THE MEDIA LINE: In a smoky Internet café tucked away on a Damascus side street, young Syrians sit in front of computer screens browsing websites and listening to the obligatory blend of Lebanese superstar Fairouz and Western pop music.
Huddled around some screens are groups of two or three men, gossiping over racy photos on Facebook, which have been accessed through a proxy that circumvents the national ban of the social networking website.
A few women wearing the hijab type quietly on MSN chat, giggling as they flirt online with the men society prevents them from socializing with in person.
This is a familiar scene throughout the Middle East.
Hidden from the casual eye, however, a different type of browsing is happening. In the back corner, a young man logs on to a gay social website searching for excitement of his own.
In a country known for its all-pervasive secret police, one would expect the gay community to be particularly fearful of persecution by the authorities. Technically, under Syrian law, sodomy is illegal and punishable by up to three years of incarceration. However, the law is rarely enforced.
In general, homosexual men do not describe feeling targeted or watched by the government any more than does the rest of the population.
Fadi,* a gay 22-year-old student at Damascus University, suggests that sexuality is rarely a cause for arrest in and of itself.
But gay men do worry that the information could be used against them if they were to commit a separate crime.
“What we are mostly afraid of is adding information to our file that could be used against us, or put us on special watch with the authorities,” he says.
Overall, however, Syria could be considered one of the region’s most gay-tolerant countries. Some websites targeting gay male travelers go so far as to describe Syria as a “gay paradise” – a blatant exaggeration, though perhaps not in comparison to the situation of gays in many neighboring Arab countries. >>> Marie Kelly | Thursday, May 14, 2009
* The names of all persons interviewed in this story have been changed for their security and privacy.
