotel bar is a meeting place for gay people, and that evening, the police raided the bar.” It took Mostafa until the beginning of this following year to get released, thanks to a local human rights organisation. However, while the charges…
Homosexuality in Egypt: Lives Ruined Between Allegations and Confessions
August 30, 2015
