On Tuesday, the Children’s Court in Egypt sentenced blogger Suzy Ayman (known as “Jordanian Suzy”) to two years in prison and fined her 300,000 pounds on charges of “violating family values.” The ruling is still preliminary and will certainly be reduced to other levels of litigation, but it comes within a series of judicial rulings that have recently affected a number of social media influencers on charges of publishing obscene videos that “incite immorality and prostitution.”
The ruling that affected the Egyptian blogger came as a result of a report filed by lawyer Ayman Mahfouz against her, accusing her of offending public modesty, violating family values, and using social networking sites to publish inappropriate content.
Cleansing society with “reports”
This was not the only complaint that Mahfouz filed against a number of influencers on social media, but rather it was one of dozens of complaints that affected a number of actors and singers as part of what Mahfouz called “a campaign to purify society.”
“After 2011, I decided to support the state and its institutions in light of the conspiracy against us,” Mahfouz began his interview with Al-Hurra website, justifying the reasons for submitting this number of complaints against a large number of people. He defended himself by saying, “We are not lawyers, as they say against us, but we seek to implement the law.” .
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Among the most famous victims of “Mahfouz’s Reports,” among the influencers on “Tik Tok,” are the two girls, Mawaddah Al-Adham and Haneen Hossam, who were sentenced in 2021 to imprisonment and a fine on charges of “violating the values of the Egyptian family.” They also include the opposition novelist Alaa Al-Aswany, who was judicially prosecuted in 2019. – Based on Ayman’s report – on charges of “insulting the president.”
Mahfouz’s desire to preserve what he says are “family values” does not stop at persecuting individuals, but also extends to smartphone applications, after he submitted two successive reports demanding that young people be banned from the game “Gatta” on the grounds that it incites young people to attack police headquarters and ban the “Tik Tok” application. “As part of a foreign conspiracy against Egypt, according to his description.
In submitting these reports, the Egyptian lawyer relies on Article 25 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which stipulates that “anyone who knows of the occurrence of a crime for which the Public Prosecution may file a case must inform the Prosecution or one of the judicial police officers about it.”
“Some of these reports are not cared about by the authorities, but they are of interest to the media. In the end, the investigating authorities will not decide to turn the report into a case until they are sure of the truth of the accusations,” Mahfouz explained to Al-Hurra website.
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By relying on this article, Mahfouz sent dozens of judicial warnings to the Musicians and Acting Professions Syndicates to take action against what he considered “crimes” committed by actors and musicians. The most prominent of these was the artist Mohamed Ramadan, whom Mahfouz prosecuted due to the lyrics of one of his songs, which he considered “offensive.”
Mahfouz explains: “If the artist against whom the complaint is made is unknown, he is suspended, but if he is a famous star, Ashraf Zaki, head of the Actors Syndicate, ignores the warnings and then says that he will subject the matter to investigation.”
The Egyptian lawyer does not consider that such actions constitute a threat to freedom of expression and creativity in Egypt, saying that there is a huge difference between freedom of expression and freedom of crime. When the artist Elham Shaheen appears to defend sexual relations without marriage, this is not an opinion, but rather an incitement to immorality and incitement to prostitution.
He explains: “These are the elite of society and people imitate them in their behavior. When the artist Mohamed Ramadan glorifies bullying in films, young people follow his example, so they must abide by the law.”
UNHCR is the solution
“This type of case creates guardianship over society and reminds us of the ancient Hisbah cases, which amounted to excommunicating some people and separating them from their wives,” this is how Egyptian lawyer Intisar Al-Saeed, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Cairo Foundation for Development and Law, began her interview with Al-Hurra TV website.
The year 1994 witnessed a case that greatly preoccupied Egyptian public opinion after the professor of Arts at Cairo University, Nasr Hamid Abu Zeid, presented some of his research on Islamic law to a university committee to consider his application for promotion. Instead, he received an accusation of blasphemy that leaked to the press, and it became a public opinion case that ended with a ruling of blasphemy. Abi Zaid and annulled his marriage to Dr. Ibtihal Abu Zaid.
