July 2024
In This Newsletter:
1. The Federal Ministry of Health announced, on Saturday, the death of 12 people in Kassala State, east of the country, as a result of the heavy rains that the region witnessed.
2. Seven people were sentenced to one year in prison on charges of spreading and facilitating immorality
3. El Fasher Resistance Committees Coordination announced, on Saturday, that 97 people were killed and wounded in a Rapid Support artillery shelling on the city of El Fasher, before noting the difficulty of counting and obtaining information due to the circumstances of the communications outage.
4. Language learning app Duolingo: Queer characters removed from the app in Russia
5. The Sovereignty Council sets conditions for accepting “Washington’s invitation.”
6. Hate speech against LGBTQ+ communities is escalating in Egypt coinciding with the 2024 Paris Olympics
7. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that 750,000 people in Sudan are only one step away from famine, which is the fifth stage of the Integrated Interim Classification of Food Security.
The Federal Ministry of Health announced, on Saturday, the death of 12 people in Kassala State, east of the country, as a result of the heavy rains that the region witnessed.
The Federal Ministry of Health announced, on Saturday, the death of 12 people in Kassala State, east of the country, as a result of the heavy rains that the region witnessed more than two days ago. The announcement came after a meeting held by the Ministry of Health with the Health Emergency Operations Center to discuss the rain and torrential disaster in Kassala and Gadarif states. The Kassala Emergency Room said on Friday: “As a result of the heavy rains that the city of Kassala is witnessing at these moments, the situation has become catastrophic in some shelter centers, with difficulties in drainage and sewage.” It appealed to the state government and all international and local organizations to help drain the water and provide needs. Victims of sexual and gender diversity may face difficulty in accessing health care services, especially in areas of floods and rain. They may also be exposed to discrimination and stigma by medical service providers, which may prevent them from seeking the care they need. They may lack information about available care options, or may not be able to afford the cost of care.
More details: https://bit.ly/3AjL1vJ
Seven people were sentenced to one year in prison on charges of spreading and facilitating immorality
This July, 7 people were tried on charges of incitement to immorality and debauchery and facilitating immorality and debauchery. The villa owner, his brother-in-law, a broker, the villa lessor, and a contractor for the party were put on trial, and the seventh accused was a young man who participated in a party that took place in a villa in the Qanater facility in Giza last June. The referral order from the Public Prosecution stated: “The defendants from the first to the sixth aided, assisted, and facilitated the practice of debauchery, while knowing about it, as shown by the investigations, and that the defendants from the first to the fourth provided the first defendant’s house as a place to practice acts of debauchery, while knowing about it, as shown.” During the investigations, as for the seventh accused, the Public Prosecution accused him of being accustomed to practicing debauchery with males without discrimination by inciting them to do so. The Prosecution attached a copy of the contents of the seventh accused’s phone, which included indecent video clips, scandalous pictures of him wearing women’s clothing, and indecent conversations between him and his male friends. “This confirms the validity of the accusation against him.” The court sentenced them to one year in prison, and the defense lawyer filed an appeal. The court set the date for hearing it on September 11, 2024. During this case, the phone of the young man accused of habitual debauchery was confiscated, which is the charge that is directed against gay men in Egypt. The prosecution reviewed the contents of his phone, including private conversations, photos and videos, social media apps, and even notes. The Egyptian newspaper Al-Dustour published the text of the prosecution’s investigations regarding the investigation into this young man specifically as a way of defaming him. It was also reported by Atyaf, a queer group concerned with issues of LGBT communities, according to sources, that the Manshiyet Al-Qanater police station witnessed several arrests of individuals under allegations of being part of the LGBTQ+ community in the weeks following the party, and their number reached 20 individuals. The sources added that the individuals who were arrested were subjected to verbal and physical violence and a violation of human dignity through anal examinations. It is a torture practice, according to the United Nations Committee against Torture. Also, in parallel with the security attack and the hunting and arrest of people of sexual and gender diversity, we find that Egyptian media platforms and newspapers are