Sarah Hegazi, a prominent queer Egyptian feminist, committed suicide on Saturday in exile in Canada.
Hegazi died 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.
For musician Hamed Sinno, also an LGBTQ activist, Hegazi's death is linked to wider violence inflicted on LGBTQ people's bodies and minds.
"From 2013, when Abdel Fattah al-Sisi took power, to 2017, when Sarah was arrested, Egyptian authorities arrested or charged tens of thousands of people, forcibly disappeared hundreds for months at a time, handed down preliminary death sentences to hundreds more, and tried thousands of civilians in military courts," Younes wrote.
Younes' message to the Egyptian government was unequivocal:
"We, queer feminists, are the collective force etching at your oppression, raising our flags and voices and fists until you are held accountable for robbing Sarah and countless others of their bodily autonomy, their home, and their lives."
