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Background:
Corrupted governments have used minority groups as a scapegoat to eclipse its corruption and withdraw attention from political, economical and social injustice. On May 2001, The Egyptian high security squad raided a gay discotheque, known as the Queen Boat and arrested it’s patrons. Fifty-two alleged gay men were accused of organizing a satanic cult and practicing homosexuality as part of its ritual. They were charged with ‘deriding religion’ a vaguely worded article in the “Emergency Law” panel code, and with ‘habitually practicing Debauchery’ an article in the Egyptian panel code – under the prostitution section. They were trialed in the Emergency State Security Court and many of them were sentenced to prison.
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Project description:
The project is an attempt to analyze the nature of the media discourse, amounted in effect to a media war, which aimed at turning public opinion against homosexuals, who are portrayed as the source of all evil, and silencing all enlightened voices on the subject. With weapons of religious discourse, the scientific, medical and mental health establishments, this incident created a president that erected barriers to make the subject even more taboo and render it impossible to initiate any kind of discussion or discourse.
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