fueling hatred for communities of sexual and gender diversity even during their coverage of these issues, where the cases are portrayed as commercial sex networks, and derogatory terms are used to describe the issue such as “the devil’s resort,” which was used by the newspapers Al-Dustour, Al-Masry Al-Youm, Al-Youm Al-Sabea, Akhbar Al-Youm, Masrawy, and TV channels such as Sada Al-Balad, in an attempt to link the case to describing homosexuality as a satanic act. These newspapers also published texts of the prosecution’s investigations with the accused, especially the seventh accused, who is the only one whom the prosecution accused of homosexuality. They also published data such as details of his personal conversations. No newspaper published any of the pictures on the young man’s phone or conversations, but despite that, they provided detailed descriptions of the content of these pictures, which is a form of gray defamation. The sites also presented the accusations in a specific sentence: “The prosecution attached a copy of the contents of the seventh defendant’s phone, which included indecent video clips, scandalous pictures of him wearing women’s clothing, and indecent conversations between him and his male friends, which confirms the validity of the charge against him,” in confirmation from those newspapers that the person is gay, even before the court rules on his case. The role of the Egyptian press in incitement, defamation, and demonization of people of sexual and gender diversity continues since the Queen Boat case (Cairo 52).
More details: https://bit.ly/46ADPY9
The El Fasher Resistance Committees Coordination announced, on Saturday, that 97 people were killed and wounded in a Rapid Support artillery shelling on the city of El Fasher, before noting the difficulty of counting and obtaining information due to the circumstances of the communications outage
The El Fasher Resistance Committees Coordination announced, on Saturday, the killing and wounding of 97 people in Rapid Support artillery shelling on the city of El Fasher, before noting the difficulty of counting and obtaining information due to the circumstances of the communications outage. The violent artillery shelling of the Rapid Support Forces focused on Al-Fasher Al-Kabir market, livestock markets, hospitals, and citizens’ homes, according to what was confirmed by the coordination of the El-Fasher Resistance Committees. Press sources said that the Saudi Hospital received 22 dead and 17 wounded after the Rapid Support bombing of the livestock market and the Redeyef neighborhood. These attacks create greater difficulty for people of sexual and gender diversity to access basic services such as food, water, and shelter, and they may also be exposed to assault or killing by armed groups and both sides of the conflict
More details: https://bit.ly/3AaxrdW
Language learning app Duolingo: Queer characters removed from the app in Russia
Queer characters were removed from the Duolingo language learning app in Russia, after they received a letter from the Russian Communications Regulatory Authority regarding the appearance of queer characters in the educational content of the application, which was followed by a statement from a Duolingo representative, “We support LGBTQ+ rights and believe in normalizing LGBTQ+ representation in our content, but unfortunately, local laws prohibit us from including certain content in Russia. Duolingo’s mission is to expand access to quality education around the world and we’re committed to maintaining access to our product everywhere that is legal to do so.” This is an indication of Duolingo’s direction towards deleting queer characters from educational content in a number of other countries, such as Egypt, where the decision of the Supreme Council for Media Regulation has been in effect since 2017 to prevent the appearance of any symbol, image or character of sexual and gender diversity, or showing support for them in all visual, print and audio media.
More Details: https://bit.ly/4dxWeXV
The Sovereignty Council sets conditions for accepting “Washington’s invitation.”
A source in the Sovereignty Council denied that the Sovereignty Council had received any invitation to hold direct or indirect negotiations with the Rapid Support Forces, whether in Jeddah or any other country, adding that the government and the army are committed to implementing the Jeddah Outcomes to engage in any talks with the Rapid Support Forces.
For his part, Undersecretary of the Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Hussein Al-Amin, told Mada Masr that the ministry received an invitation from the US State Department, and then sent it to the relevant authorities - as he put it - to evaluate it and suggest ways to respond to it, stressing that participation will be linked to the implementation of what It was agreed upon in advance, so there is no point in going to negotiations without implementing the previous one, pointing out that the demands of the “Rapid Support” to give it the legitimacy to stay, is out of the question for the official authorities, including the military.
