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Islam Reports 1998-2002 1 Syria votes to postpone U.N. draft resolution on human rights and sexual orientation 4/03 2 Have Syrian authorities threatened gays in Syria that have corresponded with GayMiddleEast.com? 8/03 3 Book Review: Cleopatra's Wedding Present: Travels through Syria 9/03 4 Using gay "liberation" as a war guise in Iraq and Syria 4/03 5
Syrian woman thanks open-minded Iraqi cleric whose understanding
led her to have sex change 3/04 8 Syrian
Deputy Minister of Religious Endowments, Muhammad Abd Al-Sattar
Al-Sayyid: 9
An American traveler spends three weeks in Egypt, Lebanon and
Syria; 10 Warning message from a gay Syrian regarding sexual activity in public hammans 6/06 11 The Road Back to Damascus 6/07 non-gay backgound story 13 Death sentence: gay Syrian teenager facing deportation 3/08 1 The draft
resolution would have the Commission
express deep concern at the occurrence of violations of human rights
in the world against persons on the grounds of their sexual orientation;
stress that human rights and fundamental freedoms were the birthright
of all human beings, and that the universal nature of these rights
and freedoms was beyond question; and call upon all States to promote
and protect the human rights of all persons regardless of their
sexual orientation. GayMiddleEast.com News August
14, 2003 September
2003
April 17, 2003 4 Religion,
tradition, culture, family pressures, ignorance of the contemporary understandings
of modern psychology - all these things and more factor together in various
ways to make life extremely difficult for GLBT people in Iraq and other Arab
nations. But to believe that life for GLBT people will be better
- or different in any real way - than it was under Saddam Hussein is willfully
naïve. The social,
religious and cultural forces that oppress GLBT people will not have changed
one iota under a new Iraqi government. Taken from Middle East Times March
5, 2004 6 June 2005 GlobalGayz.com receives messages from around the world but rarely from Syria. It's no wonder. Re-read stories #2 and #3 above and a reader needs little imagination to understand that Syria appears to be one of the most repressive states for LGBT people in the Middle East. Confirming the fear and hiding that gays suffer in Syria is a recent message sent to this web site by a Syrian native who has managed to live--temporarily--outside the country. This person writes: "It must be told about the suffering of Syrian gays under the old and the new Assad presidents. Almost no one dares to write any comments in Syrian newspapers or tell private news about gays arrested or persecuted. The only mention of homosexuality is as a disease and a perverse illness." It's no surprise the reports have been so few about such persecution in Syria. Even when such message are sent anonymously to web groups or sites such as GlobalGayz.com or GayMiddleEast.com the writers often become very paranoid that somehow the Syrian authorities will identify and seize them, even outside Syria. In item #2 above it was reported the writer asked to have his comments removed. So too did the writer to GlobalGayz. His exact words were taken off but they reappear--much edited--in this brief report posted to re-emphasize the level of fear and danger gays live under on a daily basis. Closeted and anxious gays have no where to turn; perhaps to a trusted friend sworn to secrecy but clearly not to any human rights organization inside Syria. The writer continues: "In my country there is a dictatorial president and regime, so gays are frightened to speak about such matters as human rights, which are not real in Syria now. Many gays have been arrested and are now in Syrian prisons. We don't even know how to begin opposing the Syrian regime. We need information about getting asylum in Canada or UK. We cannot fight here, only leave our families and homes. Also in Europe you can't be arrested if you are homosexual, but Syrian police can come to arrest you." His final
painful words are, "don't leave me alone
in this world, I lost everything as I try to find a difficult way
to freedom. But am I really free? I had to separate, yes divorce,
from
my wife
and children. I am no longer able to do my work and I am a foreigner
to my own home. It was too painful to leave my old parents
alone." ------- From another writer to GlobalGayz (July 2005) the painful message continues to come out of Syria. Here is a more recent description about LGBT citizens there: "Thank you for helping me in the publishing of the true situation of gays in Syria. The gay life must be very secret in Syria and dangerous when the police or neighbor or relative or Muslims fanatic discovers you, especially now after many terrorist organizations were discovered in Syria such a sham army and Muslims fanatics. Some gays are afraid of meeting in the street or restaurant or cinema or Turkish bath in Damascus or Aleppo or Hama or Homs Lattaquia. All Syrian cities are not safe areas for gays. "The syrian police look for gays to arrest them. After the arrest, they lead them for medical test using outdated methods to prove you had anal sex; they do it with fingers and put a special thing in the ass (the same instrument a doctor uses when you have problem in your ass). I knew many gay were arrested and examined for that reason gay always are afraid to be discovered by such shameful methods. "Many gays decide to marry to escape from the pressure of the Islamic life, but we still have a very high danger of getting arrested by so-called Syrian moral police or sex police. They have a special military court that can condemn gays to 3 years or more of prison. All gays in Syria have pressure from theirs family to marry. "The government doesn't have any social or medical help for gays nor do they give any information about HIV or AIDS. I hope some of the LGBT world can put strong pressure against Syria to do some campaign to protect Syrian gays. I advise all gays who want to visit Syria to give help and if they meet others for sex to use condom always. "Homosexual behavior in Syria is illegal; section 520 of the penal code criminalizes any carnal knowledge against the order of nature with a maximum penalty of 3 years imprisonment. Homosexuality cannot be admitted openly. "There is no visible social support for gay and lesbian rights; according to the Syrian embassy in Washington homosexuality is not recognized by the authorities in Syria. The ambassador suggested that if a homosexual person does not want to be harassed or discriminated against he should keep his sexual preference a secret. Amnesty International in the UK had campaigns for imprisoned gays in Syrian but many Syrians fanatics tried to delete those topics about gays on the Internet and on Syrian web sites. "Many sexually active gays try to avoid the police in public areas such certain parks in Aleppo or WC's in Damascus or Aleppo, so I advise gay Syrians or tourists gay who come to Syria to be very careful because it's dangerous. Even the Australian embassy in Lebanon had advised visitors to avoid Syrian gay life. Now it's a high risk for gay in Syria because they found many Muslim fanatics are working in secret ways in Syria. Nervous police can do a 'razzia' against areas where gay hang out. We live in hell life, I can confirm that police arrested many Syrians gays and put them in different prisons. I knew one transsexual man who was raped by Syrian criminal police and violated him. He had long hair, he was raped behind the Biblous Cinema in Damascus in Marja Square 2 years ago. "I hope all organizations can focus to help gay Syrians and investigate our jails. It's time to have our freedom like Spain now has the right to marry--and maybe Turkey in the future. We are near such countries who were one time Muslim countries. Turkey is still mostly Muslim so I hope all gays can start now to defend their rights as a minority in our Muslim society too."
