The LGBT community in Egypt has been the target of a brutal government campaign in recent months, leading to the arrest of several individuals on the backdrop of their sexual orientation.
Dalia Abdel-Hammed, a gender researcher with the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, recently claimed that Egypt's police are using dating apps, such as Grindr, to track down gay men in the country.
Hameed told The Age that she found dozens of police reports which "outline a cultivation technique," in which authorities target suspected gay men and seduce them via the apps.
"It's related to the fact that men are using apps more than women and an obsession of who is being penetrated," Hameed said.
"There is this penetration mania in Egypt due to religious reasons, mostly."
This comes just weeks after seven people were arrested for raising a rainbow flag during a Mashrou' Leila concert in Cairo.
The individuals were detained under charges of "promoting sexual deviancy" and "inciting immorality."
Since then, at least 70 people have been arrested as part of the intense ongoing crackdown on the gay and transgender community.
Earlier this month, Grindr sent tips to users in Egypt, in an effort to protect them
Grindr and Hornet, two U.S. based gay dating apps, recently sent tips to Egyptian users in Arabic, to take precautions while using the app.
Grindr advised users to communicate their whereabouts with friends before going on a date with someone they meet on the app. It also asked users to check if they have mutual friends with their potential date.
"It will make people take more precautions ... we know that the police are under pressure to arrest people and they are going about doing that through all the avenues that they have," Jack Harrison-Quintana, a director at Grindr, told Reuters.
In 2014, the app also warned users from revealing their identities following the arrest of a number of suspected individuals.
"Egypt is arresting LGBT people and police may be posing as LGBT on social media to entrap you," Grindr wrote at the time.
"Please be careful about arranging meetings with people you don’t know and be careful about posting anything that might reveal your identity."
Months later, authorities arrested at least 25 men following a massive police raid on a bathhouse in Cairo.
The crackdown on homosexuals in the country dates back to 2001 when police raided the Queen Boat - a floating disco on the Nile - which saw the arrest of 52 gay Egyptian men.
The men were forced to undergo anal examinations to see if they had engaged in sexual intercourse. The incident drew widespread criticism from human rights groups at the time.
"Rainbow is not a crime"
People around the world are standing in solidarity with the LGBT community, with many sharing photos of themselves under the hashtag #RainbowIsNotACrime.
While homosexuality is not explicitly illegal in Egypt, according to The Guardian, police routinely arrest individuals using decades-old prostitution and debauchery laws.
Earlier this month, a number of Egyptian lawmakers reportedly proposed a new anti-gay law in the country.
The draft law suggests that homosexuals receive a prison sentence of up to 5 years. It also suggests that LGBT allies are put in jail for a maximum of 3 years.