Evangelical Association in Egypt sets up school to ‘treat’ homosexuality

The Evangelical Association in Egypt has set up a school to “treat” homosexuality, reports the Egypt Independent.

Pastor Tony George, who works for the Evangelicals Association in Egypt and the Middle East, said that homosexuality has its roots in childhood trauma and that the school will help people on the path to change.

“Recovering from homosexuality is not impossible,” he said.

In October, Human Rights Watch released a report to say that Egyptian police and security agency officers arbitrarily arrest LGBT people and keep them in inhumane conditions where they are tortured and subject to sexual violence.

In 2001, 52 men were arrested after police raided a Nile vessel called the Queen Boat.

The crackdown intensified in 2017 after the Lebanese pop band Mashrou Leila played a concert in Cairo and 56 were arrested after they raised the rainbow flag.

READ: Egypt state-run newspaper threatens that EIPR founder may ‘vanish’

In June, one of these former political prisoners and the only woman who was arrested at the concert, Sarah Hegazi, committed suicide in Canada where she was living in exile.

Sarah was electrocuted in prison, forced to leave her job and eventually the country. She was accused of joining an illegal group and of promoting sexual deviancy and debauchery.

Following her release Sarah suffered severe post-traumatic stress disorder.

In November, a young man was arrested and detained, allegedly over his sexual orientation, after attending a police station to accompany a witness of the alleged drugging and rape of a woman at the Fairmont Hotel.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said that Seif Badour was 14 and wasn’t present when the rape happened, he simply wanted to accompany his female friend to the police station.

In total, three female witnesses to the gang rape were arrested and investigated for drug abuse, inciting debauchery and participating in an orgy.

They were smeared on pro-government websites who claimed they were part of a network of homosexuals in Egypt spreading AIDS.