13 June
2005
9 June 22, 2006 10 Regarding your story about gays in Damascus (http://www.globalgayz.com/g-syria.html, story #2) I would like to inform you about the violation of 2 gays in Damascus in a bath house in Damascus. Homosexuality is forbidden in Syria in public area. It was in 3/5/2006 I saw a gay who was in the steam room jerk with his penis. After I saw the owner come and slap him in his face and the gay was choked and didn’t knew what he can do. After he went out, he was afraid that the owner would call the police. Later I saw the owner pull out the gay’s identity card from his pocket and he registered his name and address in special book. What I
want to say is if the owner informs the police and his family about
him they will know what he did in the bath.
(When he touched another gay and intended have a reaction with
him does that means he is gay?) What it means is that he might lose
his
job, or even have a tribunal sentence; in Syria homosexuality is
condemned to 1 to 3 years in jail. What I also want to say is that many gays in Syria mostly have a very low level of culture and education. Its' so rare to find a good educated gay in Syria except the navigators in Internet who can speak and write English. Even the effeminate gays you can see sometimes in the street come from other cities not Damascus, where no parents can see or control them. Of course Damascus gays can't show thier effeminate behaviour in the street bacause they live in Damascus with their parents or family. Some other gays come from different areas of Syria to have fun in Damascus and to find work but no one can live with his boyfriend in Syria-- its not allowed, maybe in secret but it rarely exists! Thus one can be arrested in Damascus. So I hope someone from GlobalGayz can come and investigate. Gays have been arrested several times and can't go back to their family or tell them about such arrests. This secret life of homesexuals must have an end and we must focus in this problem! What kind of work can they find or what treatment they have after they get out from jail--all bad. Sorry to say many don't want to think about such things because they are poor in education and cultural life. What they do is to continue to be at risk another time; they live under Althura Bridge in that area in the center of Damascus. They live sometimes in a hotel popular in Bab Srigha quarter, especially Arab Hotel. They can pay 1$ per day and take the risk to be in the prostitute market. They don't have any information about protection against AIDS or use the condoms. They refuse to speak about how they suffer in their lives; it's a serious problem for gays in Syria. They want somebody who can take care of their problems. I hope you can come and work on such issues. This a big taboo in our society. There
aern't any places to meet gays in Syria. We have a hell life! You
as educated gay can be discovred by the police or neighbors or friends
and that
scandal can lead you to lose everything! Even
some have suicided! So there's no nice life to us! You must only
to masturbation in home when you take your shower or in bath. So
it's
not allowed
at all to sleep or live with your boyfriend. There aren't any confidences
between gays because some of them intend to blackmail each other
as business to get money so we are afraid to make contact via Internet
or in the street. It's very rare one can have a
real boyfriend. Maybe only a moment for sex but then no
one can say hello to each other in street.
June 24, 2007 11 by Seth Sherwood “Where you from?” he said, in English, as women in headscarves battled for plastic shoes from an adjacent sidewalk dealer. “New York,” I answered, lowering my lens and awaiting a tirade against my country — or worse. Instead, he broke into a smile. “New York, great city!” he said. “Ahlan wa sahlan bi Sham.” Ahlan wa sahlan bi Sham: Welcome to Damascus. During a weeklong visit in May — during which I explored the Old City of Damascus (including its proliferating nightclubs), the Silk Road bazaars of Aleppo and the ruins of ancient Palmyra — unexpected welcomes seemed to erupt from every corner of this ancient nation of Bronze Age, Classical, Biblical and Islamic history. No matter where I was or whom I encountered, local greetings were never long in coming. Though most Americans might be wary of sojourning in a country whose authoritarian government stands accused of some serious charges — financing Hezbollah, allowing foreign fighters into neighboring Iraq and assassinating the former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri — a week among the regular citizens of Syria and its cultural riches is eye-opening. When I boarded Syrian Air in Paris, I knew only that Damascus claimed to be the oldest inhabited city on Earth and that some favorite writers — Mark Twain, Gustave Flaubert, Agatha Christie — had been swept away by the country’s lore-filled past and landscapes. Many people told me vaguely to be careful, though none had ever been to Syria. My few acquaintances who had braved the country despite its tarnished reputation assured me that all would be fine. Head straight to the legendary Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, they said. Fill up whenever you can on excellent grilled lamb, baba ghanouj and pomegranate juice. And leave your preconceptions at passport control. The country I discovered, in addition to being friendly and largely free of crime and related hassles, even showed glimmers of creaking open to the West after decades of closure. Under its London-educated, 41-year-old president, Bashar al-Assad, Syria has instituted private banking, removed a number of long-standing import barriers and passed measures allowing foreigners to own property. A Four Seasons hotel opened in Damascus with great fanfare in 2005; a five-star Inter-Continental is under construction. A huge two-panel billboard in central Damascus embodied the changes afoot. One side trumpeted the “3rd Annual Tourism Investment Market Forum.” On the other, the avuncular white-bearded face of Colonel Sanders, ringed in red Arabic script, heralded the arrival of Kentucky Fried Chicken in Syria. GO back as far as you will into the vague past, there was always a Damascus,” wrote Twain, who visited in the 1860s. “To Damascus years are only flitting trifles of time. She measures time not by days and months and years, but by the empires she has seen rise and crumble to ruin. She is a type of immortality.” He was scarcely embellishing. The Babylonians blasted through under Nebuchadnezzar, before the Persians did likewise under Darius and Xerxes. The Romans captured the