Release 23 men imprisoned "for being gay" - MEP tells Mubarak

12.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Thu 15th Nov 2001

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak must immediately overturn the jail sentences of up to five years handed down this week by a state security court to 23 men simply for being gay or on suspicion of being gay, says London's Liberal Democrat MEP Baroness Sarah Ludford.

Fifty-two men were arrested in May during a police raid on a floating night club on the Nile, and 29 were acquitted when the remaining 23 were convicted on Wednesday 14th November. Charges included debauchery, contempt of religion, falsely interpreting the Koran, and exploiting Islam to promote deviant ideas, but they amounted to little more than a trial for being gay.

Baroness Ludford has already secured written assurances from both Ben Bradshaw MP, the Foreign Office minister, and Chris Patten, the responsible European Commissioner, that the British Government and the EU would keep the case under scrutiny.

She is now calling on the two men to press Mubarak to overturn the sentences. As the president, he is the only person who can overrule the state security court that passed the sentences.

Baroness Ludford said:

"These sentences shame Egypt and must put into question its proposed association agreement with the EU. If President Mubarak does not immediately quash these sentences then the Foreign Office and the European Commission must pressurise him into doing this.

"I am writing to both men to ask them to do just that."