huridocs-tech ALERT: Gay Web Site Leads to Harassment in Lebanon

Crossposted from Human Rights News.

-------
From: Rick Halperin <rhalperi@post.cis.smu.edu>
Subject: IGLHRC Alert: Lebanon: Gay Web Site Leads to Harassment (fwd)
To: Human Rights News <human-rights-news@oil.ca>

**** Human Rights News: An Independent Forum for News Related to Human
Rights ***




ACTION ALERT: Lebanon: Gay Web Site Leads to Harassment,
Intimidation, and Threats of Arrest

SUMMARY

Lebanese police have twice entered the premises of a major Beirut
Internet service provider, detaining and harassing its personnel and
summoning its general manager for interrogation-all in an attempt to
extract the identities of persons who run a gay Lebanese Web site.
These persons are apparently targeted for prosecution.  IGLHRC and
MIRSAD--Multi-Initiative on Rights: Search, Assist, and Defend, an
established Lebanese human rights organization --call for letters to
protest these blatant threats to the freedoms of expression and
association in Lebanon.


BACKGROUND

On Monday, April 3, 2000, in Beirut, Lebanon, two plainclothes police
officers from the vice squad ("police des moeurs") entered the
offices of Destination, a major Lebanese Internet service provider.
The officers had no search warrant .  However, they identified
themselves as acting under instructions from the Beirut prosecutor,
Mr. Joseph Maamari, to collect information on the persons or persons
who financed or installed a website at a specific Internet IP
address.  The web page at this address had content related to the
Lebanese gay community, with chat spaces as well as information on
the need for legal reform. Police identified the content of the site
as subjecting the owners to prosecution.  It was not clear under what
law they would be prosecuted.

Police ordered the employees of Destination not to make any outgoing
phone calls during their visit. After interrogating Destination's
technical personnel, they confiscated the personal identity card of a
senior staff member, Mr. Ziad Mugraby--Destination's general
manager-- and ordered him to appear at at the Hobaich police station,
near the American University of Beirut, the following day for further
interrogation.

Following the departure of the officers, Destination staff alerted a
lawyer for the ISP.  The attorney contacted the head of the vice
squad, a police colonel. The colonel's response to the attorney
indicated that he believed that Destination was "broadcasting"
immoral films. The lawyer attempted to explain to the colonel basic
principles of the Internet, including the difference between the web
and a broadcasting service.

The next day, Mr. Mugraby, accompanied by one of Destination's
lawyers, went to the Hobaich police station. One of the officers who
had entered Destination's offices, a captain, interrogated Mr.
Mugraby further. Part of the interrogation was conducted in a
threatening and offensive manner, and without permitting the lawyer
to attend.  It emerged during the interrogation that the particular
web site pursued by the police belonged to a group based outside
Lebanon and was hosted in the United States. Destination had nothing
to do with the site that offended the police.

On the morning of Monday, April 17, 2000, Mr. Mugraby was summoned
for the second time to the Hobeish police station. The vice squad
officers brought a consultant from the police headquarters, Major
Jacques Bakayev, as a technology information expert to interrogate
Mr. Mugraby. Police threatened that, unless they received information
about the names and whereabouts of the owners of the IP address,
Destination would be shut down by order of the Beirut prosecutor.
Prosecutors, the human rights organization MIRSAD states, have no
such power under Lebanese law.

The police finally released Mr. Mugraby.  He and Destination were
given a deadline to reconsider and provide the information required.

The Lebanese penal code criminalizes "unnatural" sexual acts, and the
Lebanese justice system is, according to MIRSAD, "generally
unsympathetic to gays." However, homosexuality is not a crime per se
in Lebanon.  To the contrary: the free expression of opinion, whether
on behalf of the gay community or of any other group--as well as the
freedom of any group to associate--is protected both by the Lebanese
constitution and by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

IGLHRC and MIRSAD deplore the actions of police in harassing
Destination, and entering its offices and detaining personnel without
a proper warrant.  Both IGLHRC and MIRSAD deplore as well the
manifest intent of this harassment.  The police actions were part of
a long-standing pattern of hostility not only to gay and lesbian
communities, but to freedoms of expression and association in
general.  In invading the offices of Destination, Beirut police and
prosecutors declared their readiness to interfere, by legal and
extralegal means, with access to and expression over the Internet.

