- Dec 20, 2005
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I found the recent AP story and the Cairo Magazine story on Heavy Metal in Egypt very interesting, so I figured I would share what I found while digging around.
Here is a press release or thumbnail scene guide released to piggyback on the AP story.
“Cairo's Heavy Metal Scene Thrives, Thrashes, Poses.” Gridskipper/Newstex August 17, 2006.
According to a widely-picked up AP report, heavy metal in Cairo is staging a comeback after a 1997 government roundup of metal heads by the authorities. The government accused them of satanism, which to you and me may be no biggie but in Egypt, can be punishable by death. After a ten year lull, heavy metal's back. Though there are a couple venues that put on heavy metal shows in Cairo, most shows take place in rented houses on the outskirts of Cairo. Buses are usually available from the city center. Check out these resources to get plugged into the Egyptian metal scene.
Websites
Egyptmetal.net
Voluble discussion threads, a great list of shows, downloads and reviews
Metal Travel Guide
Worldwide guide to the metal scene, small Cairo section but growing.
Egypt Rock Station
Organization that puts on many metal shows throughout Cairo
Venues
El Sawy Culture Wheel
A small club that usually has traditional shows but also hosts may of Cairo's rock n' roll/metal shows.
After 8
A centrally located popular dance club, permapacked late into the night. After 8 has jazz, salsa, and, suprisingly often, heavy metal nights.
Cairo Jazz Club
A Jazz venue that has also hosts egyptian folk and rock n' roll shows like the ever-popular Screwdriver.
Bands (For a full list visit Egyptmetal.net's band list)
Brain Candy
Dark Philosophy
Hate Suffocation
Hell Chasm
Vyrus
Here are some articles from the late ‘90s providing information about the repression of heavy metal and putting a human face on the events. Sorry, I had to cut and paste, but these are well worth reading, so I figured I would post them.
Nicholas Goldberg “Satanic Cult Provokes Egyptian Soul Searching.” The Guardian February 6, 1997.
In the dead of night, Egyptian security forces burst into the homes of dozens of affluent Cairo families last week and arrested more than 75 teenagers on charges of devil worship. In the days that followed, as their "confessions" leaked out to local newspapers, it was alleged that they admitted praising and glorifying Satan, wearing black cloaks and listening to heavy -metal music.nSome newspaper accounts had them confessing to holding drug-induced orgies, sacrificing animals and planning to burn down local mosques - activities sure to horrify the conservative Islamic country.
"If they renounce their beliefs, they may be pardoned," the grand mufti, Nasser Farid Wassel, said last week, calling the alleged Satanists apostates. "But if they persist in their sin, we should carry out the penalty prescribed by Islamic law." The penalty for apostasy is death. The penalty for "undermining" or "deriding" religion is three years in jail.
More than 30 of those arrested were released for lack of evidence, but the rest remain behind bars. The episode has provoked a bout of introspection. Many Egyptians have bemoaned the spread of foreign influences, said to have "corrupted" Egyptian youth. Last week, for instance, parliament passed a motion condemning "deviation from the traditions of Egyptian society".
First to be blamed for the appearance of the alleged cult was heavy-metal music. CDs by Metallica, Black Sabbath and Megadeth were reportedly found at the homes of the accused. The Internet also came under attack, for giving Egyptian children easy access to Western ideas. Some analysts went so far as to blame fast-food establishments, apparently because the "devil worshipers" met at McDonald's. Others blamed the breakdown of the Egyptian family structure, the weakening of Islam in society, and the failure of affluent parents to raise their children properly.
Finally, there were those who blamed Israel. The head of al-Azhar, the highest authority of Sunni Muslims, called the Satanic cult part of "a Zionist plot" So far, President Hosni Mubarak has remained silent, seemingly the only public figure in Egypt who has refrained from commenting on the issue of devil worship.
Douglas Jehl. “Cairo Journal; It's Heavy Going for Sex, Satan and Heavy Metal” New York Times February 11, 1997.
The official accusations have shocked Egypt's conservative society, with tales of clandestine parties in which young people took [stuff you smoke, drink or snort] engaged in group sex and then unearthed corpses from Cairo cemeteries.The Egyptian press has been even more lurid, saying the young fans of heavy-metal music were performing satanic rituals, even urinating on the Koran and the Bible and slaughtering cats, rats and other small animals to drink their blood. Dozens of suspects have been arrested by Egypt's powerful state security police, and there have been reports that some may soon be charged under a statute that prohibits "contempt of heavenly religions."
"The first thing they wanted to know was whether I was chasing cats and drinking their blood," said a 21-year-old woman whose dark makeup and clothing are the uniform of a youthful rebellion in Egypt now under attack by the Government.The young woman, the lead singer in an Egyptian rock band, said that the police in commando uniforms who burst into her bedroom at 3 A.M. on Jan. 22 had also questioned her about her religious beliefs and that she had answered "by quoting the Koran." She and others who have since been released but still insisted on anonymity suggested that the accusations against them and others were the products of nothing more than popular imagination and official spite.
