Op-ed: John Kerry Needs to Do the Right Thing in Egypt

Promoting an economic summit in a nation jailing LGBT people is not living up to the self-stated ideals of the State Department.

On February 27, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry swore in the nations first special envoy for the human rights of LGBT persons, a new diplomatic post created to contend against homophobia worldwide. At a posh D.C. reception, Kerry made familiar promises. In country after country, LGBT communities face discriminatory laws and practices that attack their dignity, undermine their safety, and violate their human rights. Thats unacceptable. And we believe it has to change.

The night before, police arrested seven people in Cairo. The Egyptian governments pet press organs trumpeted that they were dangerous transsexuals (some may indeed be transgender, though their identities remain unclear). The vice squad seized them in a nightclub but proudly proclaimed it had monitored them through fake social media profiles, part of a police strategy to infiltrate LGBT communities and exploit peoples desperate isolation. The victims face charges of debauchery, the term in Egyptian law for sex between men. Theyve been jailed since then; were told the guards have mistreated them and denied them food. They are only the latest victims of a huge state crackdown on alleged trans and gay people that has imprisoned more than 150 since 2013.

John Kerry now heads to Egypt, to raise money for the government that jailed them, at an economic summit there this week.

The irony is blatant; the hypocrisy, shameful. In 2011, Hillary Clinton, Kerrys predecessor, declared that gay rights are human rights, and the Obama White House loudly moved those rights to the fore of its diplomacy. For Clintons presidential ambitions and for an administration that needs gay voters and donors the international initiative has been great domestic politics. Abroad, where it counts, it sometimes looks less impressive. Kerry is happy to throw LGBT peoples freedoms out the window while courting the Egyptian regime; his casual self-contradiction shows how little the promises matter. For Obamas foreign policy, LGBT rights like human rights in general are a talking point, not a priority.

The human rights situation in Egypt is appalling. Since now-President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi took power in a 2013 military coup, jail cells have swelled with over 40,000 political prisoners. Courts hand down life sentences or death sentences for the simple act of holding a demonstration. The government threatens to shut down Egypts embattled civil society, including its few, brave human rights groups. A presidential decree means that activists who accept foreign funding could face life in prison. Since the coup, security forces have killed over 1,500 protesters, mostly Islamists mostly in cold blood.

The regime adeptly manipulates the language of the war on terror. It claims its brutal repression is needed to combat radicalism and protect security. A recent report in Mada Masr one of the few remaining independent press outlets in Egypt shows how, instead, the heavy-handed suppression of dissent feeds extremist movements by leaving citizens no political outlet for discontent. The ongoing arrests of alleged LGBT people, however, are the clearest if cruelest refutation of the antiterrorism claims. Accused trans women and alleged gay men are no terrorists. They pose no threat to the state. The public campaign to extirpate them is about power, not security. Its an attempt to revive the reach and reputation of the police, by publicizing their onslaught against an unpopular minority. Its part of resuscitating the old Mubarak dictatorships machineries of control.

The U.S. watches these brutalities with only perfunctory protest. America gives almost $1.5 billion in annual assistance to Egypt, almost all of it aid to the military that wields the levers of repression. Kerry has personally fought attempts to tie that military largesse to democratic reform.

This weeks trip to Egypt, however, is a particularly gross insult to human rights activists still carrying on the struggle there. The Sisi regime is holding a vast economic summit to draw foreign investment. The investment opportunities on offer skyscrapers, tourist resorts, new desert cities promise little help to most Egyptians. But Sisi needs the appearance of attracting international business to give a despairing populace hope he can revive a decayed economy. The summit is about legitimating the dictatorship, not uplifting Egypts millions of poor.

Kerry is coming to give his credibility to the show. Hes putting the full weight of the United States behind the fundraising efforts of a repressive military government.

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Op-ed: John Kerry Needs to Do the Right Thing in Egypt