Report on field work in Egypt
02.03. - 04.04.2010
Introduction
This trip was my second one to Egypt. I spent there one month (2nd March-4th April).
A second trip was necessary because during the first one I did not get in time the authorization to have access to some important libraries and archives. Moreover this trip was important to collect materials whose importance emerged during the last semester.
During the first trip, as mentioned in my previous report, I submitted a request to have access to the National Archives (Dār al-kutub wā al-Waṯā’iq), to the library of the Parliament and to the archives of local Courts (this request was presented to the Ministry of Justice). The National Archives and the library of the Parliament gave me their authorization, while the authorization of the Ministry of Justice was denied, as I will explain later.
Library of the Parliament
I have to say that, for security reasons, it was not easy to get the permit to enter the Library of the Parliament, but once I got it, thanks to the organization of the Library, which is perfect, my research was easy. The employers were helpful and thanks to this I could found the Parliamentary sessions minutes I needed, the laws that preceded law 10/1961, that is the one used in Egypt to punish homosexuals, and the international treaties ratified by Egypt for what regards my specific topic. In fact in the same building there is an office of the United Nations where all the international treaties ratified by Egypt are stored.
These documents will constitute the main part of my third chapter, together with the documents I found in the National Archives.
National Archives
My request to have access to the National Archives was accepted, but unfortunately my topic was considered sensitive, so my permit was only to consult the documents but I was not allowed to take photographs or make scan. This meant that I had to handwrite all the documents I needed and therefore I wasted a lot of time I could use in a different way. Moreover I could not have access to some kinds of archival funds, like those of the Egyptian Cabinet, which were important for my research.
Anyway, I could consult important documents which will help me to contextualize the law which is used in Egypt to condemn homosexuals and to analyze its historical origin. The documents I consulted include correspondence between Ministers, confidential reports of the Committees that worked on to legislative drafts, the legislative drafts themselves. These documents show in fact that the law was not promulgated with the aim to punish homosexuals, but only with the aim to protect women and children from prostitution and slavery.
Local Courts
As I mentioned in my introduction, during my first trip to Egypt I asked to the Ministry of justice a permit to access the archives of local Courts. This request was refused without any convincing reason (the security services that approved my permit to the National Archives and the library of the Parliament were the same that should have approved this one). My personal opinion is that the request got lost.
Nevertheless I tried to get some verdicts going directly to the Courts, but this attempt was useless. Adel Ramadan, a lawyer of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, helped me to get verdicts that will help me to reconstruct some cases that were incomplete. These material will be useful to write my forth chapter.
Interviews
During my first trip to Egypt I already interviewed the abovementioned Adel Ramadan. I had another informal interview with him during this second trip in order to understand more about some cases I was studying. He showed his intention to continue to give me information and support by e-mail.
I also interviewed Moataz al-Fegiery, the executive director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, and Ahmed Ragheb of the Hisham Mubarak Law Center, lawyer of some defendants in the Queen Boat case. These interviews helped me to understand how to set homosexuality in the human rights background in Egypt and to solve some doubts I still had.
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 the access to the verdicts stored in the Local Courts. This challenge was partially solved thanks to the help of human rights organizations.
I could find more or less all the materials I needed, although doing research in Egypt always requires much of an effort.
The material I collected is essential to define the structure of the dissertation and to have a final idea of how the chapters will be organized. I will classify this material and after I that I will be able to start the definitive draft of the thesis.