[Foundation-l] [Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2008 will happenin Alexandria, Egypt

[Berto 'd Sera]

Well, the problem is not how WE see them. I have no special problem with
people wearing glasses (I wear them myself), but in Red Khmer Cambodia that
might have been a problem.

Anyway, on reading
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4302213,00.html 

I noticed a few interesting paragraphs:

"23 men were sentenced to between one and five years' imprisonment for
"debauchery" (since homosexuality itself is not illegal)." 

And

"This began to change in Egypt with the arrival of the internet. Websites
and email lists allowed previously isolated gays to make contact and tell
each other about social events.

About the same time, the Egyptian police set up a special internet crimes
unit. With internet use mainly confined to the country's law-abiding middle
classes, there was little real work for them to do, but they needed to show
results and spotted a few international dating sites where Egyptian men were
seeking to meet other men."

Now... it's quite common for bureaucratic branches to find a reason for
their existence AFTER they have been created. I wouldn't be surprised if
fear to loose on tech-wage was much more relevant than GLBT-fobia, in this
peculiar case.

Besides... "debauchery" has no special relations with GLBT, as far as I see.
One can smoke a joint and be arrested in most countries under the same
accusation. As an occasional hashish smoker I'd rather not have Wikimania in
countries that cannot warranty my personal security, starting from the US
and all European countries but Holland, obviously.

What I think is that they'll NEVER want a problem with top site N.9,
something that might mean embassies, media, etc digging in the local police
dirty laundry, get howled out by wikinews all over the planet and (mostly)
turn away from them those radical opinions that are mostly favoring Islam in
the West. Why? On the other hand, if you are a GLBT militant, you SHOULD go
there and defend your rights. 

Possibly a good solution would be in contacting the Egyptian Embassy and
inform them of the problem. They either are ready to get us all "as we are"
OR we move wikimania to Israel and use all the media we can get to explain
why we do so... sometimes being direct helps a lot.

I still hope we'll go to Alexandria, though. Let alone marketing wikies and
seeing a wonderful place, it's nice to tell those guys on the net there that
they are not alone.

Berto 'd Sera
Skype: berto.d.sera
Personagi dl'ann 2006 per l'arvista american-a Time (tanme tuti vojaotri)
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html
 
-----Original Message-----
From: foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org
[mailto:foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Dan Rosenthal
Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 12:15 AM
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] [Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2008 will happenin
Alexandria, Egypt


On Oct 10, 2007, at 3:55 PM, Ray Saintonge wrote:

>   I regret the concerns of the LGBT people,
> but sometimes it is simply not possible to adjust to all the interests
> of special interest groups.


That's the problem. LGBT people should not be viewed as a special  
interest group, but as people. Just like us, homogenous, no different.


-Dan
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