The ongoing war in Sudan increases the suffering of communities of sexual and gender diversity, as they are exposed to increasing acts of violence that force them into displacement in search of safety.
More details: https://bit.ly/4deCjNN
Hate speech against LGBTQ+ communities is escalating in Egypt coinciding with the 2024 Paris Olympics
The Paris 2024 Olympics, especially the opening ceremony, sparked a new wave of hate speech against communities of sexual and gender diversity. Drag artists participated in the opening ceremony. Social media platforms were filled with angry comments about the appearance of people of sexual and gender diversity, including drag artists, at the ceremony. This started a wave of hostile comments and hate speech on social media platforms, some of which came from a religious standpoint, such as describing the matter as one of the signs of the end of time in Islam, or describing the matter as a moral dissolution and an imposition of the queer community on a global event, in addition to the reservations of many about what they considered to be a mockery of the painting The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci in one of the scenes of the ceremony, despite the fact that the scene is inspired by the painting The Feast of the Gods, which is a painting depicting the Greek gods. The painting The Last Supper has also inspired a number of artistic works, including Arabic and Egyptian, whether in a dramatic, comedic, or marketing framework, and at the level of official institutions, the Egyptian churches and Al-Azhar published statements denouncing and demanding an apology from the organizing committee for what they considered an infringement and mockery of the Christian religion. On the level of traditional media, the Egyptian TV channels addressed the ceremony as a starting point to attack communities of sexual and gender diversity as one of the manifestations of the Western culture that destroys the family and is hostile to religion and morals. The journalist Ahmed Moussa hosted Naguib Gabriel, head of the Egyptian Federation for Human Rights, said, “France published calls for perversion and insult to religions during the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Paris 2024,” as well as during the Olympic sports matches, and after the women’s boxing match between the Algerian woman, Imane Khalif, and the Italian woman, Angela Carini, which ended with Iman’s victory after Angela withdrew 46 seconds after the start of the match. A campaign spread on social media attacking Iman and the Olympic Committee against the backdrop of allegations that Imane is a transwoman and that her body being exposed to the testosterone for a period of her life in large quantities makes it unfair for her to participate in women's sports, which sparked controversy about the participation of transgender athletes specifically in various world championships, despite the fact that hormonal treatment makes the bodies of trans women identical to the bodies of cisgender women, but this discourse is considered a form of transphobia, which refuses to treat trans women specifically like other women, and took advantage of these allegations to attack the Algerian player, Imane Khalif, and the Olympic Committee, despite the fact that Iman is not even a transwoman. Sahih Misr has published a correction to the false information regarding Imane Khalif and the 2024 Paris Olympics. This is escalation in hate speech on social media platforms and the Egyptian media increases the risk of individuals of sexual and gender diversity in Egypt being exposed to violations and hate crimes, with the absence of any form of legal protection and individuals’ fear of going to the police to seek protection if they are exposed to hate crimes, for fear that the police will detain them. By subjecting them to anal examinations and charging them with immorality, hate crimes become more severe and influential.
More details: https://bit.ly/4fDSDcM
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that 750,000 people in Sudan are only one step away from famine, which is the fifth stage of the Integrated Interim Classification of Food Security.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that 750,000 people in Sudan are only one step away from famine, which is the fifth stage of the Integrated Interim Classification of Food Security. It stressed that it remains deeply concerned about the deteriorating food situation in Sudan, explaining that about 26 million people suffer from acute hunger, equivalent to the total population of Australia. United Nations spokesman Stephane Dujarric pointed out in the daily press conference on Tuesday that people’s suffering is exacerbated by high food prices, challenges in accessing it, and the impact of the conflict. He added that last month, the price of local food increased by 16 percent compared to May, which is also 120 percent higher compared to June last year. People of sexual and gender diversity in Sudan face the same risks as Sudanese people, and more, such as increased harassment and violence. They may also be specifically targeted because of their sexual identity or gender expression, and the community continues to lose access to basics such as food.
More Details: https://bit.ly/4cg1MFj