Governments and their LGBT / NGOs Fetish

*Deep Breath*
Usually I do not consume the writing habit unless I am highly provoked to do so, recently alot of atrocities has been going on around me, and some seemingly good things as well; But thanks for Leil’s POST for being the last straw to write this post.

Let’s start by the most recent good thing, which was a trip to Tunisia, a country I've always wanted to visit, and there I learnt- through a workshop- the International Mechanisms of Human rights. This trip was enlightening in so many ways, and it had memories and company I’d like to keep.

When you read that you might think “It’s a pleasant thing to know more about your rights” but the unfortunate realization that came to me the deeper I dug into that workshop was not Pleasant, but more or less disappointing, which was:

To realize that all my rights: to love, to live safely and in privacy, to own a choice, to have access to a fair trial or good water, or good innovative education, all that and more is nothing but a bunch of Declarations and Pacts debated between politicians that run the world based on personal interests (also called Diplomacy) and fought over by a Bunch of people who dare enough to fight those politicians (Also called NGOs or CSOs) and who has -in order to win a nibble of the golden ticket for their cause (a.k.a your right)- to Use that very same Despicable Lingo of those politicians!

Honestly, I did not want to come back to my own country, nor stay in Tunisia. I wanted to perish, I could not believe that I have to go back to that hideous spot of evolving pessimism called Egypt after all that I learned now about the whole world. And I did not want to even remember anything remotely related to anything I have lived, loved or cared of... I wanted a Reformat.

What I just mentioned is what Every person might be passing through, now or through a phase of his/her life, it's more constant when you’re a Human Rights defender, and Even More and More constant when you fall into what Micheal Foucault called “Person in Crisis” in other words “a Social reject”... And here I mean when you find out you’re Gay/Lesbian/Trans or Queer.

Our glorious “Ministry of Love” has been playing around with what seems to be their new "GIG", Catching and Crashing any remotely reported “Faggots gathering spot” (They use that term in the headlines) , Demeaning them in every unethical way possible, usually Forensically and by the use of the Media they bless.

Questions here are: - Have they found out that publishing the details of a detainee and exposing their faces and full names illegal? Noooo!
- Have they thought of the Facebook (that is not even so ethical in its own) policy that "Forbids publishing of any homophobic content", and allows - on report- to erase that content? Hell no, man. NSA is my bitch!
- Are they actually sure that the “Accusations” they allege are actually true, or is it just another “Mona Iraqi” Propaganda that ended up ruining innocent men lives, who weren’t even Gay as they presumed?
- And finally, do they realize that there is no legal code in Egypt that prohibits Homosexuality, albeit, Transsexualism being actually legal according to the Syndicate of Medics?

The Majority of you might know of "Youm 7" newspaper, that has been noticeably focusing on homo/trans crashes performed by the police recently, starting the infamous "Gay wedding video" a few months ago. The newspaper's editor in chief Khaled Saleh and a long list of executive editors in chiefs, desk manager, editorial managers...etc. non of them find any shame or blame in publishing any info, fake or true about people and ruining their lives, the worse, is that they never get caught, or accused, nothing! 

Here are captions of the latest “Gig” of which youm7 published, but it wasn't as "boastful" as the Media office of the Ministry of Interior:

And be my guest and Try to report that and wait for them to have your IP Address from the FB Administration.

This is not the only thing that makes Egypt a live animate tar monster crawling over your body, the crack down on Activists and Activism Spaces weather Law Assistance or even non-profit community work is escalating day after day:

-The 2 years of imprisonment for Al-Ittehadiya Peaceful Protesting, Hanan Mostafa, Nahed El-Sherif (Bibo), Yara Sallam, Salwa Mehrez, Sanaa Seif (who just turned 21) along w/ 18 others all Under the age 40.

- The crack down ordered by Gov. officials against “Nebny Foundation” that has built a school in a dumpster (Literally) to teach kids who were going to their prep. education and didn’t know how to read and write their names, and they taught them reading, writing fluently in just few month, knowing that everything in their work was legal and the Minister of man-power actually attended their celebration LINK 

These sort of systematic violations of human rights of which i have only mentioned a very few, should stop, and it will stop, by any and every way possible and impossible. One would be mistaken if they thought that any one can accept such a filthy way of living, and such a disgraceful judiciary system.

Last but not least, just like I usually say- and now it is Def. proven to me via Legal procedures internationally- That countries do NOT accept LGBTIQs or apparently respect human rights or condemn their violations out of its own desire for so called “Democracy”, “Tolerance” or “Development”, But out of PURE DIPLOMACY (It’s all a matter of a Global Image not to be ruined in the favor of Interests being fulfilled) because they themselves are either violating rights of their own, and/or have a long Cultural history of Homophobia, and Racism (Israel, and US for Example).

So, this is a Salute to all the frontline defenders, those who defend their lives for things they didn’t choose, to those who realized that you don’t have to be Black to defend Ferguson, You don’t have to be an Ikhwan to defend people of an Islamic background to have a fair trial even if you disagree with them drastically, to this one who suggested that we don’t send Mona Iraqi to trial because of how atrocious our judiciary system has become :) To all those who will revenge their torture and humiliation in police stations, to every student being thrown in prison because of a ham headed hound who thinks a university campus is a football pitch owned by his family.

