TORONTO, June 19 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Sarah Hegazi, 30, a prominent queer Egyptian feminist, committed suicide in exile in Canada. She bore the scars of torture and assault she endured in prison in Cairo following her arrest for raising the Pride flag at a concert in 2017.
“The sky is sweeter than the earth! And I want the sky, not the earth,” 30-year-old Hegazi wrote on Saturday, in her last Instagram post.
Hegazi died June 13 in Toronto, where she had sought asylum in 2018 after her arrest for daring to raise the rainbow pride flag at a concert in Cairo in 2017.
The concert featured Mashrou’ Leila – a gay-friendly Lebanese band whose lead singer, Hamed Sinno, is openly gay. She waved a rainbow flag, the symbol of pride used by queer and transgender people worldwide.
The defiant gesture in a country where homosexuality can be punished by law outraged many in the Egyptian establishment. There followed a three-week anti-gay crackdown in which Hegazi was the only woman arrested.
She was charged with “joining a banned group aimed at interfering with the constitution”, “inciting debauchery” and handed a three-month prison sentence.
When Hegazi was released on bail she found asylum in Canada. But despite finding protection there, she continued to be haunted by what had happened.
“Even after my release, fear of everyone, family, friends, and the street continued to haunt me,” she wrote in 2018 on the website Mada Masr, Egypt’s last independent news outlet.
She expressed her feelings of alienation and isolation in exile and fears of being arrested again if she returned to Egypt.
Hegazi’s death has sent shock waves through the LGBTQ community both in the Middle East and around the world. The now-iconic photo of her beaming as she brandishes the pride flag inspired the #RaiseTheFlagForSarah hashtag on social media. — NNN-AGENCIES
