BEIRUT/LOS ANGELES ¨C Before Omar leaves home in the morning, he carefully uninstalls the apps on his phone one by one ¡ª no WhatsApp, no Facebook, no Grindr.
¡°The paranoia is constant,¡± said the 19-year-old gay Egyptian man, who asked the Thomson Reuters Foundation not to identify his hometown or real name for his safety.
If a policeman searched his phone, a single WhatsApp conversation or Facebook selfie could be enough to see Omar prosecuted under laws banning ¡°debauchery¡± and ¡°prostitution¡± ¡ª regularly used in Egypt to criminalize citizens for being gay.
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