Colonial Laws a Hazard for Homosexuals in Lebanon

Many
draconian Middle Eastern laws are homegrown constructions, ranging from
Jordan’s Penal Code 308, which allows
rapists to avoid jail time if they marry their victims, to Saudi Arabia’s infamous
ban on women driving. Others are hangovers of colonialism that Middle
Eastern governments have been all too happy to uphold.

Lebanon,
long called the Switzerland of the Middle East, fancies itself an exception to
Middle Eastern authoritarianism: a bustling, cosmopolitan country that serves
as an oasis of co-mingling cultures in an increasingly unstable region. A
shame, then, that Lebanon applies long-outdated French laws against minority
groups like its LGBTQ population. It seems surreal that a state, in 2016,
harasses and tortures its own citizens based solely upon their sexual
orientations and gender identities, but violence against LGBTQ citizens in
Lebanon is shockingly common, and stateside human rights defenders should take
notice.

Lebanese
Penal Code 534, a historical quirk left over from the French mandate that ended
in 1943, enables
the state to punish “unnatural” sexual acts. The statute’s vague
terminology allows officials to apply the law according to their whims; it is
presently used to persecute LGBTQ people, who face up to a year in prison if
convicted.

Of
course, LGBTQ people aren’t marching in to police stations to proclaim their
sexual orientation. Instead, when their paths cross with authorities, officials
use any pretext (often based on stereotypes relating to appearance, mannerisms,
and speech patterns) to justify rifling through suspects’ personal belongings
for evidence of homosexuality.

Gay
men report having
their phones searched at routine checkpoints, only to be arrested and
beaten for having gay dating apps like Grindr installed or possessing nude
photos of other men. Belonging to LGBTQ-aligned Facebook groups is also
sufficient—even if there is no evidence of one having actually participated in
homosexual activities. The Lebanese authorities’ opinion of homosexuality is
made evident in the purview
of the Morality Police, who oversee cases related to homosexuality, along
with other suspects accused of drugs and prostitution.

Even
benign legal matters can turn dangerous. A police officer who met with a Syrian
man attempting to gather the paperwork needed for refugee resettlement in North
America interpreted the refugee’s mannerisms as “uneven,” a code word for
effeminate and possibly gay. So the
police officer orchestrated a 2014 raid on the hamam (Turkish
bathhouse) where the man formerly worked; twenty-seven people were arrested,
after which they experienced compulsory HIV tests and torture severe enough to
incite forced confessions. A similar
raid on a movie theater in 2012 saw the arrest of 36 people who endured
rectal exams and were lambasted as “perverts” on Lebanese television.

Unfortunately,
these incidents of state-sponsored violence are not anomalies. Police often
resort to beatings and outright torture in order to elicit confessions. Victims
report enduring anti-gay slurs from law enforcement and situations that would
constitute entrapment under US law. A Lebanese LGBTQ news outlet reported that in
April 2016 an incident occurred where a
transgender woman was arrested and tied to a chair for three days. A male
officer demanded she sleep with him and, had the woman agreed, reportedly
planned to use the incident as evidence against her.

Perversely,
the Lebanese government’s attempt to tighten security in the face of Islamist
extremists like ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusrah have worsened the situation for LGBTQ
individuals by increasing the number of checkpoints and security officials
throughout the country.

Certainly,
robust digital security practices can help protect LGBTQ people who choose to
organize or find potential dates online. Tools like Tor allow for anonymous
browsing; basic digital hygiene, like using screen locks, can prevent the
casual observer from peeking at one’s dating apps; and even the messenger app
WhatsApp now has end-to-end encryption on all its messages. And, luckily, there
are plenty of Arabic-language resources out there for LGBTQ people in Lebanon
who want to learn about these options. But the very fact that LGBTQ people
(plus religious and other minorities) must seek out technical means of
protecting their private information—especially as it relates to consensual
acts between adults who are, by all scientific accounts, perfectly
natural—speaks to privacy’s fragility in the face of unfair laws.

Even
worse, Lebanese society at large fails to sympathize with LGBTQ victims. A Pew
Research study conducted in 2013 showed that 80 percent of people in Lebanon
disapproved of homosexuality. One hopes that tolerance has increased in the
intervening three years, but several high-profile incidents belie such
optimism. There have been recent cases of vigilante
citizens identifying their LGBTQ brethren in order to turn them over to the
police. And government discrimination remains a serious threat.

Activists
are fighting back. As part of the International Day Against Homophobia and
Transphobia, a Lebanese LGBTQ organization called Helem staged a
50-person protest against Penal Code 534 at a police station in Beirut.
Other groups like Legal Agenda seek
redress for victims by filing complaints against violent officers and
representing victims in court.

But
the onus for change cannot be on the victims of oppression. Bad laws must
change. A select couple of judges have paved the way by
tossing out court cases against LGBTQ defendants with the argument that
Penal Code 534 inadequately defines “unnatural” behavior in order for it to
apply to homosexuality. But while the law remains on the books, serious human
rights abuses lay on the shoulders of Lebanese officials who target gays and transgender
citizens, and with police officers who compound these egregious violations with
violence against LGBTQ detainees.

France finally left Lebanon in 1946. Seventy years later, it’s time—beyond time—for
this law to leave, too.