A Cairo court acquitted 26 men on Monday who had been accused of "debauchery" in a rare victory for Egypt's gay community that has of late faced an increasingly oppressive police crackdown.
The defendants had faced between 1-9 years in prison on varying degrees of "debauchery" -- the most common Egyptian legal term used in cases against men accused of homosexuality.
Though homosexuality is not technically illegal in Egypt, the police and courts have a history of persecuting the gay community in this socially-conservative country. That Monday's ruling went they way it did surprised many observers.
"It's unprecedented," said longtime human rights activist Scott Long. "This just doesn't happen."
The session lasted barely a minute -- just enough time for the judge to do a roll-call of the defendants' names before uttering a single word: "innocent."
The court immediately erupted into raucous celebration as the men inside the courtroom cage shouted and waved their shackled hands and attending relatives yelled and sobbed in relief.
(from CBS News)
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