The arrests were the first official crackdown on rock music in Egypt, whose main preoccupation in recent years has been the activities of Islamic militants, not what the Government calls a secular extreme.And because most of the suspects come from well-to-do families, the new vigil outside a Cairo prosecutor's office where they have been interrogated represents a jarring contrast from the usual crowd: women dressed from head to toe in black as they wait for husbands and sons accused of links to the religious militants. Of the more than 80 young rock fans who were arrested last month, some 20 remain behind bars. And after weeks in which rumors of wild conduct by the young and rich leaped into the popular press, the official crackdown has been widely applauded by Egyptians who in taxis and coffee shops now refer disparagingly to the "deviant youths."
But the crackdown has been criticized by some intellectuals and human rights advocates as reflecting an unfortunate Egyptian predisposition to use security forces to address social problems. "The police can only arrest those who break the law," the prominent writer Fahmy Howeidi wrote in the Government-run newspaper Al Ahram. "But they would be assuming a bigger role than they can fill if they think they can reform misdeeds."
Like most things Western, heavy-metal music came late to Cairo, and it enjoys only a limited following. But over the last year its screeching guitars and often violent lyrics had emerged, for some, as a vehicle for the kind of unrestrained expression on which Islamic culture frowns heavily. Those who have attended them say recent heavy-metal gatherings have at the least been notable for the consumption of alcohol and for public displays of affection, both generally taboo. In mimicry of Western bands and their followers, some fans have also gone so far as to adorn their clothing with symbols meant to have Satanic significance.
Whether what occurred beyond the public gaze went further to include the kind of blood-and-sex rituals that the popular Egyptian magazine Rosa al-Yousef has described may never be known. But the reports that began late last year set off such an outcry that Interior Minister Hassan al-Alfi, the architect of Egypt's six-year crackdown on Islamic militants, swiftly pledged in reference to the heavy-metal fans "to identify these groups and uproot them all."
Among those who complained most loudly about the reported evil deeds was the Grand Mufti of Egypt, Nasr Farid Wassail, who as the highest authority in Sunni Islam wields considerable power even in what remains a secular state. The Mufti, who has portrayed the offenders as apostates before God, was reported to have met personally with Mr. Alfi last December to demand that they be made to repent.
The "contempt of heavenly religions" statute under which the authorities say that those arrested may be charged was incorporated into Egyptian law to try to limit sectarian strife between Muslims and the country's Coptic Christian minority, legal experts here say. The law carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison, and was invoked in the early 1980's as the grounds for the arrest of militant Muslim preachers who had preached against Copts, who make up about 10 percent of the population.
Among the offenses punishable under the statute are the unearthing of corpses, the desecration of holy books and the ridiculing of religious rituals or figures, including the Christian, Islamic and Jewish prophets. In practice, the legal experts say, the law has been more often waved as a club than wielded as a legal weapon, and some think that the authorities' main purpose now is to deliver a powerful scare. Among youthful sectors of Egyptian society most tempted by the extremes of Western tastes, the episode already appears to have prompted some behavior modification.
"Almost everyone I know has cut his hair short" to avoid being mistaken for a heavy-metal fan, said Akram Mustafa, a student at the American University in Cairo, an expensive private institution. "And girlswon't wear their black lipstick or even their black leather jackets." But after nearly three weeks in which those still in custody have neither been charged nor released and face the specter of being charged with what amounts to an offense before God, people sympathetic to them have voiced mostly bitterness. "We all danced and sang when we were young, and we never got arrested for it," said a mother who recently waited in vain with her sister, her lawyer and the family driver for news of her son, who is still in custody. "What's wrong with that?"
Azza Khattab. “The Devil They Know.” Egypt Today May 1, 1997.
Although the media and police were quick to level accusations of Satanism at heavy metal music fans, Egypt's youth is now left on its own to come to terms with its wrongful arrests and humiliation. Suzanne*, 22, is no longer the cheerful, outgoing girl she used to be. Everywhere she goes, she feels people staring at her and whispering about her. When she drives her car, she keeps an eye on the rear-view mirror, fearing that a fundamentalist or a security officer might be chasing her. She avoids going out with her friends so that they won't become police suspects. Her parents have imposed strict rules and she willingly submits, too ashamed to argue with them after all the trouble she says she has caused. Police should be more careful, instead of ruining the reputations of innocent people, she says.
In late January, Suzanne was arrested and accused of devil worshipping. She is one of the estimated 80 young adults, aged between 16 and 25, who police rounded up throughout Cairo in the early morning hours of January 22. The young people were accused of possessing beliefs contemptuous of religion (a charge that carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison) and of practicing Satanism (a crime of apostasy under Islamic law that is punishable by death). At the time, newspapers carried reports of lurid rituals where participants were supposedly engaging in wild orgies, taking *****, drinking blood, exhuming bodies from local cemeteries and sacrificing animals. Unable to produce any evidence of this, police have since released all those who were arrested, but the damage had already been done. Meanwhile, around 20 suspects are still being investigated and prosecution will decide later on whether a trial is necessary.
Whether the case goes to trial or not, the trauma of the incident is still being felt acutely by those who were arrested, their families and their friends. Many of the so-called Satanists believe they were villified by irresponsible press coverage and humiliated in front of their families and peers by police who had no evidence of criminal activity. Even those who were not arrested say they are still afraid to listen to heavy metal music, attend concerts or wear black clothes, fearing that they will be the next ones to be arrested. Some see the whole fiasco as just one more blow to the future of modern music and creative self-expression in Egypt.
