The Queen Boat case in Egypt: Sexuality, national security and state sovereignty

Review of International Studies

Volumn 33, Issue 1, 2007, Pages 129-144

  Pratt, Nicola ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 33846596588     PISSN: 02602105     EISSN: 14699044     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0260210507007346     Document Type: Review

References (106)

1. Scott Long, 'The Trials of Culture: Sex and Security in Egypt', Middle East Report Online, no. 230, 〈http://www.merip.org/mer/mer230/ 230_long.html〉, accessed 18 June 2004.
2. Hossam Bahgat, 'Explaining Egypt's Targeting of Gays', Middle East Report and Information Project Press Information Note, no. 64, 23 July 2001, 〈http//www.merip.org/mero/mero072301.html〉, accessed 18 June 2004:
3. Sarah Kershaw, 'Cairo cracks down on the gay scene', New York Times, 23 April 2003;
4. Human Rights Watch (HRW), In a Time of Torture: The Assault on Justice in Egypt's Crackdown on Homosexual Conduct (New York: HRW, 2004), p. 16.
5. Bahgat, 'Explaining Egypt's Targeting of Gays'.
6. For an elaboration of the concept of security as a discourse for performing national identity, see David Campbell, Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992).
7. Ann Tickner, Gender in International Relations: Feminist Perspectives on Achieving Global Security (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992);
8. Wenona Giles and Jennifer Hyndmann (eds.), Sites of Violence: Gender and Conflict Zones (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004).
9. Cynthia Enloe, Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics (London: Pandora, 2000), p. 197.
10. Wenona Giles and Jennifer Hyndmann, 'New Directions for Feminist Research and Politics', in Giles and Hyndmann, Sites of Violence, p. 308.
11. Enloe, Bananas, p. 11.
12. Giles and Hyndmann, 'New Directions', p. 310.
13. Dennis Altman, Global Sex (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2001), p. 2.
14. V. Spike Peterson, 'Sexing Political Identities: Nationalism as Heterosexism', in Sita Ranchod-Nilsson and Mary Ann Tétreault (eds.), Women. States and Nationalism (London: Routledge, 2000), p. 59.
15. In addition, several more men were arrested in other locations in Cairo that night, including in people's homes, Amnesty International (AI), Torture and Imprisonment for Actual or Perceived Sexual Orientation', Press Release, 20 December 2001, 〈http://web.amnesty.org/library/print/ ENGMDE120332001〉 , accessed 26 October 2004.
16. Ibid.; HRW, In a Time of Torture, p. 13. The law used to prosecute the Queen Boat defendants originated within the context, of anti-colonial struggles against British 'immorality'. In 1951, Egyptian nationalists proposed a law to abolish state licensed brothels established to service the 'needs' of the British military. Fujur was originally conceptualised within this legislation as referring to prostitution.
17. Bahgat, 'Explaining Egypt's Targeting of Gays'; International Secretariat of OMCT (World Organisation Against Torture), 'Arbitrary Arrest, Detention and Torture of Suspected "Gays" ', Press Release, 8 March 2002, posted to 〈http://www.gayegypt.com/wororagtor8m.html〉, accessed 26 October 2004: GayEgypt.com, 'A Brief History of Egypt's Gay Witch Hunt: May 2001-February 2003', 〈http://www.gayegypt.com〉, accessed 26 October 2004; HRW, In a Time of Torture.
18. Bahgat, 'Explaining Egypt's Targeting of Gays'; Kershaw, 'Cairo cracks down on the gay scene'.
19. HRW, In a Time of Torture, p. 16.
20. In one newspaper interview, 'Michael', an Egyptian gay man says, 'Even if the government accepts [homosexuality] and makes it official, the people will still refuse it . . . They think that being gay is shameful and brings Egypt a bad reputation'. Cited in Lilian Lang, 'Hiding themselves in the crowd', Middle East Times, issue 33, 1999, hosted at: 〈http://www.gayegypt. com/newrepongayi.html〉, accessed 28 April 2006.
21. AI, "Torture and Imprisonment'; OMCT, 'Arbitrary Arrest, Detention and Torture of Suspected "Gays"'; HRW, In a Time of Torture.
22. AI, 'Torture and Imprisonment': HRW, In a Time of Torture, p. 32 ff. The systematic use of torture by Egyptian police officers over the last decade has been extensively documented by Egyptian and international human rights groups. For example, Amnesty International (AI), 'Egypt: Time to Implement the UN Committee against Torture Recommendations', AI Index: MDE 12/038/2003, 20 November 2003, 〈http://web.amnesty.org/library/print/ ENGMDE120382003〉, accessed 12 May 2005.
