CAIRO: After the U.S. legalized gay marriage Friday, TV reporter Mona Iraqi, who received much attention after storming a public bathhouse with the police in December, supported the decision and tweeted #LoveWins Saturday.
“The right to life and love without persecution, with all due respect for them and for others,” Iraqi tweeted with a rainbow flag.
Iraqi faced a fierce attack on social media after her tweet; some people condemned her for supporting same-sex marriage, and others mocked her for previously causing 26 men to be arrested in the public bath case for “engaging in homosexual prostitution.” They were acquitted in January 2015.
Iraqi is facing a defamation lawsuit by some of the men she filmed as they were forced to walk out of the bath half-naked over “debauchery” charges.
While Egypt’s foremost Islamic institution Al-Azhar has not commented on gay marriage, Egyptian Bishop Rafael of the Coptic Church said the homosexuals are in need of “psychological treatment,” and that they can be “cured by the grace of God,” Youm7 reported Saturday.
Both Muslims and Christians in the most populous Arab country are largely opposed to homosexuality, only some people announced their support to gay marriage on social media.
Although there is no specific law that criminalizes homosexuality, gay rights activists say there is a campaign against the LGBT community in Egypt, as homosexuals, mostly men, are sometimes charged with “debauchery.”
On June 9, a video of an allegedly gay man has gone viral on social media, where he is seen apprehended and slapped by a group of men on Giza’s famous street Gameat el-Dowal street. The bullies do not seem to know their victim.
The highly-edited video of 44 seconds shows a man slapping his victim’s face, and the victim is heard groaning with pain. In the final shots of the video, the victim is seen fallen to the ground and moaning, while another man is trying to pull him up by his shirt.