Months later, Suzanne still recalls her experience vividly: "This nightmare will be over in a couple of minutes," she keeps telling herself on the way to Almaza Police Station in Heliopolis. Just minutes earlier, shortly after 6:30am, the Cairo University student was enjoying a peaceful sleep when loud banging on her door made her jump from her bed. Her panic- stricken parents stood back as police officers, after presenting a warrant to arrest their daughter, searched Suzanne's room. Finding nothing that interested them, they arrested her anyway. There must be a serious mistake, she assures herself as they approach the station.
As the officers escort her into the station, her eyes flash with anger and her heart pounds with nervousness. The moment she steps inside, what little confidence she has is shaken and her mounting anger turns to fear. She sees dozens of young men and five young women who have also been awakened and arrested. The men are blindfolded and face the wall with their hands in the air; the women cry hysterically. As the minutes pass, Suzanne's face grows pale and her hope of being released drains away. During the interrogation, Suzanne finally understands why the police have arrested her. "You're a Satan worshipper," says one of the officers, and Suzanne is struck speechless with shock. Soon after, they show her a list of names of people and stores to identify and ask her if she condones homosexuality, if she has read anything about black metal or attended any heavy metal concerts. She responds "no" to each question, but they persist.
Suzanne is then brought to the State Security Police (SSP) station, also in Heliopolis, for further interrogation. There, she is videotaped along with the others and photographed wearing a name tag like a common criminal. Her pride has finally given in and she can't hold back the tears. The two sheikhs the police have brought in to counsel the alleged Satan worshippers have tears in their eyes. To Suzanne, their pitying looks imply that they believe what the media and the police say about the accused that they have forsaken religion and practice satanic rituals.
At about 3pm, she is blindfolded and left to sit in the corridor with the others. She is sobbing now, and a man she can't see calls her a bitch and yells at her to be quiet. Seven hours later, her head is throbbing relentlessly. That night, her family visits with food, but she has no stomach for it. All she wants to do is go home and sleep in her own bed, but for two nights she will sleep in a chair at the police station. Suzanne's experience was similar to that of the other youths who were arrested and detained, many of whom are still struggling to cope with the damage that was done to their lives.
"Respect isn't something you stumble across," says Gihane*, 20, who was also arrested. "It's something you build into your life. And when a bunch of security officers wipe out all the respect you have earned because you attended heavy metal concerts, then damn them, the concerts, heavy metal and music altogether."
Police have refused to comment on the arrests except to say they were responding to complaints from residents about teenagers holding wild parties in Maadi, Heliopolis and Zamalek. Police claim that they knew that satanic rituals were going on at rock concerts and at other sites around Cairo but chose not to arrest the offenders at the scene of the crime. Instead, they waited months during which time they say they were monitoring and investigating suspects before arresting them. The names of suspects were traced through license plates of cars parked at Ain Shams University, the American University in Cairo (AUC), the Tourism Institute in Heliopolis and Alson College, as well as local rock concerts. During the raids, police confiscated music CDs and tapes, posters, T-shirts and other heavy metal paraphernalia. They also claim to have found several videotapes of a wild heavy metal concert held in late December, where alleged Satanists were filmed dancing and headbanging. While these items prove the suspects listen to heavy metal music, this does not mean that they are Satan worshippers.
Finally, and despite the ongoing investigation, SSP General Attorney Hesham Sarraya declared on March 8: Actually, there are no devil worshippers in Egypt whatsoever. "They're just a group of spoiled teenagers who suffer from lack of parental control." Lawyers for some of the suspects say that the likelihood of any of those arrested receiving jail sentences is slim. But none of this can erase what happened or ensure citizens that it will not happen again. If the police were trying to send out a warning to Egypt's youth, they succeeded at least temporarily.
Mokhtar*, 22, an Egyptian who is also of European descent, says he is haunted by guilt that he was not arrested with his friends even though he had accompanied them to the December concert. Although he was spared the humiliation, he has been changed by the turn of events: "I always believed that music is one of the best things that ever happened to mankind, not a curse as I found out." He spent several days, terrified, waiting for the police to grab him at any moment. He cut off his long hair and no longer wears the black star necklace his girlfriend brought him. Though he believes he was lucky to avoid arrest, he now wants to leave the country.
A prominent guitar teacher in Cairo says he has lost five of his six students since the arrests all of whom were learning to play the electric guitar. He speculates that the arrests have dampened young people's interest because they are afraid of the consequences. "People are not into music as much; they see that it may get them in trouble," he says. Even CD shops have been affected. One store owner who buys and sells used CDs says that he will buy any type of music except heavy metal. "No, no! I don't want Black Sabbath or Iron Maiden," he said when asked if he would buy used heavy metal CDs. "I don't want any trouble."
According to Amira Shaker, her son's only sin was playing in a heavy metal band. She loves music and encouraged him to take up the guitar. She even bought him Metallica CDs. It never crossed her mind that one day he would be arrested for playing in concerts or having CDs or posters of his favorite bands."He's no longer my funny boy," says Shaker. "I don't need to beg him to stay at home as I used to. Now he spends most of his time in his room with visiting friends. Since he was released, he hasn't touched his guitar, but his friends still play and I'm sure he will overcome his fears one day."