A Spotlight on Digital Security and Online Privacy Scene in Egypt

As I prepare for this blogpost now listening to “sexy and I know it” track, I think of Big Brother listening to the track with me, and hoping he doesn't arrest me for “Poor musical taste”, and recently it's not just me, but everyone in the 89M Egypt's population should be thinking about that, Why?
That's what I'm here for...

Sir Tim Beners-lee (The world wide web inventor) has recently called for a new Magna-Carta for online privacy (Magna carta is a charter that was written in 1215 and accepted by King John of England, and is considered the basis of individual rights and a part of the English Constitution where there is no written constitution)
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/03/12/us-internet-bernerslee-idUKBREA2B0PC20140312

Egyptian Ministry of Interior (MOI) has issued earlier this year (May 2014) an advertising calling for a bid on companies working on surveillance software to help it develop its online surveillance on the Social Media platforms as well as common personal communication software like (Whatsapp and Viber), to maintain a stronger grip on what it called “People who Disturb the public safety” and “Users who spread destructive ideas” and Stated a list of the activities it considered “disturbing for public safety and public standards of morality” (Found here http://www.elwatannews.com/news/details/495659 ) The project was called “Security risks monitoring to social media project– The Public opinion measurement system”, and Later it was declared that a company called “Systems Engineering of Egypt” has won the bid (A daughter company for the American based Blue Coat Systems) beating out the British Gamma System, and the Israeli-founded Narus System. (Ref. Buzz feed News).

MOI has stated in its previously mentioned issuing that the axes of its project were “Tracking, Monitoring, analysis, as well as execution, combating, and denial on one hand, and the ability to perform periodical checks and polls that enables it to know the amount of youth affected by a specific idea or a group of ideas that they consider “destructive”, and that are published over the Social media networks, and to interact with that informative and enlightened more patriotic youth, to track down the destructive ideas spread over social media, and discuss ways for refuting and combating them”

The methodology they stated for doing that was:
- Search for idioms and keywords that are considered illegal or outside the “publicly known traditions and bonds” (No, Egypt does not have a booklet of socially normative behavior, so “Publicly known” isn't exactly specified here!)

- Provide an analytical tool for the Opinions and directions of the social media members, where special statistics will be performed regarding the Most popular topics as well as what directions prevails in these discussions and what don't. (That is shortly, Monitoring Everything w/ statistics)

- Decision making assistance, and future focus on the reports that will help take these decisions.

- “The Security risk monitoring system” is a Central system, related to research destinations and integrated with the Security system destinations in the MOI.

- Improving the performance of the Monitoring system staff via trainings

- Provide progressive technical assistance.

- Database protection, so it's impermeable by every newly developed hacking system.

- (Again) The analysis of all the security information that comes from the Monitoring system reports.

The publication was very unspecific and the discourse used by the MOI Officials never denied such an attempt for privacy invasion, on the contrary.

On the other hand, Online Privacy and Open knowledge activists and bloggers, wrote about the threats such decision makes on Freedom of Speech and Expression, as well as stating the previous history of Internet governance practices, such bloggers like : Ramy Raoof (Article) and Ahmed Ezzat (Article) mentioned previous incidences that dates back before the 2011 Rev. and after the rev. till now, as well as stating basic Q&A style on what privacy is and what's the difference between Censorship and surveillance...etc.

Moreover the Twitter community has launched a parody hashtag (#إحنا_متراقبين - #مخبرك_الخاص) (#We're watched – #Your private informant) as well as the recent hashtag of (#ضد_المراقبة) (Against surveillance) on 28 september 2014, alongside a petition/site protesting the Repressive maneuver. (Privacy Egypt)

It is also worthy of mentioning that MOI has been performing Mass arrests on LGBT (Specially Gays) community using Applications like Grindr (an android application for Gay dating) to set traps for them, sentencing them under allegations of prostitution and debauchery. Latest was arrest over a Youtube video of a Gay Marriage Celebration on a Nile felluca, and the notorious El youm el sabea' (youm7) Newspaper publishing full info and photos of the arrested people, not just for that case, but also all the other cases.

This puts a MAJOR threat on LGBT Bloggers and even regular (non-active) members of the community, which fueled the trigger to launch the Hashtag and an Online Blogging campaign aiming to “Protest the Arrest of LGBT” (#ضد_حبس_المثليين) since as Scott long puts it “You practically can’t have sex these days unless you own at least a smartphone.”

I wonder though what the Same security system is going to track from the MOI Officials themselves, knowing that in the past months alone there has been over 11 law suits against police officers (high and low ranks) accused of various crimes from Harassment and Rape all the way to Desecration of a Man's corpse (Also posted on Youtube)!

P.S. Upon discussing such a topic, I mean to discuss the Egyptian position as a part of the Whole messed up situations across the Globe, It is worthy of mentioning that US, Russian and Chinese Governments represent the Empires of Internet surveillance and monitoring, one can only put it in similarity with George Orwell's image of OCEANIA, where:

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

Further Reading
- Scott long Blog: Paper-bird.net
- Ramy Raoof: “Simplifying the Interior Ministry’s quest for surveillance: In Qs and As” on Mada Masr
- Ahmed Ezzat: "ما الجديد في الرقابة على الإنترنت في مصر؟" on Mada Masr