Indeed, MIRSAD expresses particular concern that this action may mark
the beginning of a general campaign to institute censorship in
Lebanon, camouflaged behind an attack against a relatively weak and
marginalized group.  According to MIRSAD, rumors have been
circulating in Beirut about a new Internet "backbone," or network
hub, allegedly to be established in the near future, and to be based
in Damascus, Syria.  All Lebanese Internet connections and traffic
would thus be routed through Syria--which already exerts a powerful
military and political influence on Lebanese affairs.

Recently, the Syrian telecommunications authority announced its
intent to install a sophisticated Internet monitoring system, and
actually issued a public tender for its installation. According to
the conditions of the tender, the system will monitor content of all
Internet traffic, including e-mail traffic, and will identify the
users, supplying their names, addresses, and whereabouts to police
and/or intelligence units.  (Human Rights Watch reports that a
representative of the state-directed Syrian Computer Society
explained in 1999 that any Internet use in Syria--and presumably also
in Syrian-controlled territory--must "not disrupt the social
structure or adversely affect the middle class," and "should not
jeopardize Syrian independence or security concerns.")  MIRSAD fears
that a general crackdown on Internet expression is impending in
Lebanon.  Protest letters are urgently required to dissuade Lebanese
authorities from infringing the basic right to freedom of speech, and
from enforcing discrimination against a stigmatized minority.


ACTION

Please send letters and/or faxes to the following officials of the
Republic of Lebanon:


- Emile Lahoud, President of the Republic, +961-5-451217,
opendoor@presidency.gov.lb
- Salim el Hoss, Prime Minister, +961-1-354.929, marasem@pcm.gov.lb
- Joseph Chaoul, Minister of Justice, +961-1-425670,
minister@justice.gov.lb, justice2@justice.gov.lb
- Ghazi Zeaiter, Defense Minister, +961-1-424161 & +961-5-951014,
cmdarm@lebarmy.gov.lb
- Anwar Khalil, Information Minister, +961-1-342223
- Riad Tabbarah, Ambassador to the United Nations, +1-202-939-6324,
- The Lebanese Embassy or Consulate near you.

Please send copies of your letters to MIRSAD, at P.O. Box 11-6856,
Beirut, LEBANON.


Suggested text:

Dear Mr. (Name)

On April 3, 2000, Lebanese police in Beirut attempted to intimidate a
leading Lebanese Internet service provider, Destination, by
unlawfully entering its Beirut offices. Police further attempted to
extract information about the identities of members of a gay activist
group that runs a web site-apparently with the intent of prosecuting
those members.

These actions constitute a gross violation of human rights protected
by the Lebanese constitution, as well as by international human
rights covenants and standards.  Homosexuality per se is not
criminalized under Lebanese law and should not fall under the
attention of the police des moeurs who investigate ordinary vice
crimes.  Moreover, it should not be within the purview of those
police, or of any other public authority, to curtail the freedoms of
expression and association exercised by adult persons via and on the
internet.  We strongly condemn and protest these violations.  We call
on the Lebanese government to ensure that such rights are fully
respected and protected, and that the police officers, together with
any of their superiors involved, are duly disciplined.  All police
and public officials should be instructed not to engage in or to
allow such violations again.

Sincerely,



@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ ABOUT IGLHRC @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC), founded
in 1991, is a San Francisco-based non-governmental human rights
organization.  IGLHRC's primary work is to monitor, document and mobilize
responses to human right abuses against lesbians, gay men, bisexuals,
transgendered people, people with HIV and AIDS, and those oppressed due to
their sexual identities or sexual conduct with consenting adults.

IGLHRC
1360 Mission Street, Suite 200
San Francisco, CA  94103
USA
Telephone: +1-415-255-8680
Fax: +1-415-255-8662
Email: iglhrc@iglhrc.org




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