23. AI, Torture and Imprisonment'.
24. Ibid.
25. HRW, In a Time of Torture, pp. 32 ff.
26. AI, Torture and Imprisonment.
27. Ibid.
28. Al-Ahram and Al-Gumhuriyya (both state-owned newspapers) published the full names, ages, professions and workplaces of the 52 defendants on 29 June 2001, even though this is illegal according to Egyptian law. Cited in, HRW, In a Time of Torture, fn. 126.
29. HRW, In a Time of Torture, pp. 32 ff.
30. The key defendant was charged with establishing a religious group called 'God's Agency on Earth'. The charge of 'contempt of religion' was used to justify the trial of the men in a state security court. Under Egyptian law, 'contempt of religion' is punishable by between six months and five years imprisonment. Age of Consent,' "Immorality" Trial Reconvenes in Egypt', 29 August 2001, 〈http://www.ageofconsent.com/egypt.htm〉, accessed 6 December 2004.
31. GayEgypt.com, 'A Brief History of Egypt's Gay Witch Hunt'; AI, Torture and Imprisonment'.
32. Jailan Halawi, 'Queen Boat Case Overturned', Al-Ahram Weekly On-line, 30 May-5 June 2002, 〈http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2002/588/eg2. htm〉, accessed 26 October 2004.
33. Jailan Malawi, 'Convicted Before the Fact', Al-Ahram Weekly Online, 20-27 March 2003.
34. 〈http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/print/2003/630/eg9.htm〉, accessed 26 October 2004; Al-Fatiha, 'Statistics on Gay Arrests in Egypt', 26 September 2003, 〈http://www.sodomylaws.org/world/egypt/ egnews160.htm〉, accessed 26 October 2004.
35. It is suggested that many more cases of harassment and prosecution of gay men in Egypt take place than is reported. This is due to the fact that, since the 'Queen Boat' trial, the Egyptian government has clamped down on media reporting of arrests of gay men due to mounting international criticism. See Al-Fatiha, 'Statistics on Gay Arrests in Egypt'; HRW, In a Time of Torture.
36. Interview with Judge Muhammed Abdel Karim, Cairo, Egypt, 11 March 2003, cit. in HRW, In a Time of Torture, p. 44.
37. Ibid.
38. AI, "Torture and Imprisonment'.
39. Amira El-Azhary Sonbol, 'Egypt', in Sameena Nazir (ed.), Obstacles and Opportunities towards Women's Rights in the Middle East and North Africa (New York: Freedom House, 2005), pp. 69-86.
40. Arlene Macleod, Accommodating Protest: Working Women, the New Veiling, and Changes in Cairo (Now York: Columbia University Press, 1991);
41. Nadia Wassef and Abdullah Mansour, Investigating Masculinities and Female Genital Mutilation in Egypt (Cairo: the National NGO Centre for Population and Development, 1999).
42. Marlyn Tadros, Rightless Women, Heartless Men: Egyptian Women and Domestic Violence (Cairo: Legal Research and Resource Centre, 1998).
43. Lama Abu Odeh, 'Crimes of Honour and the Construct of Gender in Arab Societies', in Mai Yamani (ed.), Feminism and Islam (Reading: Ithaca, 1996), p. 141.
44. Centre for Egyptian Women's Legal Assistance, ' "Crimes of Honour" as Violence against Women in Egypt', in Lynn Welchman and Sara Hossain (eds.), "Honour': Crimes, Paradigms and Violence against Women (London: Zed Books, 2005), pp. 144-5.
45. Long, The Trials of Culture'.
46. Lee Edelman, "Tearooms and Sympathy, or, The Epistemology of the Water Closet', in Andrew Parker et al. (eds.), Nationalisms and Sexualities (London: Routledge, 1992), p. 268.
47. Bahgat, 'Explaining Egypt's Targeting of Gays'.
48. Amongst others, see Heba El-Laithy and Mohamed Osman, 'Profile and Trend of Poverty and Economic Growth in Egypt', Research Paper Series (Cairo: United Nations Development Programme/Institute for National Planning, 1996): Gaurav Datt et al., 'A Profile of Poverty in Egypt: 1997', Food Consumption and Nutrition Division Discussion Paper no. 49 (Cairo: International Food Policy Research Institute, 1998).
49. Aziza Sami, This Year's Hot Potato', Al-Ahram Weekly Online, 3-9 January 2002, 〈http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2002/567/ec6.htm〉, accessed 19 May 2005.
50. Gihan Shahine, 'Dealing with the Dole', Al-Ahram Weekly Online, 3-9 May 2001, 〈http://weekly.ahram.org.og/2001/532/fol.htm〉, accessed 19 May 2005.
