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Tough Territory for Transgender People in the Middle East and North Africa

Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia Should Ensure Access to Legal Gender Recognition

Transgender people, whose assigned gender at birth does not match their gender identity, face a grim reality in much of the Middle East and North Africa region, including daunting obstacles to legal gender recognition. To get a better sense of…
The transgender pride flag.
News

A Cry for Cameroon: How the United States Failed Refugees

As U.S. officials face continued criticism for the mistreatment and mass expulsions of Haitians who arrived at the U.S. southern border, with many given no chance to apply for asylum, the situation of another group of Black asylum seekers is now also in…
News

The Forest Behind the Trees: Exploring Family Violence in Tunisia

A notable achievement since Tunisia’s adoption of Law No. 58 on the Elimination of Violence Against Women in 2017 is that it has broken the taboo on speaking about domestic violence. Yet, while spousal violence has received significant attention, it…
A woman walking on the street in Zarziss, Tunisia.
News

Video Whitewashes Egyptian Prison Abuses

On October 28, Egypt’s Interior Ministry released a slick, heavily produced video showcasing a new state-of-the-art prison mega-complex. The Wadi El Natrun Correctional and Rehabilitation Center complex is supposed to replace 12 prisons that currently…
A satellite photograph of Scorpion Prison taken in September 2016. Inmates suffer abuses in secret and are denied most access to the outside world. Satellite imagery
News

A Discriminatory System Killed a Transgender Man in Egypt

By reforming its own system, Egypt can influence positive changes in other countries in the region and lead the way for clear and accessible legal gender recognition mechanisms.

August 26 should have been a day of celebration for Ezz Eldin, a 26-year-old transgender man, but it ended in tragedy. He bled to death after he was prematurely discharged following a gender-affirmation surgery in an underground clinic…
The transgender pride flag.
News

Al-Sisi Is Leaving the Sick to Suffer in Egypt’s Prisons

The Egyptian government has deliberately let a former presidential candidate languish behind bars without proper medical care.

On July 25, the family of 69-year-old Abd al-Moniem Abu al-Fotouh, the detained leader of the Strong Egypt Party, said he had suffered symptoms resembling a heart attack the night before while in solitary confinement in Cairo’s notorious…
Egyptian security forces have been involved in systematic abuses such as enforced disappearance and torture and have used abusive counterterrorism laws and measures to crush peaceful dissent. Egyptian security forces stand guard outside one of the entranc
News

"Clean the Streets of Faggots"

Digital Targeting of LGBT People by Middle East/North Africa Governments

Sarah Hegazy, an Egyptian queer feminist, raised a rainbow flag at a concert in Cairo. Rania Amdouni, a Tunisian queer activist, protested deteriorating economic conditions and police brutality in Tunis. Mohamad al-Bokari, a Yemeni blogger in Saudi…
Sarah Hegazy, Egyptian LGBTQ activist, photographed by a friend who wished to remain anonymous, at a Mashrou’ Leila concert in Cairo in 2017 © 2020 anonymous.
News

The Trouble With the ‘LGBT Community’

When I met a former independent Lebanese parliament member, she asked me, “How can we mobilize the LGBT vote in Lebanon?” She wanted to understand why the Lebanese “LGBT community” had not voted as a block in the 2018 parliamentary elections to oppose…
LGBT activists in Beirut, Lebanon shout slogans and hold up a rainbow flag as they march to demand equal rights in a country gripped by economic and financial crisis, June 27, 2020.
News

Egypt’s Execution Frenzy Has to Stop

Egypt’s highest appellate court this month confirmed 12 death sentences, including for several high-profile Muslim Brotherhood leaders convicted in an unfair mass trial for participating in the 2013 Rabaa sit-in.  This is the first time…
Egyptian President Abdelfattah Al-Sisi. During his presidency, Egypt has harassed, prosecuted, arrested and seized the assets of dozens of human rights groups and defenders.
News

The European Bank Should Speak Out About Egypt’s Abuses

Bénédicte Jeannerod is France director at Human Rights Watch. Lorena Cotza is communications lead at Coalition for Human Rights in Development. As it prepares to celebrate its 30th anniversary on April 15, the European Bank for Reconstruction and…
Odile Renaud-Basso, former head of the French treasury who was elected president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in November 2020.
News

Egypt Arrests Dissident’s Families Under Allies’ Noses

Hasiba Mahsoob, a 50-year-old Egyptian businesswoman, was at a public place in Alexandria, Egypt, in November 2019 when security forces arrested her. They took her to an undisclosed location, probably one of the National Security Agency’s illegal…
Egyptian President Abdelfattah Al-Sisi. During his presidency, Egypt has harassed, prosecuted, arrested and seized the assets of dozens of human rights groups and defenders.
News

“Kill Them, They Are Sodomites”

Police Violence Against LGBT People in Tunisia

On October 6, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) activists in Tunisia raised their voices and banners in the street, amid the hundreds of demonstrators who were peacefully protesting a draft law that would drastically limit criminal…
Saif Ayadi, LGBT rights activist at Damj Association, surrounded by protesters on October 6, 2020.
News

End Europe’s Backing of Egypt’s Repression

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi is making the most of this period of global turmoil to entrench the relentless repression that has been his trademark. His seven-year rule has seen tens of thousands of political detentions in often horrendous…
French President Emmanuel Macron, right, and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi attend a joint press conference at the Elysee palace, December 7, 2020 in Paris.
News

A Chance for Accountability in Cameroon?

Just over four months ago, security forces and armed ethnic Fulani men massacred 21 civilians, including 13 children, in Ngarbuh, a remote village in the North-West region of Cameroon. Most of the bodies were found completely burned.  The…
Memorial ceremony held on February 21, 2020 at the Saint Theresia Cathedral l in Kumbo, North-West region, Cameroon, for victims of the Ngarbuh massacre.

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