BBC Investigation Puts Spotlight On Dating App ‘Stings’ Targeting LGBT Egyptians
Journalists reviewed transcripts that show undercover officers posing as LGBT singles online and on dating apps and pressuring people who 'match' and message with them to meet them in person or exchange pictures. These people are later charged with "debauchery," despite some engaging in perfectly legal social and sexual behavior.
Landwebs
While Egypt has no law explicitly banning homosexuality, investigators for BBC News have found that the country’s crime of “debauchery,” a law targeting sex work, has been used to target and criminalize the normal lives of LGBT Egyptians. The journalists reviewed transcripts that show undercover officers posing as LGBT singles online and on dating apps and pressuring people who ‘match’ and message with them to meet them in person or exchange pictures. These people are later charged with “debauchery,” despite some engaging in perfectly legal social and sexual behavior.
In one case where Egyptian police targeted a foreigner on Grindr, the officer, according to the transcript, got the man to “[admit] his perversion, his willingness to engage in debauchery for free, and sent pictures of himself and his body.” The man was then arrested, charged with ‘debauchery,’ and deported from the country. Others are pressured by police into agreeing to sex acts or exchanging pictures for money.
