Becky&Sam

BIGGEST CONGRATULATIONS EVER TO YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 SO HAPPY FOR YOUR SUCCESS!!!!!

Sam was told approved and in 2 months he would receive his visa. We were just shy of one year from the interview by about eight days.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOO!!!! CHERYL AND MEDO I AM SOOOOOOOOO HAPPY FOR YOU!!!! I haven't been on much since Sam's arrival last Monday, and I check today and see this wonderful news for you!!!!

CONGRATULATIONS!!!! I am sitting here at my work (first day back since Sam got here) and smiling with tears cause I know what a wonderful feeling you are having right now.

Come on Cairo Consulate and keep those visas coming!!!!

I am so excited for you and hope he can get the police certificate, etc quickly and the visa in his hand quickly!!!!

I still don't think it has sunk in yet that he will actually be here in less than two weeks.

I am hoping that all of the cases in AP for soooooooooooo long are resolved and have their visas very very soon. And that Cairo steps up their time for everyone else too.

salam cheryl

hope u have nice day . u mean if he enter usa through JFK he can has temperary work permission

for 90 days ?

yes. I think one or two others do this too. Egypt Air has a direct flight from Cairo to JFK so that would be my option if we were a K-1. I will still have him come this way though even though we're K-3 since I dont' want any messups with changing planes in another country. I recall something happening to someone on here over a year ago where her husband was turned back to Morocco I think at the layover country because they wanted him to have a visa for that country even though he was only there on a layover. With my luck that'd happen to us. lol

OMG I didn't check with Milan to see if he needed a visa for there. I better do that. Thanks for bringing that up.

Something else to worry about but need to get it taken care of.

The reason we did not pick JFK because on the flights we checked on he had to not only change planes but change airports to get a connecting flight to Birmingham or Atlanta. I thought that was way to confusing for him to deal with alone.

Besides from what I hear is most emplyers do not honor the EAD stamp you get at the airport anyway...they want to see the Green card. Oh course that was on VJ that I read it somewhere. Can't remember where exactly. But I was told he can file for one at the local USCIS office which is located in Atlanta.

But if he has to get another visa for Milan then we may have to change our plans.

Let me go check that.

Cheryl

you don't need a visa for a layover but the people at the airport told him he had to go back anyways. I wish I could remember the thread so I could pull it up. It's kind of like the roundtrip thing where no matter what you do, if they want to play nasty no papers can make them stop. I am sure he'll be fine. Deemabrouk's husband went through milan with no worries.

Good glad to hear that. I have been thorugh Paris and Greece on my way but never Milan so was not sure. But I remember even when I bought my ticket the airlines had a link that said click here to see if you need visa for other countries you layover in. All mine werre no did not need one. But I had forgotten about that.

What day is your SO coming? Sam is booked through Milan/Atlanta/DFW on 03/17. We just booked a one way tkt, but he is K3.

Egypt: Spreading Crackdown on HIV Endangers Public Health

Rights Violations Drive Those in Need Underground

Egypt: Spreading Crackdown on HIV Endangers Public Health click here for link

(Cairo, February 15, 2008) – Cairo police arrested four more men suspected of having HIV, signaling a wider crackdown that endangers public health and violates basic human rights, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said today in a joint statement.

The recent arrests bring to 12 the number of men arrested in a campaign against people police suspect of being HIV-positive. Four have already been sentenced to a year in jail and eight are still in custody. The two organizations called on Egyptian authorities to respect the men’s human rights and to immediately release them so as not to cause lasting damage to the country’s HIV/AIDS prevention efforts.

“In their misguided attempt to apply Egypt’s unjust law on homosexual conduct, authorities are carrying on a crackdown against people living with HIV/AIDS,” said Rebecca Schleifer, advocate for the HIV/AIDS and Human Rights Program at Human Rights Watch. “This not only violates the most basic rights of people living with HIV. It also threatens public health, by making it dangerous for anyone to seek information about HIV prevention or treatment.”