country in 63 B.C., and Mark Antony campaigned there against the Parthians. It was on the road to Damascus, most famously, that the Jewish traveler Saul was blinded by the light, initiating his conversion to Christianity and a new identity as the Apostle Paul. And it was on the road to Damascus, six centuries later, that the Prophet Muhammad stopped in his tracks and refused to enter the city, saying that “man should only enter paradise once.” In succeeding centuries, the Egyptians, Ottomans and French all took their turns as occupiers before Syria became independent in 1946. Today, the route to the inner sanctum of the eighth-century Umayyad Mosque — the spiritual and historical heart of Damascus’s Old City — seems culled from some time-worn star map. First you cross under the Roman archway, just south of the tomb of the fabled Islamic warrior Saladin, who defeated Richard the Lionhearted during the Crusades. Then you enter the vast gates of the mosque, whose stony expanses rest atop a former Byzantine church, which overlays a mostly vanished Roman temple to Jupiter, itself erected on the former site of a disappeared Aramaean shrine. Finally, you make a quick jog across the courtyard, past the mausoleum of John the Baptist and into the tomb of Hussein, a grandson of Muhammad and a martyr venerated by Shiite Muslims. The afternoon I visited, the stone room echoed with clicking prayer beads, muttered Koranic verses and sobs. Men prostrated themselves, pressing their foreheads to the stone. Student-age girls and toothless, wizened old women in black veils wept openly. One bespectacled young woman cried uncontrollably, grabbing at the walls. Places of powerful faith fill every corner of Damascus. In a small, silent street in the Christian Quarter of the Old City, I tracked down the Church of Ananias, the man who cured St. Paul of his blindness and baptized him into Christianity. Though entirely empty of worshipers, some handwritten notes and trinkets from visitors were stuck between the stones. “Clean and serene for 60 days,” read a green keychain, in English. Utterly different again, and equally haunting, was the reconstructed ancient Jewish synagogue in the National Museum, an evocative time capsule of relics from forgotten Bronze Age cities, vanished Roman outposts and other Ozymandian monuments pulled from Syria’s sands. Found at the city-state of Dora Europos, a trade center decimated by the Persians in the third century, the towering stone walls of the synagogue glowed with painted panels of temple priests, strange animals, sad-eyed women, scrolls, menorahs, winged angels, horse dancers and serene-faced desert wanderers. “It’s astonishing to find a synagogue that has paintings,” said Michel al-Maqdissi, the museum’s director of archeological excavations, speaking in French. A small radio filled his office with an opera aria. “The Jewish religion forbids painted representation, just like in Islam. It accepts decorative elements, but not the human form. That’s why it’s such a unique piece.” Nearby, the lanes of the Old City brimmed with energy. Black-veiled women led teenage girls — some in loose robes, others in punishingly tight jeans — into fabric stalls. With chiming bells, bicyclists parted the crowds to deliver loaves of bread while old men rolled Sisyphean pushcarts of pastries and bottles of deep blue bilberry juice. “Ahlan wa sahlan,” said Tony Stephan as he ushered me into his antiques and craft emporium along Souk al-Hamidiyeh, the most famous of Damascus’s venerable bazaars. Elderly and courtly, he gave me a tour of his store, which was stocked floor to ceiling with inlaid wooden boxes, elaborate backgammon sets, hammered urns, mosaics, Bedouin jewelry and rich textiles — many of them woven on a click-clacking loom in back. “That’s Jimmy Carter, that’s Warren Christopher, and that’s Nancy Kissinger,” he said, pointing out photos of the famous figures who, in times of less fraught international relations — before the White House had declared the country a “rogue nation” and a member of the “junior varsity axis of evil” — had snapped up furnishings and fabrics in his shop. Much more recently, in April, the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her delegation had strode through the souk during an official visit — the first in recent memory by a top American official — prompting local talk of a possible rapprochement. Twilight in the Old City evokes a certain wistfulness. As the final call to prayer echoes through the blue-black evening, strolling couples and families fill the paved lanes around the mosque, licking at ice creams from the venerable parlor Bakdash. In the cafes, old men in threadbare suits sip Turkish coffee and chat. I whiled away more than a few nights among those smoking narghiles, as water pipes are called there, and drinking mint tea at the old world Al Nafoorah coffeehouse, as the nightly pageantry of Damascus flowed past. It was the perfect place to meditate on the city, a great palimpsest on which so many peoples, faiths and empires wrote their stories. To see the most famous of Syria’s crumbled cities, Palmyra, I set out at dawn. The bus rolled across the arid emptiness, past loping camels, past goatherds in checkered headdresses, past tents of Bedouin nomads. Finally, three hours later, the majestic, blocky ruins emerged. Corinthian columns, eroded archways, theaters, ornate hillside tombs and temples to forgotten gods — Bel, Nebo, Arsu, Baalshamin — spread across the landscape. Here, in Syria’s largest oasis, an ancient Silk Road trade center flourished some two millenniums ago. Someone surveying the landscape then would have seen a thriving market city, echoing with talk in Aramaic and filled with arriving camel trains bearing ebony, dried foods, spices, perfume, ivory and silk from as far away as India and China. From Palmyra the exotic goods would be shipped westward to Rome — which for a time controlled Palmyra — where they fetched up to 100 times their original cost. Today, a surreal Hollywoodesque scene was playing out among the ruins as hundreds of Syrian teenage boys dressed in gladiatorlike costumes prepared a tightly choreographed dance number for the annual Palmyra Festival, which was scheduled to kick-off at dusk. In the well-preserved amphitheater, workmen were deploying a stage, curtains and lighting banks to accommodate the Bolshoi Ballet and various orchestras on the festival program. This week, the dead city would live again. The miles of stony passages and thousands of shops in the souks of Aleppo, another Silk Road stop that’s now Syria’s second-largest city, briskly destroy