The Ultimate 10 Day Egypt Iterary for Gay Travellers | Mr Hudson

Contents:

• GAY DATG EGYPT
• THE TOP LGBTQ+ DATG S AND APPS: 14 BT GAY DATG S
• THE ULTIMATE 10 DAY EGYPT ERARY FOR GAY TRAVELLERS (NILE RIVER CISE CLUD)
• GAY DATG APPS GRDR AND HOR HELP LGBT EGYPTIANS STAY SAFE AMID CRACKDOWN

GAY DATG EGYPT

They had met onle, part of a growg muny of gay Egyptians g servic like Grdr, Hor, and Growler, but this was their first time meetg person.

Targets meet a iendly stranger on a gay datg se, sometim talkg for weeks before meetg person, only to fd out they’re beg targeted for a bchery se. The most recent wave of arrts started last September after an dience member unfurled a gay pri flag at a rock ncert, somethg the regime took as a personal sult. Homosexualy isn’t illegal Egypt, but the LGBTQ muny has bee a eful spegoat for the el-Sisi regime, and the General Directorate for Protectg Public Moraly is beg ed to jail and prosecute anyone perceived as mtg a transgrsn.

Raids on bars, hoe parti, and other gay spac have bee mon. Both apps were built amid a thrivg, sex-posive gay culture.

THE TOP LGBTQ+ DATG S AND APPS: 14 BT GAY DATG S

In plac where the gay muny has been driven unrground, datg apps are often the only way to reach them — somethg that’s led a number of nonprofs to seek out Grdr as a rearch tool. “So many guys will get on Grdr who have never told anyone they’re gay, ” says Jack Harrison-Qutana, the director of Grdr’s social-good divisn, Grdr For Equaly.

THE ULTIMATE 10 DAY EGYPT ERARY FOR GAY TRAVELLERS (NILE RIVER CISE CLUD)

Lebanon is seen as one of the bt plac to be gay the regn, even though homosexualy is still illegal there. “It’s much more difficult to create an app that functns well for gay men the Middle East, ” Kayyali told me. “In untri where ’s unsafe to be gay, where there are no gay bars, no clive sports teams, and no queer performance spac, the Grdr app provis our ers wh an opportuny to fd their muni, ” Qutana-Harrison told me.

GAY DATG APPS GRDR AND HOR HELP LGBT EGYPTIANS STAY SAFE AMID CRACKDOWN

“Gay men will not go back to the closet. Media ptn, Watch: Ahmed Shihab-Eld meets a member of the LGBT muny who has been targetedIn Egypt, homosexualy is highly stigmatised, and there have long been allegatns that police are huntg LGBT people onle. Now BBC News has seen evince of how the thori are g datg and social apps to do victims' nam have been changed Havg grown up Egypt, I am aware of the pervasive homophobia that permeat every part of s society.

There is no explic law agast homosexualy Egypt, but our vtigatn has found that the crime of "bchery" - a sex work law - is beg ed to crimalise the LGBT muny. In one transcript, police scribe intifyg a foreigner, who we are llg Matt, on the popular gay datg app Grdr.

One such victim, whom we found through the transcripts, was a gay man we are llg Lah. Lah says the police also tried to get him to rm on other gay people he knew ptn, Lah (right) - the inti of all our ntributors need to be disguisedHow we disguised ntributors' intiFor the BBC documentary Queer Egypt Unr Attack we ed novative face-trackg 3-D maskg to ensure inti remaed protected - the aim was to give the film a more attractive athetic than the ual blobbg technique of disguise allows. '" The Egyptian ernment has spoken publicly about s e of onle surveillance to target what scribed as "homosexual gathergs" 2020, Ahmed Taher, former assistant to the Mister of Interr for Inter Crim and Human Traffickg, told the newspaper Ahl Masr: "We reced police the virtual world to unver the mass of group sex parti, homosexual gathergs.