CAIRO (AP) – Just before midnight, the police navigated down the narrow alleys of an old downtown Cairo district and descended on a rundown bathhouse. They dragged out dozens of nearly naked men, who covered their faces as they struggled to hold up towels, and loaded them into police trucks.
There to film it all was an Egyptian television presenter, who claims she actually triggered the raid by tipping off police about alleged homosexual activity in the bathhouse. Days later, she aired what she boasted was an expose of “a den of mass perversion” spreading AIDS in Egypt.
The raid last week is the latest in a crackdown that gay rights activists say has made 2014 the worst year in a decade for Egypt’s gay community. Homosexuals have been driven deeper underground, fearing not only arrest but also the public scare-mongering against the community drummed up in the media.
“I was devastated,” a gay woman in Cairo’s upscale district of Zamalek told The Associated Press, speaking of the raid and the images aired on “The Hidden,” a lurid TV expose program. “Every time there is an incident, the community starts to hide underground … while police go hunting,” she said. Like others, she spoke on condition of anonymity because of fear of retribution.
“If this interview were a year ago, I wouldn’t hide my identity because I love who I am,” she added.