flimsy descriptors like “diverse” or “eclectic.” Such hollow words splinter under the tonnage of caftans, coffee beans, lutes, Teletubbies, silk cushions, mosaics, perfumes, gold, carpets, gumdrops and olive-oil soaps. Dodging mule-carts and mustached men chewing pistachios — a local specialty — I flowed with the thick crowds past ornate Ottoman-era stone warehouses and the eighth-century Great Mosque, resting place of the head of Zachariah, the father of John the Baptist. Time seemed barely to exist. The stone arches, massive wooden portals and iron-barred windows appeared unchanged since their construction in the Middle Ages. Today, the only signs of 21st-century life were the schoolgirls in Barbie backpacks milling about the battlements of the storybook medieval citadel and the screaming schoolboys fighting unseen invaders. A kind of phantom world lurks among the time-worn stones of Aleppo. Strolling the souks, I could not help thinking that I was walking in the footsteps of Mohamed Atta, the Egyptian leader of the Sept. 11 hijackers. As an urban planning student in the 1990s, he spent several months in Aleppo, writing a thesis that argued for the preservation of the age-old Islamic market against the threat of modernization. Later, sitting in a club chair in the bar of the Hotel Baron, a faded grande dame from the era of steamer trunks and ragtime, I half expected Charles Lindbergh, T. E. Lawrence, Teddy Roosevelt or Agatha Christie to descend from their old rooms. Married to an archeologist who worked in Syria, Christie wrote some of “Murder on the Orient Express” while holed up here. The young Lawrence also worked on archeological digs in the area, though apparently he found time for less rugged and martial pleasures. “These three days have been frenzied rushes and bargains for antiques (we have spent nearly two hundred pounds) from breakfast till after dinner in the evening,” he wrote to his mother in 1912, gushing about having spotted “the loveliest painted and lacquered gilt ceiling that I ever dreamed of.” Back in the Old City of Damascus, midnight settled on the Christian Quarter and a slow-moving line of black S.U.V.’s and silver Audi sedans cruised slowly down the Roman-era Straight Street, depositing the well-heeled and the high-heeled at trendy new resto-lounges tucked in the surrounding labyrinthine lanes. Famous as the place where Saul received his baptism and was christened Paul, “the street called Straight” (as it’s called in the Bible) and its environs are once again witnessing some astonishing conversions, as young, enterprising Syrians transform Old World buildings into 21st century D.J. bars, clothing shops and stylish small hotels. “You can see renovation everywhere,” said Amjad Malki, a co-owner of the jet-set Villa Moda fashion boutique, as we dined on grilled meats and excellent mezze dishes at the stylish Al-Khawali restaurant. In what was a 17th-century stone stable, Mr. Malki’s shop has swapped hay and oats for Prada handbags, Jimmy Choo shoes and Dolce & Gabbana leopard-skin bikinis, as well as dresses by Kenzo, which was host of a fashion show in Villa Moda’s upstairs salon a few months ago. People are buying, and prices have tripled,” Mr. Malki said, ticking off a list of hotspots like Leila’s restaurant and the Talisman hotel, where Ms. Pelosi and President Assad lunched during her visit. “It’s the place to be.” Inside the Marmar nightclub, a Damascus favorite of expatriates and the Syrian upper crust, evidence of the city’s elevating style quotient was all around — D.J.-remixed club beats, madly dancing bodies, low necklines, high hemlines, clinking bottles of German beer, a haze of Gauloise cigarettes, T-shirts reading “Rock Star” and “Tequila Lounge.” Even a few gay Middle Eastern men discreetly mingled in the global crowd, which showed no signs of flagging even as 4 a.m. approached. “Five years ago, night life was not really a socially acceptable thing,” said Omar Barakat, an extremely tall Syrian electrical equipment importer, battling with the loud remix of “Sweet Dreams Are Made of This” shaking the dance floor. Now, he said, “the scene is improving so much.” Surveying the blissful tumult, Firas Salem, a 20-something Syrian corporate lawyer, couldn’t suppress a grin. “We didn’t use to have people kissing in a public places,” he said. He added that he had once lived in London but was drawn back to his hometown. “Damascus is becoming a cool place,” he said as throbbing electronica and chatter in a half-dozen languages spilled into the ancient streets. “Something strange is happening.” VISITOR INFORMATION HOW TO GET THERE Because of United States sanctions against Syria, there are no direct flights from the United States to Damascus. Al Italia airlines (www.alitalia.com) offers flights to Damascus from Kennedy airport in New York with a connection in Milan for around $1,520. An alternative — and potentially cheaper — option is to fly to Europe independently and then use Syrian Air (www.syriaair.com) from any of several European capitals. Flights from London Heathrow to Damascus cost around £296 (about $592 at $2 to the pound) for departures in late June. A visa is required for Americans entering Syria. It can be obtained from the Embassy of Syria, 2215 Wyoming Avenue NW, Washington, D.C. 20008; (202) 232-6313, ext. 106; www.syrianembassy.us; the fee is $100. HOW TO GET AROUND Traveling around Syria is extremely cheap. The Kadmous Transport company (963-11-331-1901; www.alkadmous.com) provides comfortable modern intercity buses all over the country. A trip from the Damascus bus station (called Mahata al-Pullman) to Palmyra costs 120 lira (as Syrian pounds are commonly called; about $2.25 at 53 lira to the dollar) and takes two to three hours. A trip to Aleppo, four to five hours away, costs 230 lira for the extra-comfy “V.I.P.” bus. There are several buses a day to and from each destination. Buy your ticket at the bus station about 30 minutes ahead. Within Damascus and Aleppo, the abundant yellow taxis can be hailed on the street any time of day or night. A daytime journey within the city rarely costs more than 50 lira. By night, few drivers use the meter (il-adaad in Arabic). Just get in, announce your destination, and give 75 lira upon arrival. If you try to negotiate a price in advance, the driver will typically ask for much more. SAFETY AND SECURITY In the wake of a 2006 attack attempt on the American Embassy in Damascus — during which one Syrian security guard was killed before the attackers were killed or subdued — the online travel advisory of the State Department urges American citizens “to defer