According to Dr. Josette Abdallah, a psychology professor at AUC, "Most of these kids will change the style of music they listen to, if not abandon music altogether.." She breaks up the young people involved into two groups: those that come from well- balanced families and seek novelty and attention, and those that come from broken families that seek power and peer acceptance. All of these youths will bear psychological scars, she says, especially those who were arrested. "Police treatment is rough and harsh. For those innocent kids who have never before been exposed to traumatic experiences, this humiliating incident is going to have lasting effects," she says. Being stigmatized as devil worshippers will be reflected in their future behavior and may lead them to become more isolated, with little self- confidence, she adds. Despite what parents may think, religious counseling is not the cure, according to Abdallah. In fact, it may be counterproductive. What these youths need, she says, is support from families and adult role models. In some extreme cases, professional counseling may be helpful for proper reintegration into society.
Dr. Assef Bayat, chairman of the sociology, anthropology and psychology department at AUC, agrees, adding that the change in habits among these young people was first driven by fear of being arrested. Now that the police seem to have dropped their case against the defendants, that fear is subsiding, he says. Now there is a "fear of being labeled" by society that is prompting more conservative dress and behavior.The kids may be scared, but they are also angry at the police, society and especially the media. In the weeks leading up to the arrests, which also occurred in Alexandria and Ismailia, the media had been publishing sensationalized stories about devil worshipping among young adults and linking the practice to those who play in heavy metal bands or listen to the music. Heavy metal is a form of rock music played at loud volume with themes such as death, doom, hell and Armageddon. Although its lyrics often make allusions to Satan, it is actually black metal, an offshoot of heavy metal, which glorifies Satan and encourages satanic practices a fact often confused in local media accounts. The bands that are popular among Egyptian youth Black Sabbath, Metallica and Megadeth, to name a few are considered heavy metal bands, not black metal bands.
The story first appeared in early November in the Egyptian weekly magazine Rose El-Youssef. It published excerpts of an anonymous fax detailing satanic rituals practiced in Cairo and Alexandria at rock concerts and remote locations outside the cities. As more faxes poured in, other newspapers and magazines soon began running unsubstantiated stories, accusing local heavy metal bands, such as Black Rose, Opacity and Steel Edge, of promoting devil worship. Band members were stunned by Rose El-Youssef's willingness to publish uncorroborated accounts. "How can a magazine publish any fax it receives as if it's absolutely true?" asks Nabil Hassan, lead singer of Opacity. "I could send them as many faxes of imaginary thrilling things as I want. Is it so hard to check the information before publishing it?"Ahmed Samir, a drummer in Opacity, says that local bands, such as Crack of Doom, Volcano Spell and Severed, do play music with lyrics about the devil and hell, but their members are not Satan worshippers. These groups have simply patterned themselves after popular Western heavy metal bands.
The journalist who reported the story, Abdullah Kamal, says he never meant to point the finger at anyone. "I published the story as a social problem that families and schools should notice and remedy," he says, claiming that he tried to speak to the author of the fax and, when he didn't get a response, talked to corroborating sources before publishing his article. He says that even before publishing it, many people were coming to his office to tell stories or give confessions about devil worshipping. In addition to questioning the reliability of such sources, some observers also believe that it was the media attention that actually led to the arrests. On December 9, Rose El-Youssef ran an indirect call for action: "We won't wait until these youths commit murders to sense the danger of their action. The evidence that murder crimes are definitely on the way and aggression is becoming a reality shows in the number of faxes and letters we receive on the issue."
In Akhbar El-Youm on March 8, Sarrayya publicly accused the press of exaggerating stories to sell its publications. "The media was hysterical, dying for information day after day. So when we didn't give them any, they reported on rituals performed abroad as if they were taking place in Egypt by the defendents we arrested," he says. Even Kamal admits that the media frenzy got out of hand. "The coverage severely lacked precision and investigation. All papers felt obliged to write about it as the issue of the moment, and most of them put no effort into checking the information," he says. Mokhtar says that if he decides to remain in Egypt, he will not be swayed by others' views. "If I stay in Egypt and go back to music, I'll play what I want to play, not what the police or the media want me to play," he says. I listen to black metal and read a lot about it, but then what? Does this mean I drink blood or eat the kidneys of cats?
You know you can play black metal but not necessarily the role of a vampire.
In the aftermath of the arrests, the media has changed its tune.
On February 27, Sabah El -Kheir, a weekly magazine, ran a cover story urging youth not to abandon music. It stated that when listening to music that deviates from mainstream tastes becomes a sin and results in charges of Satanism, then people might as well be deaf. In its March 6 issue, it also questioned whether parents could file a lawsuit against the Ministry of Interior, and called for citizens' rights to be upheld: "Why did the State Security Police overreact and where are the citizens' rights, even if they were suspects?"
Ahmed Salem, a lawyer representing one of the alleged Satanists, says that although it seems that the police have violated citizens' rights, there is little recourse. If the defendants sue the Ministery of Interior, he says, there is almost no possibility of winning the case and the costs make it unlikely that any will even try. He adds that as long as the arrests were carried out according to SSP investigations, there is no way to file a compensation claim under Egyptian law.
Suzanne and her family are not even considering suing the government. They prefer to get on with their lives and try to forget what has happened. "Do you really think that the government would rule against the government? Anyway, nothing can compensate for the humiliation and the disgrace that I feel, not even filing a lawsuit," Suzanne says. "Here, people don't believe that you're innocent until proven guilty. Tell me, who would marry a girl who people think drinks blood, engages in orgies and digs up the dead? Just like Satan, I'm doomed forever.”
