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The following eyewitness account sent in by a contributor graphically illustrates the prejudice and propoganda surrounding the investigation -



For two days, the Prosecutor's Office held an 'investigation' to decide whether to renew the detention of the accused men. I went with the families on two consecutive days, with the elderly men and women who were ill-treated and humiliated, but mostly just waited on the sidewalk outside the State Security building for hours in the fiercest heatwave of summer.

Contrary to what has been written in the newspapers for the past two weeks about 'luxury cars' and 'a leisure problem', the families who turned up at dawn outside the State Security Building to catch a glimpse of their sons were obviously from the poorest, most uneducated sectors of society, with the exception of 2 or 3 families in modest-looking cars - educated, yes, but a far cry from the millionaires of the newspaper stories. In fact, most of the families wouldn't even talk to me, thinking I was a journalist. Ironically, not one journalist was seen entering or exiting the building, or trying to talk to any of us, during the two days we waited there; this despite the sensational stories still appearing in the papers.

For the first time, the lawyers were able to contact the suspects and find out what the case was about. There were only about 8 to 10 lawyers defending the 55 people; two of these were from the Hisham Mubarak Center. The reason for this is that most of the families were too poor to get a lawyer, or the lawyers they approached refused to take the cases as they dealt with homosexuality.

When the lawyers met the prisoners, they learned that they were continually harassed in prison. Virtually all of them said that the prison authorities seemed to be encouraging other prisoners to harass them because they were 'faggots' and at least one of the prisoners was punished with solitary confinement after he beat up his attackers.

The lawyers also found out that in the first investigation, many told the prosecutors that they had been tortured and showed the prosecutor the marks. Although the prosecutor had recommended at the time that they be examined by the Coroner, nothing happened and they were held incommunicado till the marks faded.

For the first time, too, we were able to get some information about exactly who had been arrested, and for what? The lawyers were astounded by the stories of some of the defendants. Among those arrested were the following:

*Two 19-year-old students who had been on The Queen Boat with one of their neighbors, a girl. The police told the girl to go home and took the boys.

*A teacher in an international language institute who was on the boat with his foreign boss and two of his foreign colleagues. They arrested him and let the foreigners go. His colleagues went to the Prosecutor's office to give testimony, but they were told 'we don't have translators, we'll call you'.

*2 tour guides who were in the company of some foreigners on the boat, and were planning to take them to the airport by 3 AM.

*Three people who had been taken in, on the Tuesday and Wednesday prior to the arrests, 'on suspicion' (a clause in the emergency law that allows a person to be held for a renewable period of 3 days for no reason) just because they were not carrying their ID cards. Of these, one was going out of his sister's house after a visit, and another was washing his motorcycle in front of his house. They were from many different precincts, not just those where the arrest took place.

*An illiterate street vendor who was arrested for selling watches without a license in a café. (His mother was alerted by the neighbors that her son had been arrested. "What did he do?" she asked when she arrived. "They were putting pornographic photos on the Internet," someone said. "The what?" she replied.)

*A fifty-year-old man who got into a fight with an off-duty police officer. He was taken to Ezbekiya Police Station (not Kasr El-Nile where Queen Boat was) on the Friday night following the arrests.

The prosecutors started questioning the suspects, comparing them to the pornographic pictures they found with Sherif, and they ended by bringing them face to face with Sherif and asking him if he recognized them. He only said he recognized ten of them as acquaintances or previous sexual partners - NOT as members of any organization. The others (about 45 men), the prosecution declared to the lawyers, were cleared of all charges, and were completely innocent, and would therefore be released as soon as the Prosecutor-General gave the order.

Based on the news they had received, the lawyers rushed out to give the families the happy news. The air was filled with cries of joy and the loud voices of tearful mothers calling for God's blessings upon the just and merciful officers inside(!). The lawyers informed them that the Prosecutor-General was coming to discuss the case at 7 p.m., and that he wouldn't issue a decision before the next morning, but still the families waited, just to see their sons coming out and getting into the prison vans.

At 5:30 p.m., the Prosecutor-General called and extended all the 55 men's detention for another two weeks by phone.

A harrowing scene of screaming and crying followed, as the stunned mothers, wives, brothers and sisters who had been waiting for twelve hours, and already begun to celebrate, began to weep hysterically, screaming: "Why? What have they done? On what basis are they holding them? They said they were innocent!" People began to break down and, when the prisoners were brought out at about 6:30, they stood in front of the van, watching as the men cried: "Save us! Let us out! We're innocent!" If the families were in this terrible state, I can only imagine the feelings of those inside, first told that they were innocent and would be left to go free, only to have their hopes dashed for no logical or understandable reason by the capricious whim of some high official.

When the prisoners were led into the van to be taken away, the families crowded around the metal door, calling to them and crying. The officers beat us in the face and head - in front of the prisoners - to make us move away. One old man who chased after the van was struck in the face several times by an officer. When he fell to the ground, he was then kicked repeatedly.

Incidentally, I spoke with a lawyer regarding Sherif's offense. He told me that, trumped-up charges aside, the most he could legally be charged with, based on the evidence, was possession of pornography - definitely nothing to do with national security. The other ten people's offense was, to put it simply, knowing Sherif.