Here in San Francisco and across the United States, gay Americans are making history fighting for the right to marry in the eyes of the law. Thousands of homosexual couples have walked away from the city steps hand in hand able to openly celebrate their new marriage licenses. It's still hard to believe that US law dictates whether or not an adult can form a legal union with another adult based on their sex, but what's even harder to believe is that, in this day and age, there are still places in the world where homosexuals are not tolerated to the level of incarceration.

In Cairo, Egypt, authorities seek to entrap and punish men who display homosexual conduct. New York-based human rights group, Human Rights Watch, has released a report that hundreds of Egyptian men have been arrested and tortured for "acts of debauchery." The 144-page report reveals that the country has failed in its treatment of sexually diverse groups.

Egypt declared to the United Nations and the European Union that homosexuality is legal in their country, yet the Egyptian government continues to regularly torture men who have sex with men. While homosexuality is not explicitly referred to in the Egyptian penal code, their prosecution of consensual homosexual relations is "covered under the country's debauchery laws," which were established to penalize prostitution.

Undercover police use the Internet and advertising to arrange meetings with gay men, who arrive at the specified location and are then arrested. Suspected homosexuals are also arrested on the street or raided in their homes due to tips from informants. Moreover, doctors are forcing the "suspects" to endure intrusive medical exams to prove that they are gay or bisexual.

Once arrested, the men are bound, beaten, suspended, dunked in ice-cold water, burned by cigarettes, and subjected to electroshock to their limbs and genitals. Additionally, the arrested men disclose in the report that the prison guards encouraged other prisoners to rape them.

Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, had this to say, "It saddens me that Human Rights Watch has been documenting torture in Egypt for over a decade. The government's recent initiatives to improve its human rights image mean nothing unless it lives up to its obligation to investigate and punish those responsible for torture."

You can read the full Human Rights Watch report "In a Time of Torture: The Assault on Justice In Egypt's Crackdown on Homosexual Conduct here.