Pride Month in Arab states brings warnings and rainbow hunts

June, global Pride Month, has seen several Arab nations launch campaigns specifically seeking to find and quash any support for the LGBTQ community. Lebanon was the latest nation to join the crackdown, with Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi issuing a letter a week ago to Lebanese security forces ordering them to break up any events that "promote" homosexuality.

The letter, labelled "very urgent," said that "after the spread of calls on social media to organize parties and events promoting homosexuality in Lebanon… and considering the negative consequences brought by this phenomenon on individuals and society" police and security forces should "take the necessary measures to ban any celebrations, meetings or gatherings aiming to promote this phenomenon and to report the results back."

Helem (Arabic for Dream), an NGO that works in support of LGBTQ people across North Africa and Southwest Asia, said in a statement that it was "perplexing why, in a country whose citizens have no electricity, no medication, no access to clean water, and no social security, and 30% unemployment the minister thought to prioritize LGBTQ events as the biggest threat to national security."

"The deliberate act of inciting moral sexual panic and targeting LGBTQ individuals is a very old, superficial, and commonly used tactic by failed regimes to draw attention away from economic and political disasters," the organization said.

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