In Egypt, homosexuality is highly stigmatized, and there have long been allegations that police are hunting LGBT people online. The BBC has uncovered evidence that the police are using dating apps to hunt down LGBT folks-- using the law on "debauchery" (a sex work law) to criminalize the LGBT community.
Transcripts submitted in police arrest reports show how officers are posing online to seek out - and in some cases allegedly fabricate evidence against - LGBT people looking for dates online. They reveal how the police initiate text conversations with their targets.
It is extremely difficult for LGBT people to openly meet potential dates in public in Egypt, so dating apps are a popular way to do that. But just using the apps - regardless of your sexuality - can be grounds for arrest based on the incitement of debauchery or public morality laws in Egypt.
It is not just Egyptians who are being targeted. In one transcript, police describe identifying a foreigner, who we are calling Matt, on the popular gay dating app Grindr. A police informant then engaged Matt in conversation, and - the transcript says - Matt "admitted his perversion, his willingness to engage in debauchery for free, and sent pictures of himself and his body". Matt told the BBC that he was subsequently arrested, charged with "debauchery", and eventually deported.
In some of the transcripts, the police appear to be trying to pressure people who seem to be simply seeking dates or new friendships into agreeing to sex for money. Legal experts in Egypt tell us that proving there has been an exchange of money, or an offer of one, can give the authorities the ammunition they need to take a case to court.
One such victim was a gay man called Laith. In April 2018, the contemporary dancer was contacted from a friend's phone number. "Hello, how are you?" the message said. The "friend" asked to meet for a drink. But when Laith arrived to meet him, his friend was nowhere in sight. He was met instead by police who arrested him and threw him into a cell belonging to the vice squad. Laith told the BBC that police then made a fake profile for him on the WhosHere app, and digitally altered his photos to make them look explicit. He says they then mocked up a conversation on the app which appeared to show him offering sex work. He says the pictures are proof that he was framed, because the legs in the picture do not resemble his own - one of his legs is bigger than the other. Laith was jailed for three months for "habitual debauchery", reduced to a month on appeal. Laith says the police also tried to get him to inform on other gay people he knew of, telling him, "can fabricate a whole story about you if you don't give me names."
Criminal gangs are using the same tactics as the police to find LGBT people. They then attack and humiliate them, and extort them by threatening to post the videos online. The BBC tracked down two people called Laila and Jamal, who were victims of a video that went viral in Egypt a few years ago. The footage shows them being forced to strip and dance, while being beaten and abused. They are forced at knife point to give their full names and admit they are gay. They told me the duo behind the video - named Bakar and Yahia - are notorious amongst the community.
There were at least four videos in which Bakar and Yahia either appeared, or could be heard, extorting and abusing LGBT people before they uploaded the videos to Whatsapp, YouTube and Facebook. In one of these videos, an 18-year-old gay man we are calling Saeed is forced to, falsely, say he is a sex worker. I met him to hear about what happened next. He told me that he considered legal action but says his lawyer advised against this, telling him his sexuality would be perceived as more of a crime than the attack he suffered. Saeed is now alienated from his family. He says they cut him off when the gang sent them the video in a bid to blackmail them too. "I have been suffering from depression after what happened, with the videos circulating to all my friends in Egypt. I don't go out, and I don't have a phone. No-one used to know anything about me."
There have been dozens of attacks like this-- carried out by multiple gangs. There are only a few reports of attackers being arrested. Covering any of these issues inside Egypt itself has been banned since 2017, when the country's Supreme Council for Media Regulation imposed a media blackout on LGBT representation except if the coverage "acknowledge[s] the fact that their conduct is inappropriate". Shockingly, the Egyptian government has spoken publicly about its use of online surveillance to target what it described as "homosexual gatherings".
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