Emergency Safety and Security Project Report

Since its founding, Masahat for Sexual and Gender Diversity has worked to reduce security risks, to identify and remove the social and cultural barriers faced by sexual and gender minorities in the Nile Valley (Egypt and Sudan), and to create suitable tools and means for activists working on queer struggles to continue their work safely, contributing to thriving and active queer communities.

Guided by the organisation’s vision and building on a needs assessment of the queer community in Egypt, from September 2017 until early 2021 Masahat ran the Emergency Safety and Security project, in three phases: 2017–2018, 2018–2019 and 2021.

Because Egypt’s queer community urgently needs support during emergencies, the project offered a range of services to queer activists and community members, including psychological support from specialists, relocation within and outside Egypt, digital security tools and holistic security training.

Given how important safety and security are for Egypt’s queer community, we researched the causes, consequences and forms of the risks participants faced during the project years. This report describes the risks and threats facing the community, as well as the violence directed at its members.

The report presents brief profiles of the project’s beneficiaries, keeping participants’ privacy in mind. It then reviews the risks beneficiaries faced and their sources, with a dedicated section on risks faced by queer activists during the project and on the need for digital protection, followed by an account of the types of violence they experienced. It closes with recommendations that highlight the needs of Egypt’s queer community and encourage collective work to meet them. The executive summary outlines our most important findings.