all nonessential travel to Syria.” (A full text of the advisory is at http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_3036.html.) More recently, in April, a Canadian traveler, Nicole Vienneau, disappeared during a stay in the city of Hama and has not been found. That said, Syria remains a tightly controlled society that is largely devoid of street and organized crime, due in part to extensively deployed police and undercover intelligence services. Militant groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood are officially banned and suppressed — sometimes very brutally — by the nation’s ostensibly secular Baathist leadership. For travelers, the risk of theft, attack or even harassment remains small. In my own travels, I never felt threatened and never once heard of any other tourists being accosted. WHAT TO SEE In Damascus, your best bet is to simply get lost in the truly ancient Old City, with its Roman arches, medieval citadel, venerable Islamic madrassas, and Ottoman mosques and palaces. Built in the early eighth century, the imposing Umayyad Mosque (Muslim Quarter, Old City) is one of the holiest sites in Islam. Its grounds contain the tombs of three remarkable historical figures: the martyr Hussein, grandson of Muhammad; John the Baptist; and the fabled Islamic warrior Saladin. Free entry. A 15-minute walk outside the Old City walls, Syria’s National Museum (Shoukri al-Quwati Street, 963-11-221-9938 ) contains relics from an amazing array of peoples and civilizations — Hittite, Canaanite, Assyrian, Babylonian, Aramaic, Roman, Byzantine — that flourished or set up camp in Syria. Entry 150 lira. Also in new Damascus is the excellent Atassi Gallery (Rawda, New City, 963-11-332-1720; www.atassigallery.com). It is run by the knowledgeable, multilingual Mouna Atassi, one of Syria’s leading authors on contemporary art, and specializes in the top Syrian artists of the 20th century. In Aleppo, the gloriously ruined medieval citadel (Old City, admission 150 lira) offers sublime views from its crenellated ramparts. The Great Mosque, just north off the main east-west thoroughfare of Souk al-Atarin, was built in the eighth century and then rebuilt, after a fire, in the 12th. A kind of little brother to the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, this one holds what is said to be the head of Zachariah, the father of John the Baptist. Free admission. In Palmyra, exploring Syria’s most famous ruined city — a Silk Road stop that was founded around the second millennium B.C. and flourished under Roman control in the first few centuries A.D. — could take a couple of hours or a couple of days, depending on how keen you are to explore every temple, tomb and theater. The ancient city comes alive twice a year, for the Palmyra Festival in May and the Silk Road Festival in the fall. WHERE TO STAY The Old City of Damascus is witnessing a boom in boutique hotels. Near Bab Touma gate, in the thick of the dining and nightlife scene, the intimate eight-room Beit al-Mamlouka (963-11-543-0445; www.almamlouka.com) is loaded with Oriental carpets, impeccably chosen traditional Syrian furniture and even frescoes and mosaics. Doubles from $135. In the more tranquil Jewish quarter, the 16-room Talisman (116 Tal El-Hijara Street, 963-11-541-5379; www.hoteltalisman.net) is a neo-Sultanic conversion with a courtyard pool, a vaulted period-rich lounge and a hammam. Doubles from $175. Along Straight Street is Al Khair Palace (Bab Sharqi, 963-11-543-1716; www.alkhairpalace.net). The 12 rooms are smallish but tastefully furnished with Syrian inlaid wooden furniture. Doubles are $90. The colonial-style Hotel Baron (al-Baron Street, 963-21-211-0880; www.the-hotel-baron.com) in Aleppo is more to be recommended for its history — Charles Lindbergh, Agatha Christie and T. E. Lawrence all stayed there — than for its somewhat worn and chipped time-warp décor. Doubles from $50. The cozy 14-room Beit Wakil (As-Sissi Street, Al Hatab Square, 963-21-211-7083; www.beitwakil.com) is in a nicely restored 16th-century mansion in the Al Jdeidah quarter; it also has one of the city’s best restaurants. Doubles are $100 and $130. WHERE TO EAT AND DRINK Unless otherwise noted, prices reflect a three-course meal for two, without wine. In Damascus, in an old stone house refitted with slick contemporary furnishings, Al Dar 111 (Christian Quarter, Old City, 963-11-542-3232; www.aldar111.com) does excellent fatoosh (finely chopped salad with tangy grenadine, molasses and pomegranate), baba ghanooj (enlivened with sesame, tomato and lemon juice) and sujok (diced lamb sausages with peppers and spices). Around 1,000 lira. Carnivores will enjoy the mixed grill of skewered meats and the Tunisian sausages stewed in zesty tomato-onion sauce on offer at Leila’s Restaurant and Terrace (Muslim Quarter, 963-11-544-5900). In a stylishly modernized old courtyard house next to the Ummayed Mosque, the restaurant also does vegetarian-friendly baba ghanooj, hummus and burek (cheese pastries). Terrace tables have killer views. About 1,000 lira. Just off the southeast corner of the Ummayad Mosque, Al Nafoorah is the ideal place to sip Turkish coffee (35 lira), smoke a narghile (100 lira) and watch Damascene life go by. When in Aleppo, Bazar al-Charq (Karmel Street, 963-21-224-9120; www.bazaralcharq.com) and its Orientalist-fantasy décor merit a visit for the sublime lahmeh bi karaz (kebab in sour cherry sauce) alone. The hummus (with ground lamb and pine nuts) and chicken with sesame sauce are also worth indulging in. About 900 lira. WHERE TO SHOP Damascus’s Old City is a giant Aladdin’s lair of Middle Eastern treasures. In the main bazaar, Souk al-Hamidiyeh, Tony Stephan (963-11-245-1075) stocks an excellent selection of silver, carved wooden furnishings, hand-woven caftans and shimmering Damascene fabrics, some of them created on site. For contemporary styles, Anat (Bab Sharqi, 963-11-542-7878; www.anat-sy.org) sells modern folkloric-chic textiles, handbags and women’s clothing handmade by rural Syrian women using traditional techniques. WHERE TO PARTY Done up in kitschy Middle Eastern gothic décor, Oxygen (963-11-544-4396), a bar-restaurant in the Christian Quarter of the Old City (a few twisting streets southwest of the Bab Touma gate), is where young Damascenes go to pre-party. The local Barada lager (100 lira) is a crisp Syrian answer to Rolling Rock. After midnight, especially on Thursdays, head a couple of blocks north to Marmar (al-Dawanneh Street, 963-11-544-6425). The 600 lira cover charge gets you three drinks, D.J.-spun dance music and a spirited Syrian and international crowd.
