[Foundation-l] [Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2008 will happen in Alexandria, Egypt

[Ben Yates]

Most of what I've read indicates egypt is safe for tourists.  Yes,
there are gay touring packages.  But this long, very graphic report by
Human Rights Watch --
http://hrw.org/reports/2004/egypt0304/1.htm#_Toc63760377 -- says the
Egyptian government tracks down Egyptians it suspects are gay and
tortures them, in significant numbers.

If the justice system of an american state was torturing LGBTs, I
think a lot of people wouldn't want to go to a wikimania held in that
state.  (Mind you, those people might be wrong -- isolating the state
might just increase its radicalism.)  Expecting them to not care when
*arab* LGBTs are persecuted is a little condescending.

Look -- our own governments didn't treat GLBTs so well til recently
(see: forcing Allen Turing to take estrogen; turning a blind eye to
gay bashings; etc.).  This is an open wound -- it's not shrill or
"politically correct" to have serious issues with shrugging your
shoulders about a foreign system that your predecessors at home fought
desperately against.

-- 
Ben Yates
Wikipedia blog - http://wikip.blogspot.com