*The subjects are real. Only their names have been changed.
Here is a press release or thumbnail scene guide released to piggyback on the AP story.
“Cairo's Heavy Metal Scene Thrives, Thrashes, Poses.” Gridskipper/Newstex August 17, 2006.
According to a widely-picked up AP report, heavy metal in Cairo is staging a comeback after a 1997 government roundup of metal heads by the authorities. The government accused them of satanism, which to you and me may be no biggie but in Egypt, can be punishable by death. After a ten year lull, heavy metal's back. Though there are a couple venues that put on heavy metal shows in Cairo, most shows take place in rented houses on the outskirts of Cairo. Buses are usually available from the city center. Check out these resources to get plugged into the Egyptian metal scene.
Websites
Egyptmetal.net
Voluble discussion threads, a great list of shows, downloads and reviews
Metal Travel Guide
Worldwide guide to the metal scene, small Cairo section but growing.
Egypt Rock Station
Organization that puts on many metal shows throughout Cairo
Venues
El Sawy Culture Wheel
A small club that usually has traditional shows but also hosts may of Cairo's rock n' roll/metal shows.
After 8
A centrally located popular dance club, permapacked late into the night. After 8 has jazz, salsa, and, suprisingly often, heavy metal nights.
Cairo Jazz Club
A Jazz venue that has also hosts egyptian folk and rock n' roll shows like the ever-popular Screwdriver.
Bands (For a full list visit Egyptmetal.net's band list)
Brain Candy
Dark Philosophy
Hate Suffocation
Hell Chasm
Vyrus
Here are some articles from the late ‘90s providing information about the repression of heavy metal and putting a human face on the events. Sorry, I had to cut and paste, but these are well worth reading, so I figured I would post them.
Nicholas Goldberg “Satanic Cult Provokes Egyptian Soul Searching.” The Guardian February 6, 1997.
In the dead of night, Egyptian security forces burst into the homes of dozens of affluent Cairo families last week and arrested more than 75 teenagers on charges of devil worship. In the days that followed, as their "confessions" leaked out to local newspapers, it was alleged that they admitted praising and glorifying Satan, wearing black cloaks and listening to heavy -metal music.nSome newspaper accounts had them confessing to holding drug-induced orgies, sacrificing animals and planning to burn down local mosques - activities sure to horrify the conservative Islamic country.
"If they renounce their beliefs, they may be pardoned," the grand mufti, Nasser Farid Wassel, said last week, calling the alleged Satanists apostates. "But if they persist in their sin, we should carry out the penalty prescribed by Islamic law." The penalty for apostasy is death. The penalty for "undermining" or "deriding" religion is three years in jail.
More than 30 of those arrested were released for lack of evidence, but the rest remain behind bars. The episode has provoked a bout of introspection. Many Egyptians have bemoaned the spread of foreign influences, said to have "corrupted" Egyptian youth. Last week, for instance, parliament passed a motion condemning "deviation from the traditions of Egyptian society".
First to be blamed for the appearance of the alleged cult was heavy-metal music. CDs by Metallica, Black Sabbath and Megadeth were reportedly found at the homes of the accused. The Internet also came under attack, for giving Egyptian children easy access to Western ideas. Some analysts went so far as to blame fast-food establishments, apparently because the "devil worshipers" met at McDonald's. Others blamed the breakdown of the Egyptian family structure, the weakening of Islam in society, and the failure of affluent parents to raise their children properly.
Finally, there were those who blamed Israel. The head of al-Azhar, the highest authority of Sunni Muslims, called the Satanic cult part of "a Zionist plot" So far, President Hosni Mubarak has remained silent, seemingly the only public figure in Egypt who has refrained from commenting on the issue of devil worship.
Douglas Jehl. “Cairo Journal; It's Heavy Going for Sex, Satan and Heavy Metal” New York Times February 11, 1997.
The official accusations have shocked Egypt's conservative society, with tales of clandestine parties in which young people took [stuff you smoke, drink or snort] engaged in group sex and then unearthed corpses from Cairo cemeteries.The Egyptian press has been even more lurid, saying the young fans of heavy-metal music were performing satanic rituals, even urinating on the Koran and the Bible and slaughtering cats, rats and other small animals to drink their blood. Dozens of suspects have been arrested by Egypt's powerful state security police, and there have been reports that some may soon be charged under a statute that prohibits "contempt of heavenly religions."
"The first thing they wanted to know was whether I was chasing cats and drinking their blood," said a 21-year-old woman whose dark makeup and clothing are the uniform of a youthful rebellion in Egypt now under attack by the Government.The young woman, the lead singer in an Egyptian rock band, said that the police in commando uniforms who burst into her bedroom at 3 A.M. on Jan. 22 had also questioned her about her religious beliefs and that she had answered "by quoting the Koran." She and others who have since been released but still insisted on anonymity suggested that the accusations against them and others were the products of nothing more than popular imagination and official spite.
The arrests were the first official crackdown on rock music in Egypt, whose main preoccupation in recent years has been the activities of Islamic militants, not what the Government calls a secular extreme.And because most of the suspects come from well-to-do families, the new vigil outside a Cairo prosecutor's office where they have been interrogated represents a jarring contrast from the usual crowd: women dressed from head to toe in black as they wait for husbands and sons accused of links to the religious militants. Of the more than 80 young rock fans who were arrested last month, some 20 remain behind bars. And after weeks in which rumors of wild conduct by the young and rich leaped into the popular press, the official crackdown has been widely applauded by Egyptians who in taxis and coffee shops now refer disparagingly to the "deviant youths."