November 30, 2007 12 by Yotam Feldman, Amman, Jordan There are other places, too, for those seeking cross-border relations: Thakafa Street (thakafa means "culture" in Arabic) in the Shmeisani quarter is a cruising site for a higher-level crowd. Strolling on the well-lit street, amid the ubiquitous campaign posters for the parliamentary elections, are families with children, groups of students and also gay men (mostly young) who are trying to spot a new face in the city's small, stifling community. The searchers can be identified by their long pauses every few steps or by their many sidelong glances. Iman, a young literature student of Palestinian origin, whose family comes from Hebron, is here with friends to cruise Thakafa Street - "Not necessarily to look for anything, but if the opportunity arises, why not?" He is not ashamed to say that he's looking mainly for foreigners. "In a small place like Amman, people we don't know, with whom we haven't yet slept, are a refreshing innovation. You can find tourists here from different countries - Americans and Europeans - and also many from Arab states, and occasionally also Israelis." Just that morning, Iman relates, he met, via the Internet, a Saudi student who was in the city for a short visit. "It's been a long time since I met someone so uptight," he says. "He didn't stop shaking until we entered the hotel room. Anyway, I won't see him again." In the evening, Iman and his friends hang out at Books@Cafe, a coffee shop that is considered "gay-friendly" and whose owner acts as an adviser and mentor to his clients. He tells of efforts by the young people to create a sense of community. Two of them, he says, tried recently to put out a magazine for gays, but quickly found themselves in trouble with the authorities, who threatened them with legal proceedings. They shelved the idea. We meet one of them later in the evening, together with a group of his friends, in the gay bar RGB, a relatively new establishment. It's not very big - five wooden tables around which two groups of young men are milling. Sitting at one of the tables are two women, a couple, who have come from the lesbian bar that opened recently not far from RGB. Marwan, a successful young Palestinian entrepreneur, originally from Jerusalem, who is at RGB almost every evening, says he is not concerned by the implications of the ties between Jordanians and tourists. "The westernization and Jordan's economic dependence on the West are facts of life. The tourists, on the other hand, also alleviate our distress." At the same time, he regrets the fact that forging genuine relations is impossible under these conditions. "The end is more or less inevitable - the tourist will leave and we will probably never talk again. It is also unfortunate that it is impossible to find a place for meaningful encounters - all my recent encounters were in hotel rooms or in my car. Sometimes I feel a little like a prostitute." The anti-erotic element "They were an instance of the eastern boy and boy affection which the segregation of women made inevitable. Such friendships often led to manly loves of a depth and force beyond our flesh-steeped conceit. When innocent they were hot and unashamed." - T.E. Lawrence, "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" Gay Israeli travelers frequent Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey and Dubai. Holders of two passports also visit Beirut, which they say can compete with Tel Aviv as the gay capital of the Middle East, and Damascus, where the gay scene is more secretive. This is not sex tourism, all the travelers who were interviewed for this article emphasized, certainly not in the narrow sense of obtaining sex in return for money. The fear of being exposed as an Israeli heightens the thrill, some of the visitors say. "It's a state of consciousness, which allows you to overcome the usual inhibitions. The erotic yearning mobilizes additional forces," says Arnon, 35, who works for a human rights organization and makes frequent visits to Arab countries. The fantasy that lured Western travelers to the Arab world is not new. In the 19th century, writers and other creative artists, Europeans in general and Frenchmen in particular, were drawn to the Levant under the auspices of colonialism. On their return they described places where men slept with other men without being categorized as homosexuals, as in the West. "What connected me to the East was French literature of the 19th and 20th centuries," Arnon says. "Roland Barthes connected me to Morocco, and Flaubert to Tunisia. My image was of a place where almost every man could find himself in a sexual situation with another man, because you don't have the Catholic prohibition on sexual contact between males. That is further intensified for a Western man, for whom all the barriers are lifted, in part by material incentives. It is not confined to a bar or a park. The horizon of possibilities is far more dynamic, and it is not just about those who declare themselves gay. It can also be a married man - anyone, really." And were your expectations fulfilled? "Very quickly. There are always these types who approach you. For example, in Tunis - you are sitting in a cafe and someone makes eyes at you, comes over and asks, 'What are you looking for?' 'Where are you from? Are you married?' 'Would you like to go someplace?' You don't necessarily go straight to the hotel. Usually they want to go out, want you to take them drinking, to a discotheque." And it's at this stage that the economic dependence is created? "In the background, there is always the question of what they will get out of it in material terms. It's not that you are going to send them a hundred dollars a month for the rest of their lives, but relations of dependence form. Some of them told me that their dream is to leave Tunis and live in the West. They asked if I could write a letter to my consul general that will make it possible for them to get a visa. They asked that after 25 minutes of conversation." What was your reply? "I think I left it open. I said it's an interesting idea, maybe I will try." Does this put a damper on the experience? "It is the anti-erotic element that bothers me. In Tunisia, for example, someone I met invited me to his cousin's home. I went with him, even though I did not necessarily want sexual contact. I understood that the sexual thing was the payment I would make in order to see his house. "We got a cab and drove out to a kind of suburb. It was a large house, what's known in Israel as an Arab villa, made of concrete, on which construction was completed but hadn't yet been quite whitewashed or furnished, or maybe would never be whitewashed because the money has run out. The uncle was sitting in the courtyard, holding prayer beads and smoking. We said hello, and the man introduced me in Arabic and spoke with him." Was the uncle surprised to see a Western tourist in his courtyard? "Not in the least. Maybe he was thinking that this was exactly what he did with the French who were there 50 years ago. He was completely at ease. Inside we met the cousin - 'ahalan wasahalan' - and then okay, let's go to my room. We entered a room, which may or may not have been his, where there were two wooden beds and a poster of a Hollywood star on the wall. The small talk continued, the same conversation that is repeated on every trip. At a certain point he decides to turn off the light and starts to lean over me. After our pants are lowered the cousin opens the door and turns on the light. I thought there was going to be trouble, maybe he would be appalled, or maybe he would want to join, I don't know, but he only asked him something, took a pack of cigarettes from him, and left." Does the political dimension make such encounters highly charged? "From my point of view, that dimension is critical, because if you leave only the sexual core, nothing would exist. It all comes from anthropological curiosity, political power relations, attraction to him as the representation of something, through my Israeliness and Jewishness. It is absolutely a type of conquest or operation in enemy territory and a speedy withdrawal. I came, I experienced a few things, I pulled out. The moment I have collected intelligence, withdrawal back to the hotel as quickly as possible." Every trip is political "The association between the Orient and sex is remarkably persistent. The Middle East is resistant, as any virgin would be, but the male scholar wins the prize by bursting open, penetrating the Gordian knot ... 