51. Egypt's Human Development Index ranking is amongst the lowest for a lower middle-income country. Human Development Report 2002 (New York: UNDP, 2002).
52. Marianne Marchand and Anne Sisson Runyan, 'Introduction - Feminist Sightings of Global Restructuring: Conceptualizations and Reconceptualizations', in Marchand and Runyan (eds.), Gender and Global Restructuring: Sightings, Sites and Resistances (London: Routledge, 2000).
53. Iman Bibars, Victims and Heroines: Women, Welfare and the Egyptian State (London: Zed Books, 2001).
54. Wassef and Mansour, Investigating Masculinities, pp. 136 ff.
55. For a discussion of this 'moral panic', see Mai Ghoussoub, 'Chewing Gum, Insatiable Women and Foreign Enemies', in Mai Ghoussoub and Emma Sinclair-Webb (eds.), Imagined Masculinities: Male Identity and Culture in the Modern Middle East (London: Saqi Books, 2000), pp. 227-35.
56. Wassef and Mansour, Investigating Masculinities, pp. 136 ff.
57. Kamran Asdar Ali, 'Notes on Rethinking Masculinities: An Egyptian Case', in Sondra Zeideristein and Kirsten Moore (eds.), Learning About Sexuality: A Practical Beginning (New York: Population Council/International Women's Health Coalition, 1996), pp. 106-7.
58. Ghossoub, 'Chewing Gum', p. 230.
59. For example, see Nadia Hijab, Womenpower (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).
60. Deniz Kandiyoti, 'Identity and its Discontents: Women and the Nation', in Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisnan (eds.), Colonial Discourse and Post-colonial Theory: A Reader (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994).
61. Religious/social conservatives vehemently opposed these changes on the grounds that it would lead to the break-up of the family. For example, see, Mariz Tadros, 'Who Won the Tug-of-War', Al-Ahram Weekly Online, 3-9 February 2000, 〈http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2000/467/li1.htm〉, accessed 19 May 2005.
62. 'Gender Empowerment Measures', 'Gender Inequality in Education' and 'Gender Inequality in Economic Activity' figures in UNDP, Human Development Report 2004, 〈http://hdr.undp.org/
63. reports/global/2004/pdf/hdr04_HDI.pdf〉, accessed 25 April 2005. For example, in Egypt, female literacy is 65 per cent of men's literacy; the female economic activity rate is 45 per cent that of men.
64. Stevi Jackson, 'Interchanges: Gender, Sexuality and Heterosexuality: The Complexity (and Limits) of Hotoronormativity,' Feminist Theory, 7:1 (2006), pp. 105-121.
65. Philip Smucker, 'A Clash of Cultures in Egypt', Christian Science Monitor Online, 〈http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/0918/p6s1-wome. htm〉, accessed 6 December 2004.
66. Cynthia Enloe, The Morning After: Sexual Politics at the End of the Cold War (Borkoloy, CA: University of California Press, 1.993), pp. 71-101.
67. Andrew Parker, Mary Russo, Doris Sommer and Patricia Yaeger, 'Introduction', in Parker et al. (eds.), Nationalisms and Sexualities, p. 6.
68. Al-Musawwar, 18 May 2001, cit. in HRW, In a Time of Torture, p. 40.
69. Human Rights Watch, 'Egypt: Human Rights Background', October 2001, 〈http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/mena/egypt-bck-1001.htm〉, accessed 28 April 2006.
70. Peterson, 'Sexing Political Identities'.
71. Nira Yuval-Davis and Floya Anthias (eds.), Woman-Nation-State (London: Macmillan, 1989).
72. For a discussion of the significance of the 'inner domain' of the nation, see Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and its Fragments (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993).
73. For example, Rose al-Youssef, 'How Could Anyone Believe Them after This Ridiculous Statement'.
74. Ibid.
75. For example, Al-Ahrar (newspaper of the Liberal party), 'The Arrest of the Members of the Devil-Worshippers' Organization: The Accused Was Holding a Marriage Ceremony for Two Men Each Week', 14 May 2001;
76. Al-Wafd (newspaper of the Wafd party), 'The Return of the Devil-Worshippers: The Arrest of 55 Suspects in a Shameless Party for the Engagement of Two Men', 13 May 2001;
77. Al-Gumhuriyya. (stale owned newspaper), 'Satanist Pervert Surprises: They Called Themselves God's Soldiers and Practice Group Sex in Private and Public Meetings Every Thursday at Queen Boat', 15 May 2001. All cited in HRW, In a Time of Torture, pp. 22 and 39.