But the crackdown has been criticized by some intellectuals and human rights advocates as reflecting an unfortunate Egyptian predisposition to use security forces to address social problems. "The police can only arrest those who break the law," the prominent writer Fahmy Howeidi wrote in the Government-run newspaper Al Ahram. "But they would be assuming a bigger role than they can fill if they think they can reform misdeeds."
Like most things Western, heavy-metal music came late to Cairo, and it enjoys only a limited following. But over the last year its screeching guitars and often violent lyrics had emerged, for some, as a vehicle for the kind of unrestrained expression on which Islamic culture frowns heavily. Those who have attended them say recent heavy-metal gatherings have at the least been notable for the consumption of alcohol and for public displays of affection, both generally taboo. In mimicry of Western bands and their followers, some fans have also gone so far as to adorn their clothing with symbols meant to have Satanic significance.
Whether what occurred beyond the public gaze went further to include the kind of blood-and-sex rituals that the popular Egyptian magazine Rosa al-Yousef has described may never be known. But the reports that began late last year set off such an outcry that Interior Minister Hassan al-Alfi, the architect of Egypt's six-year crackdown on Islamic militants, swiftly pledged in reference to the heavy-metal fans "to identify these groups and uproot them all."
Among those who complained most loudly about the reported evil deeds was the Grand Mufti of Egypt, Nasr Farid Wassail, who as the highest authority in Sunni Islam wields considerable power even in what remains a secular state. The Mufti, who has portrayed the offenders as apostates before God, was reported to have met personally with Mr. Alfi last December to demand that they be made to repent.
The "contempt of heavenly religions" statute under which the authorities say that those arrested may be charged was incorporated into Egyptian law to try to limit sectarian strife between Muslims and the country's Coptic Christian minority, legal experts here say. The law carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison, and was invoked in the early 1980's as the grounds for the arrest of militant Muslim preachers who had preached against Copts, who make up about 10 percent of the population.
Among the offenses punishable under the statute are the unearthing of corpses, the desecration of holy books and the ridiculing of religious rituals or figures, including the Christian, Islamic and Jewish prophets. In practice, the legal experts say, the law has been more often waved as a club than wielded as a legal weapon, and some think that the authorities' main purpose now is to deliver a powerful scare. Among youthful sectors of Egyptian society most tempted by the extremes of Western tastes, the episode already appears to have prompted some behavior modification.
"Almost everyone I know has cut his hair short" to avoid being mistaken for a heavy-metal fan, said Akram Mustafa, a student at the American University in Cairo, an expensive private institution. "And girlswon't wear their black lipstick or even their black leather jackets." But after nearly three weeks in which those still in custody have neither been charged nor released and face the specter of being charged with what amounts to an offense before God, people sympathetic to them have voiced mostly bitterness. "We all danced and sang when we were young, and we never got arrested for it," said a mother who recently waited in vain with her sister, her lawyer and the family driver for news of her son, who is still in custody. "What's wrong with that?"
Azza Khattab. “The Devil They Know.” Egypt Today May 1, 1997.
Although the media and police were quick to level accusations of Satanism at heavy metal music fans, Egypt's youth is now left on its own to come to terms with its wrongful arrests and humiliation. Suzanne*, 22, is no longer the cheerful, outgoing girl she used to be. Everywhere she goes, she feels people staring at her and whispering about her. When she drives her car, she keeps an eye on the rear-view mirror, fearing that a fundamentalist or a security officer might be chasing her. She avoids going out with her friends so that they won't become police suspects. Her parents have imposed strict rules and she willingly submits, too ashamed to argue with them after all the trouble she says she has caused. Police should be more careful, instead of ruining the reputations of innocent people, she says.
In late January, Suzanne was arrested and accused of devil worshipping. She is one of the estimated 80 young adults, aged between 16 and 25, who police rounded up throughout Cairo in the early morning hours of January 22. The young people were accused of possessing beliefs contemptuous of religion (a charge that carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison) and of practicing Satanism (a crime of apostasy under Islamic law that is punishable by death). At the time, newspapers carried reports of lurid rituals where participants were supposedly engaging in wild orgies, taking *****, drinking blood, exhuming bodies from local cemeteries and sacrificing animals. Unable to produce any evidence of this, police have since released all those who were arrested, but the damage had already been done. Meanwhile, around 20 suspects are still being investigated and prosecution will decide later on whether a trial is necessary.
Whether the case goes to trial or not, the trauma of the incident is still being felt acutely by those who were arrested, their families and their friends. Many of the so-called Satanists believe they were villified by irresponsible press coverage and humiliated in front of their families and peers by police who had no evidence of criminal activity. Even those who were not arrested say they are still afraid to listen to heavy metal music, attend concerts or wear black clothes, fearing that they will be the next ones to be arrested. Some see the whole fiasco as just one more blow to the future of modern music and creative self-expression in Egypt.