The Egyptian lawyer does not see any disagreement between what is currently happening in the courts and these cases, stressing that they are “an extension of the state of guardianship over individuals. If I like your opinions, I will disbelieve and imprison you.”
She considered that the main motivation for these practices is the desire of some lawyers to seek fame to attract more clients to their offices. Besides them, there are others who are already convinced that they are playing a role in protecting society by organizing what they called “groups for the promotion of good and the prevention of vice” within Egyptian society.
Intisar Al-Saeed denounced the legal prosecution that Egyptian actress Elham Shaheen was subjected to after she declared that she supports cohabitation (having a sexual relationship before marriage), saying: “Is cohabitation a crime? Where is the crime? Even Egyptian law does not punish consensual relationships. The law punishes sex in exchange for sex.” Wager, this is a bidding even against the law. She said one opinion is contradicted by another opinion, but some choose to bid even against the law.”
The human rights lawyer criticized the widespread legal prosecution of individuals on vague charges such as “demolishing the values of the Egyptian family.” She said: “These values vary from city to city, from family to family, and from one social class to another. How can they be a clear standard?!”
She continues that when actresses at the El Gouna Festival wear sexy clothes, they are not prosecuted, unlike what happens when middle-class girls do the same. So the issue has to do with the social dimension, because the more the girl is from a poor social class, the greater the opportunity to exercise guardianship over her.
Regarding whether Egypt needs to improve the “legislative structure” that allows for the issuance of these rulings, Intisar stressed, “Of course we have the problem of misuse of the laws that allow this type of notification that pursues everything that is different.”
The Egyptian human rights activist considered that this “legislative deficiency” contradicts the constitution, which stipulates the principle of equality between citizens and the duty to protect them from all forms of discrimination and incitement to hatred.
Intisar gave, as an example, the judicial rulings that prosecuted a number of “bloggers,” stressing that they were providing “frivolous” content, but that was no justification for imprisoning them for long years.
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The arrest of a Tik Tok girl after she took a video clip and photos near an archaeological site, while wearing Pharaonic-themed clothing, which was described as “scandalous,” sparked great controversy in Egypt and raised questions about the status of women’s rights in Egypt.
Intisar Al-Saeed considered that the ideal solution to confront this problem is to activate the text of Article 53 of the current constitution, which stipulates the establishment of the Independent Commission to Combat All Forms of Discrimination.
Although 10 years have passed since the adoption of this constitution, this commission has not yet been established, and during the sessions of the national dialogue that President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi called for to be held between the various political and social forces in Egypt from April 2022, the call was renewed to launch this commission, which requires a law issued by the House of Representatives.
Exaggeration by everyone
As for Rasha Sabry, a lawyer specializing in family issues, she condemned both parties during her talk to Al-Hurra website, after she considered that both parties (lawyers and influencers) were seeking to create an “intentional uproar” to draw people’s attention to them and be a “trend.”
Rasha refuses to prosecute celebrities for the opinions they declared to the media, no matter how different they are from the convictions of many people. She explains, “I differentiate between two things: a person who expresses his opinion and is free to do so, and another who tries to mobilize people and persuade them to something that is contrary to religion and the customs of society, but in reality they both receive the same punishment.” “.
The Egyptian lawyer explained that what excites her most about these conflicts are the girls who received prison sentences. She explains, “They do not have much experience, and they were not raised in environments where societal values are deeply rooted. I expect a fine to be imposed on them and we put them in correctional programs, but imprisoning a girl at the age of 17 “It’s difficult.”
After Haneen Hosam.. the Egyptian “Tik Tok girl” was arrested for “inciting immorality”
After the Egyptian student Haneen Hossam was arrested for posting video clips deemed “offensive,” the Egyptian authorities arrested another girl in a suburb of Cairo on Thursday evening for similar reasons.