'Harmony' is the result of the conquest of maidenly coyness." - Edward Said, "Orientalism" Lior Kay, 32, one of the founders of the gay forum called Red-Pink in the Hadash Arab-Jewish party, has paid many visits to Arab states, including Iraq. He finds a direct link between his experiences as a gay man in Tel Aviv and his adventures abroad. "There is something very international about being gay," he says. "Gays have a tool that allows them to enter deep into communities that are rooted in the local culture. When you come to someone for a one-night stand, you learn about all kinds of things. You can see the house, meet the friends, have breakfast with them. There is this very deep desire to get to know, even if it is only for one night - things that don't necessarily happen to tourists. "I, for example, like parks more than pubs, because there is an experience of disclosure there. You meet people who are outside the mainstream. In parks there are people who have no vested interests. We forget that there are people who do not have vested interests. That's what I do in Jordan, for example, just talk with people who are wandering around the amphitheater." Kay entered Iraq in February 2004 on a U.S. passport, eight months after the start of the occupation. "On Friday I took a bus from Tel Aviv to Beit She'an. I hitchhiked to the border and then took a taxi to Amman, where I got a taxi to Baghdad. It was a 12-hour trip. We made a night stop in the desert and waited for the dawn, because it was dangerous to enter the Sunni triangle in the dark." There were hardly any tourists in Iraq at the time, he says. He walked around the city and talked to people, but was afraid to look for men. Are these visits also related to your political attitudes? "For me, all the trips are political and also social, in the sense that I see up close how people live. In many places I saw the anger at the West's pillage of resources, and of course at the Israeli occupation. What is the negative side of being political in this context? "There is a feeling of a stereotype that is at work on both sides. The fantasy of the West that likes what's available and hot, and the people who live there, who hope to latch on to the tourists to get out of the disgusting cycle of poverty. Sex in these countries has a very clear economic element: a relationship of exploiter and exploited. Sometimes there is a feeling that you can go with almost anyone you meet, that they want you not because of your personality but because of these relations." Where is that reflected? "Everywhere, and first of all in bed. Even the active and passive thing - very often they will not agree to be passive with a Jew. There is definitely a matter of honor." Do experiences in these countries challenge some of the images of homosexuality? "Yes. We know the Western definition of the gay person - someone like Oscar Wilde - but in the Arab countries it is formulated in different codes of their culture. There is also liberation from the usual image of the body - less of the Western worship of youth. Many of the normative rules of the West do not apply there. Here we have the gyms, the hair removal; there it is a little less orderly, there are more possibilities." Legislation is now being formulated that will strip Israelis of their citizenship if they visit Arab countries with which Israel does not have an agreement. Is it possible that you will no longer be able to travel there? From Egyptian writer Constantin Cafavy "In the Tavernas": "I am a law-abiding citizen, but I don't know how far my instinct for adventure will be repressed by that. Especially when it's a flagrantly undemocratic law which is aimed, I think, less at people like me than at Knesset members whose activity might create a chance for peace." Assad watches the men: "I wallow in the tavernas and brothels of Beirut. I live a vile life, devoted to cheap debauchery. The one thing that saves me, like durable beauty, like perfume that goes on clinging to my flesh, is this: Tamides, most exquisite of young men, was mine for two years, and mine not for a house or a villa on the Nile." (translated by Edmund Keeley/Philip Sherrard) Russell, an American who immigrated to Israel in 1982, first visited Syria in 1993, entering the country on an American passport. His first encounter with the gay community of Damascus was a chance one. "I went into a pizzeria in Damascus. There was only one empty seat. The young Syrian who was sitting next to me asked where I was from, and we got into a conversation. It turned out that he was in charge of renovating the Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Damascus. "Even though the norms are very different in Syria - for example, it is routine for men to walk hand in hand in the street, and usually it doesn't mean a thing - he somehow tuned me in and quickly started to pour out his heart. I asked him what was happening and where it was happening. He said it was done with a very low profile, a very traditional approach. The fear is less of the authorities, who monitor everything that goes on in the country, including gays, than of family and friends. He told me that people got together in homes, that there was a kind of group of gays who met every so often, and that there was sometimes sex with married men, too, but that there was no true gay life." And besides the homes, are there other meeting places? "In contrast to other Arab states, nothing happens in the hamams [public baths], but there are parks." Russell's host took him to a park. "He told me it was the cruising park of Damascus and that everyone went there, of all ages, for money and not for money. In the middle of the park there is a huge statue of Assad, who seems to be watching all the men. We walked around a little, said hello to a few people, and left." What was the atmosphere like? "Dark and not very pleasant, not friendly. I didn't feel that I could have hooked up with someone if I had found anyone. I also drew a lot of attention - suddenly there was this new face, white with blue eyes. A tourist in Independence Park [in Jerusalem] might be an attraction, but not a big deal." Did you get an unpleasant economic feeling from your encounters with men in Arab countries? "Not necessarily. I've been to Jordan 200 times. If you go to Book@Cafe and want to meet someone, you can put out feelers immediately. If it is someone who speaks English and is well dressed, you know he is not after your money. People who are after money will go to the theater area, where the refugees hang out and where there are more needy people. Of course, it differs from one country to another - Dubai is one big brothel, filled with foreign workers, most of the population is not Arabic, and you don't walk three meters without someone stopping you, whether it's in a mall or in Starbucks, it makes no difference." No consideration for Edward Said From: Gustave Flaubert, "Flaubert in Egypt": "Here it's quite well accepted. One admits one's sodomy and talks about it at the dinner table. Sometimes one denies it a bit, then everyone yells at you and it ends up getting admitted. Traveling for our learning experience and charged with a mission by the government, we see it as our duty to give in to this mode of ejaculation." (translated by Francis Yair Kedar, who was the editor of the travel magazine Masa Aher from 2003 to 2005, first visited Egypt in 1991, when he was 22. "I went with a gay French friend and an Italian-speaking Korean clergyman who joined us through a travel agency," he says. Kedar started to look for the gay scene where he had been told it was happening: hotel lobbies. "You are in a very large hotel lobby, in the Hilton, say, and you sit down on a sofa and scan the place. Someone sits down next to you and you start to talk about the weather - 'It's really hot today.' 'Where are you from?' 'What do you do?' 