78. Altman, Global Sex, p. 6.
79. However, as feminist scholars of women in Islam have argued, Islam was progressive for its time in guaranteeing women's rights to own property and to receive a share of inheritance and in protecting women from less progressive, pre Islamic practices. The problem is less with the Islamic religion itself than the predominance of patriarchal interpretations of religious texts, which justify gender inequalities on the basis of gender difference. For example, Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam (London: Yale University Press, 1992).
80. For example, Abdelwahab Bouhdiba, Sexuality in Islam (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985), p. 31.
81. Yet, Islamic texts may be reinterpreted in different ways and gay Muslim/Muslim gay men have challenged the hetero-nomiative/patriarchal interpretations of the Quran, providing alternative readings to open spaces for same-sex, consensual relationships within Islam. For example, Asifa Siraj, 'On Being Homosexual and Muslim: Conflicts and Challenges', Lahoucine Ouzgano (ed.), Islamic Masculinities (London: Zed Books, 2006), pp. 202-16.
82. Nadje Al-Ali, Secularism, Gender and the State in the Middle East: The Egyptian Women's Movement (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 40-4.
83. Hijab, Womanpower.
84. BBC News Online, 'Egyptian Rights Group "Cannot. Protect Gays"', 7 February 2002, 〈http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/ 1813926.stm〉, accessed 6 December 2004.
85. Philip Smucker, 'A Clash of Cultures in Egypt', Christian Science Monitor Online, 〈http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/0918/p6s1-wome. htm〉, accessed 6 December 2004.
86. BBC News Online, 'Egypt Crackdown on Homosexuals', 7 March 2002, 〈http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/ pr/fr/-/1./hi/programmes/crossing_continents/ 1858469.stm〉, accessed 6 December 2004.
87. 'Dr. Khalil Fadel Tries to Road between the Lines', Sawt al-Umma (independent newspaper), 24 May 2001, cit. in HRW, In a Time of Torture, p. 40.
88. Nira Yuval-Davis, Gender and Nation (London: Sage, 1997); Kandiyoti, 'Identity and its Discontents', p. 378.
89. BBC News Online, 'Egypt Crackdown on Homosexuals'. One arrested man had thrown away his underwear before arriving at the prison where they would be detained because, 'He thought it incriminated him'. HRW, In a Time of Torture, fn. 114.
90. HRW, In a Time of Torture, p. 18.
91. Ibid., p. 32.
92. Ibid., p. 33.
93. Ibid., p. 43.
94. A more recent event also demonstrates the way in which the military power of the West is equated with homosexuality. In Egypt, in May 2004, there were demonstrations protesting the abuse of prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison, Iraq. The protesters blamed the abuse on 'homosexual American executioners'. Patrick Letellier, 'Egyptian Protest "Gay" Abuse in Iraq', Gay.com, 18 May 2004, 〈http://uk.gay.com/headlines/6271〉, accessed 6 December 2004.
95. 'An Egyptian View', Al-Akhbar newspaper (state-owned), 30 May 2001, cit. in HRW, In a Time of Torture, p. 39.
96. Long, "The Trials of Culture'.
97. HRW, In a Time of Torture, p. 42.
98. BBC News Online, 'Egyptian Rights Group "Cannot Protect Gays"'; Age of Consent, '"Immorality" Trial Reconvenes in Egypt'.
99. European Parliament Resolution, 29 November 2001, Association Agreement with Egypt (B5-0740/2001); European Parliament resolution on the conclusion of an Association Agreement with Egypt.
100. Since its emergence at. the end of the 1980s, the Egyptian human rights movement has been subject to numerous campaigns to discredit its work by the government and other members of civil society on the grounds that it represents Western interests and values. The Queen Boat arrests happened soon after a pro-democracy activist, Saad Eddin Ibrahim, was found guilty of 'defaming Egypt abroad' (amongst other charges), also in a State Security Court. For further details, see Nicola Pratt, 'Egypt Harasses Human Rights Activists', Middle East Report Press Information Note, 17 August 2000, 〈http://www.merip. ofg/mero/mero081700.html〉.
101. These groups included the Hisham Mubarak Law Centre, the al-Nadim Centre for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Torture and the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights.
102. Rose al-Youssef, 'How Could Anyone Believe Them after This Ridiculous Statement'.
103. BBC News Online, 'Egyptian Rights Group "Cannot Protect Grays" '.
104. Bahgat, 'Explaining Egypt's Targeting of Gays'.
105. Giles and Hyndmann, 'New Directions for Feminist Research and Politics', p. 314.
106. Michael Kimmel, 'Globalizatiori and its Mal(e)contents: The Gendered Moral and Political Economy of Terrorism', International Sociology, 18:3 (2003), p. 604.