Pink's Not In...

I remember this wall in Zamalek when it was a dirty graffitied gable end before being transformed into a high class sweet shop. Despite the presence of pink here, don't be fooled into thinking that this is a state tolerant of its LGBT population.

Although homosexuality is not criminalised, all LGBT people are at risk of arrest and jail for offences such as 'promulgating debauchery', as happened recently to a young male couple who, elegantly dressed in tails, pecked each other on the lips during their simulated marriage ceremony on a party boat on the Nile. A video recording of the moment went viral and they were sentenced to three years in prison yesterday. Four other gay people earlier this year got five years hard labour for similar 'offences.'

If you apply the usually accepted percentage of gay people in any given society of around 6% (a naturally occurring phenomenon in all mammal groupings), it means that about 5 million Egyptians (the population of Scotland) are at risk of being picked up and anally tested by doctors contracted by their own Egyptian state to confirm their sexual preferences; not an indicator that is either validated by nor an exercise tolerated in any western society, certainly not the USA or within the EU.

It seems the focus on this minority, as with others, has heightened in recent months. You'd think they'd have their hands full trying to stop the murdering of the country's soldiers in Sinai, but no.

And it's even more interesting when contrasted with the message Apple's CEO Tim Cook sent out this week about his own gay declaration placing a brick in the path to justice. What will the young of Egypt of whatever sexual preference think now?