Months later, Suzanne still recalls her experience vividly: "This nightmare will be over in a couple of minutes," she keeps telling herself on the way to Almaza Police Station in Heliopolis. Just minutes earlier, shortly after 6:30am, the Cairo University student was enjoying a peaceful sleep when loud banging on her door made her jump from her bed. Her panic- stricken parents stood back as police officers, after presenting a warrant to arrest their daughter, searched Suzanne's room. Finding nothing that interested them, they arrested her anyway. There must be a serious mistake, she assures herself as they approach the station.
As the officers escort her into the station, her eyes flash with anger and her heart pounds with nervousness. The moment she steps inside, what little confidence she has is shaken and her mounting anger turns to fear. She sees dozens of young men and five young women who have also been awakened and arrested. The men are blindfolded and face the wall with their hands in the air; the women cry hysterically. As the minutes pass, Suzanne's face grows pale and her hope of being released drains away. During the interrogation, Suzanne finally understands why the police have arrested her. "You're a Satan worshipper," says one of the officers, and Suzanne is struck speechless with shock. Soon after, they show her a list of names of people and stores to identify and ask her if she condones homosexuality, if she has read anything about black metal or attended any heavy metal concerts. She responds "no" to each question, but they persist.
Suzanne is then brought to the State Security Police (SSP) station, also in Heliopolis, for further interrogation. There, she is videotaped along with the others and photographed wearing a name tag like a common criminal. Her pride has finally given in and she can't hold back the tears. The two sheikhs the police have brought in to counsel the alleged Satan worshippers have tears in their eyes. To Suzanne, their pitying looks imply that they believe what the media and the police say about the accused that they have forsaken religion and practice satanic rituals.
At about 3pm, she is blindfolded and left to sit in the corridor with the others. She is sobbing now, and a man she can't see calls her a bitch and yells at her to be quiet. Seven hours later, her head is throbbing relentlessly. That night, her family visits with food, but she has no stomach for it. All she wants to do is go home and sleep in her own bed, but for two nights she will sleep in a chair at the police station. Suzanne's experience was similar to that of the other youths who were arrested and detained, many of whom are still struggling to cope with the damage that was done to their lives.
"Respect isn't something you stumble across," says Gihane*, 20, who was also arrested. "It's something you build into your life. And when a bunch of security officers wipe out all the respect you have earned because you attended heavy metal concerts, then damn them, the concerts, heavy metal and music altogether."
Police have refused to comment on the arrests except to say they were responding to complaints from residents about teenagers holding wild parties in Maadi, Heliopolis and Zamalek. Police claim that they knew that satanic rituals were going on at rock concerts and at other sites around Cairo but chose not to arrest the offenders at the scene of the crime. Instead, they waited months during which time they say they were monitoring and investigating suspects before arresting them. The names of suspects were traced through license plates of cars parked at Ain Shams University, the American University in Cairo (AUC), the Tourism Institute in Heliopolis and Alson College, as well as local rock concerts. During the raids, police confiscated music CDs and tapes, posters, T-shirts and other heavy metal paraphernalia. They also claim to have found several videotapes of a wild heavy metal concert held in late December, where alleged Satanists were filmed dancing and headbanging. While these items prove the suspects listen to heavy metal music, this does not mean that they are Satan worshippers.
Finally, and despite the ongoing investigation, SSP General Attorney Hesham Sarraya declared on March 8: Actually, there are no devil worshippers in Egypt whatsoever. "They're just a group of spoiled teenagers who suffer from lack of parental control." Lawyers for some of the suspects say that the likelihood of any of those arrested receiving jail sentences is slim. But none of this can erase what happened or ensure citizens that it will not happen again. If the police were trying to send out a warning to Egypt's youth, they succeeded at least temporarily.
Mokhtar*, 22, an Egyptian who is also of European descent, says he is haunted by guilt that he was not arrested with his friends even though he had accompanied them to the December concert. Although he was spared the humiliation, he has been changed by the turn of events: "I always believed that music is one of the best things that ever happened to mankind, not a curse as I found out." He spent several days, terrified, waiting for the police to grab him at any moment. He cut off his long hair and no longer wears the black star necklace his girlfriend brought him. Though he believes he was lucky to avoid arrest, he now wants to leave the country.
A prominent guitar teacher in Cairo says he has lost five of his six students since the arrests all of whom were learning to play the electric guitar. He speculates that the arrests have dampened young people's interest because they are afraid of the consequences. "People are not into music as much; they see that it may get them in trouble," he says. Even CD shops have been affected. One store owner who buys and sells used CDs says that he will buy any type of music except heavy metal. "No, no! I don't want Black Sabbath or Iron Maiden," he said when asked if he would buy used heavy metal CDs. "I don't want any trouble."
According to Amira Shaker, her son's only sin was playing in a heavy metal band. She loves music and encouraged him to take up the guitar. She even bought him Metallica CDs. It never crossed her mind that one day he would be arrested for playing in concerts or having CDs or posters of his favorite bands."He's no longer my funny boy," says Shaker. "I don't need to beg him to stay at home as I used to. Now he spends most of his time in his room with visiting friends. Since he was released, he hasn't touched his guitar, but his friends still play and I'm sure he will overcome his fears one day."
