German Greens MP Volker Beck has told the Deutsche Welle news agency that Western diplomatic missions should play more of a role in assisting sexual minorities who are facing persecution in reaction to the arrest and prosecution of a large group of gay men in Egypt.

The eight men were arrested after they appeared in what they said was a joke same-sex marriage video and Beck said the prosecution showed the new Egyptian regime was trying to use homophobia to appeal to religious conservatives.

‘We have seen since the fall of the Islamist regime that the government is trying to show that it can be just as conservative and homophobic as the previous government,’ Beck told the news agency.

‘The court sentences are completely disproportionate. They are not based on any Egyptian law because homosexuality per se is not punishable in Egypt.’

Beck called for the German Government to send a strong message to the Egyptian Government that persecution of LGBTI people and other human rights violations are unacceptable.

‘The German Government should make it clear to the Egyptian government that we take a very critical view of these kinds of human rights abuses,’ Beck said.

‘It has to be made clear that it is not acceptable that the current regime gets a free pass for whatever human rights abuses occur in the name of Islam.

‘Egypt needs to be reminded that it is a signatory to the UN Convention on Civil and Political Rights and that it is infringing massively upon basic rights by conducting such trials.’

Beck said that Western Governments should look at using their embassies in such countries to help LGBTIs fleeing persecution to seek asylum.

‘In the past there have been measures implemented by embassies to get people out of dangerous situations,’ Beck said.

‘Western states should consider welcoming people via their embassies who are actively persecuted. This is a precarious situation in which everyone eventually will have to fear for their lives and freedom.’

Volker Beck has been a leading political figure in the fight for LGBTI rights in Germany.

He was a spokesman for the Association of Lesbians and Gays in Germany for a decade before entering politics and was responsible for proposing that Germany erect a permanent monument to the LGBTI victims of Nazi Germany.