Report on Field Work in Egypt and Lebanon
06.09.2009 - 11.10.2009
Overview
Introduction
My field trip in Egypt and Lebanon was thought for the necessity to find materials (verdicts, laws, parliamentary sessions) that I couldn’t have access to if not on the field, to interview actors which have been involved in juridical cases regarding homosexuals, like lawyers and judges, to consult the archives of the local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that followed up cases of homosexuality in Egypt and to take some lessons of juridical Arabic. I have to say that the objectives were almost completely fulfilled, although the short amount of time I spent there, with some exceptions I’ll explain in this report.
Egypt
The first thing I did as soon as arrived there (on 6th September) was to present the request to get the authorization to have access to the National Archives (Dār al-kutub wā al-Waṯā’iq), the library of the Parliament, the archives of local Courts (this request was presented to the Ministry of Justice) and the library of the Court of Cassation. The last one was the only authorization I got in time, because for the remaining ones it was told me that I had to wait between 2 and 6 weeks in order to get this authorization, and this was due to the necessity to ask the approval of the State Security Services. Unfortunately there was no way to facilitate these procedures and so, when I left Egypt, my requests were still under examination, although the fact that I presented them as soon as I reached the country.
In the meanwhile I conducted my researches in the library of the Court of Cassation, where I got my authorization in three days, and where I could get several legal texts that are interesting for my project in a historical perspective, like the law against the exploitation of prostitution n. 68/1951 and its new version n.10/1961 whose article 9c is used to condemn prostitutes and homosexuals, the Penal Code of 1883 and 1937 and a series of commentaries on these laws. Moreover, I could have access to all the concerning verdicts of the Court of Cassation and to an important verdict or the Constitutional Court on the constitutionality of law 10/1961. The library also has a huge amount of books on Islamic law that I consulted for what regards my topic.
In the Library of the Ministry of Justice I had access to a huge series of commentaries and documents on sexual crimes in Egyptian law. In some cases these documents were impossible to find elsewhere, and contain also the concerning verdicts on the topic they afford and mainly on baġā’, debauchery, that is the term usually used to refer also to homosexual acts.
Another important source of materials was the Cedej, Centre d'études et de documentation économiques, juridiques et socials, where I had access to different documents that are important to understand the impact of colonial influence on Egyptian law. I could also consult the original French version of the Penal Code of 1883 and 1937 and a series of commentaries analyzing the French impact on Egyptian penal law, which is argument of big interest for my thesis. I also found out the original version of the law for the regularization of the houses of tolerance of 1905, which is considered to be the antecedent of law n.10/1961.
When I asked the authorization to the Ministry of Justice to have access to the archives of local Courts, I thought that this was the best way to get a large series of verdicts that could help me to understand what the practical juridical approach to homosexual acts is. When I failed to get this authorization in time I searched for a different way to get these verdicts, which are of fundamental importance for my thesis. I asked therefore to the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights to have access at least to the verdicts and to the materials they have and which are related to cases of people they defended. That’s thank to them and to the contacts they gave me that I could collect around twenty verdicts issued against homosexuals, which in the majority of the cases (with very few exceptions) were condemned to custodial or pecuniary sentences using law 10/1961. In this way I’ll be able to analyze in the next months the juridical discourse that permeates them, in order to understand the impact of morality on the sanctioning of this kind of acts, that are not considered crimes for the legislative text, but they are considered so for the juridical practice, embedded by Courts of first instance, Courts of Appeal and also by the Court of Cassation. I could interview the lawyer Adil Ramadan, which is the one that handles homosexuals’ cases on behalf of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. I could therefore understand the construction and the reasons of his strategy when approaching the defense of a case of this type, that is usually based on the denying of the accuse and on procedural issues and never on human rights.
I also had the opportunity to interview the lawyer Helmi al-Rawi that defended several homosexuals between 1999 and 2005 on behalf of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. What is interesting in his approach is that he has been the only lawyer in Egypt, according to what I know and to what concerned actors confirmed me, to build his defense not simply on procedural issues, like in the case of Adil Ramadan, but also on the assumption that a sexual act between consenting adults is a private matter concerning personal rights. He also gave me the contact of a judge that acquitted several homosexuals and that I could interview, but I failed to organize this meeting due to the short amount of time I spent there.
For what regards the Arabic lessons, I took private lessons that were almost completely focused on juridical texts (classical, like manuals of fiqh and contemporary, like modern legal commentaries) in order to refine my skills in translation and analysis of this kind of texts, which are those that I mainly have to deal with for my phd project.
Lebanon
I stayed there one week (4th-11th October), during which I spent the most of the time at the premises of Helem, the Lebanese organization for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexuals and Transsexuals’ rights (LGBT) that is the only official organization for LGBT rights in Middle East.
I had the opportunity to understand how the organization is structured, what its goals, strategies and aims are and what services it offers. It mainly works on three fields: social, medical, and legal. For what regards the social part, I attended some of the activities scheduled for that week, and I observed how the community center is organized. I also got different booklets and texts that show how they work in order to maximize their impact on the society, mainly through awareness campaign. For what regards medical activities I simply got an idea of what they do through the interview I had with Charbel Maydaa, project coordinator. I personally have sought, while being there, several people arriving from all over the Arab world to get an HIV test that in the majority of Arab countries is forbidden or discriminatory. Honestly I have to say that I didn’t pay much attention to this aspect because it’s secondary for my project.
For what regards the legal aspect, which is the most important one for my phd, I could get important information through the interviews I had with Heba Addani and Ghassan Makarem, respectively vice-president and executive director of Helem and LGBT rights activist, and with two lawyers, one working in Beirut and one in Tripoli. This gave me the opportunity to verify how art. 534 of the Penal Code, that criminalizes “sexual acts against nature”,[*] is applied in totally different ways in these two cities: from one side Beirut, where, at least since the 90s, it is not applied to jail homosexuals, but only as an aggravation of other crimes and to marginalize them, and Tripoli, where there are still authentic mass arrests, like one in 2003, whose I got the verdict. Helem is also conducting, with the help of a lawyer, a study on the legal implications of art. 534 and its real application. This study will be published in autumn 2010, but I’ll receive a draft version as soon as it’s ready, presumably in December.
Through the interviews I had and the documents I found I can say that the real problem of art. 534 isn’t the possibility to jail homosexuals (which is an improbable event, at least in Beirut), but the fact that it creates a category of “illegal citizens” that are subject to various violations of human rights (like discrimination at schools and at work and difficulties to have access to medical services) and to stigmatization.
I can say that, thanks to the existence and the help of Helem, my very short trip to Lebanon was fruitful, probably more than I thought before of going there.
Moreover, I could get a version of the Lebanese Penal Code, and some texts dealing with the origins of it, and the complete file of the abovementioned case (verdict of the Court of first instance of Tripoli, documents of the Accuse, documents of the Defense, request of appeal).
I also conducted some researches in the library of the German Oriental Institute of Beirut, where I could get some documents about the Lebanese legal system and the (very limited) impact of shari’a on law and, mainly, on social relations.
[*] Qānūn al-ʽuqūbāt al-lubnānī, Al-mu’assasat al-ḥadīṯat li-l-kitāb, Tripoli, 1997, art. 534.
Conclusions
I can say that the majority of the objectives I had in mind when I started my field trip were fulfilled, with the exceptions of what was related to my access to the National Archives and to the Library of the Parliament, which were of fundamental importance to consult the parliamentary sessions and the documents that shows the historical background of law 10/1961, but this was due to bureaucratic reasons I couldn’t avoid.