The most recent arrests occurred after police followed up on information coerced from men already in detention, according to the Health and Human Rights Program of the Cairo-based Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR). Two of the newly detained men tested positive for HIV. One had his detention extended by 15 days at his February 12 court hearing, with the prosecutor and judge both claiming he was a danger to public health. Another has a hearing scheduled for February 23.

As in all previous cases, authorities forced the new detainees to undergo HIV testing without their consent. All those testing positive have been held in Cairo hospitals, chained to their beds.

“Arbitrary arrests, forcible HIV tests, and physical abuse only add to the disgraceful record of Egypt’s criminal justice system, where torture and ill-treatment are greeted with impunity,” said Hassiba Hadj-Sahraoui, deputy director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Program.

The wave of arrests began in October 2007, when police intervened between two men having an argument on a street in central Cairo. When one of them told the officers that he was HIV-positive, police immediately took them both to the Morality Police office and opened an investigation against them for homosexual conduct. Police demanded the names of their friends and sexual contacts during interrogations.

The two men told lawyers that officers slapped and beat them for refusing to sign statements the police wrote for them. The men spent four days in the Morality Police office handcuffed to an iron desk, and were left to sleep on the floor. Police later subjected the two men to forensic ####### examinations designed to “prove” that they had engaged in homosexual conduct.

Such forcible examinations to detect “evidence” of homosexuality are not only medically spurious, but also can amount to torture.

Police then arrested two more men because their photographs or telephone numbers were found on the first two detainees. Authorities subjected all four men to HIV tests without their consent. All four are still in detention, pending prosecutors’ decisions on whether to bring charges of homosexual conduct. The first two arrestees, who reportedly tested HIV-positive, are still being held in hospital, handcuffed to their beds.

A prosecutor reportedly told one of the men who tested positive for HIV: “People like you should be burnt alive. You do not deserve to live.”

In November 2007, police raided an apartment where one of these men had previously lived, and arrested four more men. All were charged with homosexual conduct. These men told lawyers that police ill-treated them by beating one across the head, and forcing all four to stand in a painful position for three hours with their arms lifted in the air. Authorities also tested these men for HIV without their consent.

A Cairo court convicted these four men on January 13, 2008 under Article 9© of Law 10/1961, which criminalizes the “habitual practice of debauchery [fujur]” – a term used to penalize consensual homosexual conduct in Egyptian law. Defense attorneys told Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch that the prosecution based its case on the coerced and repudiated statements taken from the men, without providing witnesses or other evidence to support the charges, which all the men denied. On February 2, 2008, a Cairo appeals court upheld their one-year prison sentences.

Criminalizing consensual, adult homosexual conduct is a violation of Egypt’s obligations under international human rights law to respect and protect individual privacy and personal autonomy. The apparent use of Article 9© in these cases to detain people on the basis of their declared HIV status, and to test them without their consent for HIV infection, also violates those international protections, as well as the prohibition on arbitrary detention. Amnesty International considers that the imprisonment of individuals for actual or alleged consensual same-sex relations between adults in private is a grave violation of human rights, and that individuals held solely on that basis are prisoners of conscience who should be immediately and unconditionally released.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch urged the Egyptian authorities to immediately cease any arrests based on people’s real or suspected HIV status. In addition to seeking the release of all 12 men, the two organizations also called on authorities to end the practice of chaining detainees to their hospital beds, and to ensure that the men receive the highest available standard of medical care for any serious health conditions.

The two organizations urged Egypt to undertake training for all criminal-justice officials on medical facts and international human rights standards in relation to HIV, and to halt immediately all testing of detainees without their consent.

This is an eye opening article about how a stigmatized illness like HIV/AIDS is treated in Egypt. I just stumbled across this today when searching for something at work.

OMG. CONGRATS, CONGRATS, CONGRATS to you and your family.

I hope this is the really, really, really, really final time and your hubby is on his way to his family for good!!!!!!!!!

Good luck for a great interview and quick issue of the visa.