'Have you been to the pyramids?' And then he asks you if you would like to have a cup of coffee, and adds, 'Just the two of us.' And from there things develop. "There is also the boardwalk along the Nile, which is a good catching place, these liminal places along the water, where culture ends. You wander around in the evening, there are groups of two-three guys and they start to talk to you, and suggest that they go with you and visit the room." Do you feel guilty because gay tourism is also sex tourism, in the negative sense? "That is a moral dilemma, because the visits also derive from good reasons. Is there a conflict between what they are selling and the regimes in these countries, and the economic dimension that permeates the sexual relations? There is a big contradiction. Is there something distinctive about the gay experience in places like this? "There is a similarity between gay cruising and tourism: you are sold something that looks terrific from the outside by hiding the moral problem it entails - in that something is promised that cannot be fulfilled. In both cases there is a large dimension of guilt. On the other hand, I always thought that homosexuality is a great treasure that enables you to meet people and embark on new voyages with them. It's intriguing, and you acquire experiences, until at a certain age you discover that you are becoming less patient and less inquisitive." Benny Ziffer, the editor of the weekly Culture and Literature supplement of Haaretz (Hebrew edition), has written a great deal, in books and articles, about his erotic experiences in Arab countries. He says he chooses to ignore the feeling of guilt that accrues to the economic relations. "You walk in Alexandria and people offer themselves to you in return for shawarma. If I were political and Marxist, I would not do anything. If someone offers you something like that, you have to cry out to the high heavens. I am doing something bad: I am fulfilling a desire at the expense of these unfortunates. These relations of power are ancient, you know, it was the pattern in the colonial period. People who were nothing in France became great lords in these countries, because they could control the people." How do you justify it to yourself? "Maybe in my writing I purify myself, maybe by saying it now. I always travel in order to write, and I have always written; I can't bring myself to travel just like that - and I am not original in this, I did not invent it. I go to Egypt with the official goal of writing about bookstores, but the real inner goal is for something to happen from the erotic point of view, otherwise I will be very disappointed." Don't political relations interfere, in a period when there is critical talk about the East that was created by the writers you read? "I immerse myself in the erotic and literary East alike, without taking account of orientalism and without taking account of Edward Said. I have my life and my experiences and my things 16 March 2008 13 by Kurt Bayer Yakob fled his homeland two years ago after managing to survive a harrowing ordeal at the hands of Syrian police and prison guards, when he was arrested for distributing anti-government leaflets. Following his transfer from police interrogation, prison guards soon discovered that Yakob, a member of the repressed Kurdish minority in the Arab state, was homosexual. He then suffered horrific beatings and was assaulted so badly that he fell into a coma. After being transferred to hospital, he managed to flee to Lebanon making for London, holed up in a lorry. He applied for asylum and was granted extended leave by the Home Office, but was then arrested in Aberdeen last April after being found in possession of a fake Belgian passport. He was handed a 12-month sentence and sent to Polmont Young Offenders Unit in Falkirk. His lawyers say his asylum application was then mistakenly withdrawn and, as a result, he has been served with a deportation order, pending a final hearing this May. If unsuccessful, he will be sent back to Syria. He has been kept at Polmont as a remand prisoner until that date. His case mirrors that of gay Iranian teenager Mehdi Kazemi, 19, who was this week allowed to stay in Britain after claims that he would be executed if returned to his homeland. Now, while detained at Polmont, Yakob has appealed against a Home Office deportation order and has instructed top Scottish QC, Mungo Bovey, to fight his case. Yakob is terrified of being returned to Syria, where homosexuality is illegal, and believes that if he returns, he faces certain death. Speaking from Polmont last night, Yakob explained why he fears a return to his homeland. "I wish to seek asylum in the UK for a number of reasons," he said. "My father is a politician with the Yakiti Party – pro-Kurdish and anti-government. I was arrested when I was 15 years of age for possession of anti-government material. These were basic leaflets for my father's political party. My father was imprisoned before I left Syria for 13 years for anti-government activity." Of his arrest, he added: "I was then tortured. I was beaten. At one point I was put up against a wall and a handgun pointed at me. I was told that if I did not tell the authorities what they wanted to know they would shoot me dead. I did not tell them anything, I did not think they would shoot me. The police officer then shot me in my upper left arm. At that point, I told them what they wanted to know as I believed that they would shoot me dead." Yakob says he was held in police cells for 20 days without charge and subjected to daily electric shock torture and beatings before being transferred to Ahdas Prison, by the Turkish border. In prison, he formed a relationship with a gay prisoner named Hassain. Yakob explained: "Hassain was serving a sentence, he told me, for 25 years. He told me that the sentence was only because he was gay. "The Syrian government claim that they do not imprison people any longer for being gay and that in any event the maximum sentence is three years. This is not true. The Syrian authorities will always find other charges to bring against a person." After the pair were seen sleeping together in jail, Yakob said he was subjected to systematic beatings, which "went on for days into weeks". He added: "This was all because I was gay. No questions were asked of me about my father's political party or any other political activity. All the questions related to me being gay. I was also subjected to cold-water torture, where I was put in a room and buckets of cold water were constantly thrown over me. I could not remember what day it was or how long I had been in prison. One day I woke up in hospital in a nearby town of Kamishli. The doctor who was treating me told me that I had been in a coma for 20 days. He said to the authorities that I could not return to prison as I was not fit and I could not stand trial until I had had a rest. He suggested that I be sent home for recuperation. " Yakob then decided to flee to the UK. "I went home and after two weeks or so I was feeling better. By that time I had decided that the only option I had was to leave Syria. I left Syria and in 20 days or so arrived in the UK by lorry at Dover. I wish to claim asylum and I wish to stay here in Scotland." News of Yakob's case last night sparked outrage among Scotland's gay rights and equality groups. Stonewall director Calum Irving said: "We have serious concerns about the UK's immigration policy, especially since it appears that people are being sent back to countries where their safety is not guaranteed and where they could be persecuted just for being gay." A spokeswoman for Edinburgh-based Equality Network added: "I feel that we shouldn't be sending people back to countries where they will be persecuted, even if they entered the country illegally." But a spokesman for the Syrian Embassy in London denied last night that torture of gay people took place. He said: "Homosexuality is illegal in Syria, but there are no special units to deal with this problem. People are not prosecuted – society looks at this as a disease for which they can be treated – it is a similar position to that taken by the Vatican. I cannot give a clearer answer." Yakob will appear before a full immigration hearing in Glasgow on May 7 to determine his fate. Yakob claims that he wants to start a new life in Scotland. He said: "If I was to return to Syria, I would either be returned to jail for my political activities, for having left the country and being gay, or alternatively I would be put into the army for the three-year period. It is likely that they would put me into the army on the basis that the army would kill me one way or the other." |
