Last month, Sarah Hegazi, a 30-year-old Egyptian L.G.B.T.Q. rights activist, took her own life in Canada. Far away from Cairo, her home, she was profoundly haunted by what had happened to her there over the past two and a half years, having been arrested, tortured and hounded into exile.
Her transgression? She raised the rainbow flag — unabashedly and joyously — at a concert in Cairo. I was onstage that fated night, Sept.
22, 2017, with my band Mashrou' Leila. We’re an indie group from Beirut and have played across the Middle East and beyond for more than a decade now.
Our Arabic lyrics tell stories of love, hope, loss, inequality and corruption, speaking to the ills that plague our region.