We haven't tried yet. I hate chatting with him via the net. We always end up in a tiff. lol. We'll start out fine, then our cams freeze up, then the whole thing will freeze within 5 minutes and he'll have to reboot. I"ll wait 10 minutes and then call him. He'll be mad that i called 'cause he doesn't want me to spend the money for the call when we're chatting anyhow. Then we'll talk and his mic will go out usually at a pivotal point in the conversation. Then he'll complain that my cam froze and ask me to fix it. He insists that I need to turn this and switch off that and I have no farkin' idea what he means and he'll get frustrated and I'll get frustrated. Then he'll say something that I misunderstand because the reception sucks and I"ll get mad at what I THINK he said and it will take until later on that night when we text each other to fix the misunderstanding.

Bottom line I'd rather not use the internet to talk to him but he misses seeing me so we're going to try today and I'll let ya know how it is.

When we are on internet we have all these same issues happening with cam freezing, etc. It is so frustrating when you are in the middle of a conversation and just have it all freeze or DC.

We have had the same problems with the phone connections this past week. We are cut off midconversation every time. We are able to text each other and get almost all of those. Haven't even tried internet lately with the reported problems.

If he is confident and has all information already then he should do fine. I remember the nervousness and fear at the time of my husband's interview. His interview really went well though and I am sure yours will too. Good luck!!!

Well Medo was called in for another interview. The physical expired and so did the police reports. He was asked if we were still in contact. (Damn I e-mailed them 2 times to let them know I was going there) And Medo told them I just left 3 weeks ago. The Man seemed happy. More security checks were just complete. He asked if he had any proof of our relationship and Medo told them, he had pictures , e-mails phone bills ect.

How long until they expire????(security checks) Is there a time limet on them?

They gave him back his passport to get the physical and police report done and two pictures for the medical.

OMG!!!! I can't believe after all you went through to make sure that they knew you were there for a long visit they don't have the info...........or are trying to find out if you were really there.

I hope, hope that this means you are close to getting the visa issued. I'm sending all the good vibes to Cairo for them to move their AZZES and get the visa out the door!!!!!!!

You know Sam didn't have to get any of his documents renewed and we are on the same time frame so that is interesting............hmmmmmm

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!

Just curious....not all but a LOT of the emails that I get from the consulate in Cairo say at the end

"We will contact you once that has been completed to notify you of the next step. "

Has anyone else ever had this response?

Many of our response emails had this in them. Still in AP...........will contact for the next step once completed.

Just another variation in the canned responses.

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!! So happy for you and best wishes for all your wedding and life plans!!!!!

It will probably be a month before he leaves to come here. He wants to give a two week notice at his job, cause the company has connections here in US and could be an opportunity for job possibilities here. Then he will have some time visiting and being with his family before he leaves cause don't know when we will be able to travel back for a visit.

We'll figure timing out in the coming days. We haven't even really talked about it too much cause we were so afraid to make any plans definite till he has the visa in hand, so we will be be making those plans next. I can't believe that we are even talking about arranging a ticket for him. IT has been soooooooooooooo long that it just seems surreal at this point!!! But we were just laughing and laughing on the phone together when we were talking about it cause we are both in a state of shock right now, but very very very happy shock!!!!!!

Today right before I was ready to leave work, I got the text from my husband..........he received his passport with the visa!!!!

Everyone was running to my office to see what was happening cause I was making so much noise!!!!

I am so thankful that this part of the process is past us!!!!

Did waiting in the long hellish administrative processing enhance the beautifulness of your marriage and increase your love for each other tenfold or was it more like biting on a big leather strap until it was over?

please discuss

It has definitely been the latter. I cannot see that this hellish long wait has enhanced our marriage at all. It has stretched us to the very limits of our patience, tolerance and trying to communicate about this whole process. It is so confusing for me in many aspects and trying to communicate a lot of it to him in terms that he understands when I don't understand what the he!! is going on has driven us both crazy!! Don't feel alone in having your relationship strained to the max with all of this. A new marriage is difficult on it's own without having to do it long distance for over a year!!!

I will say that my trips there are exceptional memories cause we try to make up for all the time missed in 10 days...........

Did waiting in the long hellish administrative processing enhance the beautifulness of your marriage and increase your love for each other tenfold or was it more like biting on a big leather strap until it was over?

please discuss