According to Dr. Josette Abdallah, a psychology professor at AUC, "Most of these kids will change the style of music they listen to, if not abandon music altogether.." She breaks up the young people involved into two groups: those that come from well- balanced families and seek novelty and attention, and those that come from broken families that seek power and peer acceptance. All of these youths will bear psychological scars, she says, especially those who were arrested. "Police treatment is rough and harsh. For those innocent kids who have never before been exposed to traumatic experiences, this humiliating incident is going to have lasting effects," she says. Being stigmatized as devil worshippers will be reflected in their future behavior and may lead them to become more isolated, with little self- confidence, she adds. Despite what parents may think, religious counseling is not the cure, according to Abdallah. In fact, it may be counterproductive. What these youths need, she says, is support from families and adult role models. In some extreme cases, professional counseling may be helpful for proper reintegration into society.
Dr. Assef Bayat, chairman of the sociology, anthropology and psychology department at AUC, agrees, adding that the change in habits among these young people was first driven by fear of being arrested. Now that the police seem to have dropped their case against the defendants, that fear is subsiding, he says. Now there is a "fear of being labeled" by society that is prompting more conservative dress and behavior.The kids may be scared, but they are also angry at the police, society and especially the media. In the weeks leading up to the arrests, which also occurred in Alexandria and Ismailia, the media had been publishing sensationalized stories about devil worshipping among young adults and linking the practice to those who play in heavy metal bands or listen to the music. Heavy metal is a form of rock music played at loud volume with themes such as death, doom, hell and Armageddon. Although its lyrics often make allusions to Satan, it is actually black metal, an offshoot of heavy metal, which glorifies Satan and encourages satanic practices a fact often confused in local media accounts. The bands that are popular among Egyptian youth Black Sabbath, Metallica and Megadeth, to name a few are considered heavy metal bands, not black metal bands.
The story first appeared in early November in the Egyptian weekly magazine Rose El-Youssef. It published excerpts of an anonymous fax detailing satanic rituals practiced in Cairo and Alexandria at rock concerts and remote locations outside the cities. As more faxes poured in, other newspapers and magazines soon began running unsubstantiated stories, accusing local heavy metal bands, such as Black Rose, Opacity and Steel Edge, of promoting devil worship. Band members were stunned by Rose El-Youssef's willingness to publish uncorroborated accounts. "How can a magazine publish any fax it receives as if it's absolutely true?" asks Nabil Hassan, lead singer of Opacity. "I could send them as many faxes of imaginary thrilling things as I want. Is it so hard to check the information before publishing it?"Ahmed Samir, a drummer in Opacity, says that local bands, such as Crack of Doom, Volcano Spell and Severed, do play music with lyrics about the devil and hell, but their members are not Satan worshippers. These groups have simply patterned themselves after popular Western heavy metal bands.
The journalist who reported the story, Abdullah Kamal, says he never meant to point the finger at anyone. "I published the story as a social problem that families and schools should notice and remedy," he says, claiming that he tried to speak to the author of the fax and, when he didn't get a response, talked to corroborating sources before publishing his article. He says that even before publishing it, many people were coming to his office to tell stories or give confessions about devil worshipping. In addition to questioning the reliability of such sources, some observers also believe that it was the media attention that actually led to the arrests. On December 9, Rose El-Youssef ran an indirect call for action: "We won't wait until these youths commit murders to sense the danger of their action. The evidence that murder crimes are definitely on the way and aggression is becoming a reality shows in the number of faxes and letters we receive on the issue."
In Akhbar El-Youm on March 8, Sarrayya publicly accused the press of exaggerating stories to sell its publications. "The media was hysterical, dying for information day after day. So when we didn't give them any, they reported on rituals performed abroad as if they were taking place in Egypt by the defendents we arrested," he says. Even Kamal admits that the media frenzy got out of hand. "The coverage severely lacked precision and investigation. All papers felt obliged to write about it as the issue of the moment, and most of them put no effort into checking the information," he says. Mokhtar says that if he decides to remain in Egypt, he will not be swayed by others' views. "If I stay in Egypt and go back to music, I'll play what I want to play, not what the police or the media want me to play," he says. I listen to black metal and read a lot about it, but then what? Does this mean I drink blood or eat the kidneys of cats?
You know you can play black metal but not necessarily the role of a vampire.
In the aftermath of the arrests, the media has changed its tune.
On February 27, Sabah El -Kheir, a weekly magazine, ran a cover story urging youth not to abandon music. It stated that when listening to music that deviates from mainstream tastes becomes a sin and results in charges of Satanism, then people might as well be deaf. In its March 6 issue, it also questioned whether parents could file a lawsuit against the Ministry of Interior, and called for citizens' rights to be upheld: "Why did the State Security Police overreact and where are the citizens' rights, even if they were suspects?"
Ahmed Salem, a lawyer representing one of the alleged Satanists, says that although it seems that the police have violated citizens' rights, there is little recourse. If the defendants sue the Ministery of Interior, he says, there is almost no possibility of winning the case and the costs make it unlikely that any will even try. He adds that as long as the arrests were carried out according to SSP investigations, there is no way to file a compensation claim under Egyptian law.
Suzanne and her family are not even considering suing the government. They prefer to get on with their lives and try to forget what has happened. "Do you really think that the government would rule against the government? Anyway, nothing can compensate for the humiliation and the disgrace that I feel, not even filing a lawsuit," Suzanne says. "Here, people don't believe that you're innocent until proven guilty. Tell me, who would marry a girl who people think drinks blood, engages in orgies and digs up the dead? Just like Satan, I'm doomed forever.”
*The subjects are real. Only their names have been changed.
