The Egyptian public prosecutor’s office said in a statement that the video was “humiliating, regrettable and would anger God” and concluded that the men in the video had committed a crime and would be treated as criminals. “This means the state is trying to appear socially and morally conservative to avoid accusations and comparisons to political Islamic groups’ conservative agendas.”

“Gay and trans people never enjoyed state protection, but raids and arrests dramatically increased over the last year,” he tells Xtra via Facebook messenger. “Egypt is witnessing a regression in the freedoms and rights that the January 25 Revolution called for,” says AA, a gay activist who lives in Cairo and asked to remain anonymous for security reasons. The “New Boat” incident is seen by many as a way to inoculate President Abdul Fatah al-Sisi from the accusations of his opponents that he is too secular to govern the mostly Muslim Egypt. The Cairo 52 incident was used to distract citizens from then-president Hosni Mubarak’s decision to appoint his son as head of the ruling political party, establishing him as a future candidate for the presidency. Visible and highly popularized arrests of gay men have often been used by the Egyptian regime to distract the general public. Gay men have served as an easy target for political leaders of Egypt over the years, before and after the Arab Spring.

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