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Saturday 1 November 2014
Egypt jails eight men for 'gay wedding' video
Men jailed for three years for broadcasting
images "violating public decency" in video said to
show gay marriage event.
An Egyptian court has sentenced eight men to
three years in jail on charges of spreading
indecent images through a video purporting to
show the country's first gay marriage ceremony.
The video, filmed aboard a Nile riverboat, shows
what prosecutors said was a gay wedding, with
two men in the centre kissing, exchanging rings
and cutting a cake with their picture on it.
The court also sentenced the eight men to three
years of probation once they have served their
terms.
One of the defendants, prior to their detention,
told a television talk show that the video was
recorded during a birthday party.
The arrests were the latest in a string of highly
publicised police raids on suspected gay people in
the country, prompting a US-based social
networking application used by gays to urge
caution to users in Egypt.
Homosexuality is not specifically banned under
Egyptian law, so the men, arrested in September,
were convicted of broadcasting images that
"violated public decency."
A statement from the office of Egypt's
chief prosecutor in September said the video clip
was "shameful to God" and "offensive to public
morals".
Uproar
The sentence was met with uproar from the
families of the defendants, who demonstrated
outside the court in central Cairo and were
cleared away from the area by police.
The defendants, who had denied the charges,
stood silent in the court room cage as the verdict
was read, one of them holding up a copy of the
Quran.
One defence lawyer, Emad Sobhi, insisted that the
court had caved in to popular pressure in the
country.
"My clients are innocent of practicing
homosexuality," he told the AFP news agency.
"The court succumbed to public opinion."
In the past, homosexuals have been jailed on
charges ranging from "scorning religion" to
"sexual practices contrary to Islam," the country's
dominant religion.
In April, a court sentenced four men to up to eight
years in prison for practicing homosexuality.
Prosecutors had accused them of holding
"deviant parties" and dressing in women's
clothes. Three were sentenced to eight years and
the fourth to three years in prison.
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