An Egyptian TV presenter has been sentenced to one year of hard labour for interviewing a gay man last year.<\/p>\n
A court in Giza also fined Mohamed al-Ghiety 3,000 Egyptian pounds ($167; \u00a3130) for “promoting homosexuality” on his privately owned LTC TV channel.<\/p>\n
The gay man, whose identity was hidden, had talked about life as a sex worker.<\/p>\n
Homosexuality is not explicitly criminalised in Egypt, however, the authorities have been increasingly cracking down on the LGBT community.<\/p>\n
They routinely arrest people suspected of engaging in consensual homosexual conduct on charges of “debauchery”, immorality or blasphemy.<\/p>\n
The most recent case came about after lawyer Samir Sabry, who is well known in Egypt for taking celebrities to court, filed a lawsuit against Ghiety for his interview which took place in August 2018.<\/p>\n
The TV host, who has voiced homophobic views on a number of occasions, spoke to a gay man who expressed regret over his sexuality and described life as a prostitute. The man’s face had been blurred to conceal his identity.<\/p>\n
Egypt’s top media body, the Supreme Council for Media Regulation, immediately took the channel off air for two weeks, citing “professional violations”.<\/p>\n
The prosecuting lawyer, Mr Sabry, accused the TV host of revealing there to be financial gains of “practising homosexuality”, state-owned al-Ahram newspaper reports.<\/p>\n
In addition to the jail term and fine, the misdemeanours court also ordered Ghiety to be put under surveillance for one year after serving his sentence, Mr Sabry said.<\/p>\n
The verdict could be appealed against and suspended if Ghiety paid bail of 1,000 Egyptian pounds, pending the appeal’s outcome, he added.<\/p>\n
Egypt’s media council banned homosexuals from appearing on any media outlet after a rainbow flag was raised at a concert in Cairo in 2017, in a rare public show of support for the LGBT community in the conservative, mainly Muslim country.<\/p>\n
A crackdown was also launched on suspected homosexuals<\/a>\u00a0with dozens of people arrested, in a move decried by human rights groups.<\/p>\n The authorities rely on a 1961 prostitution law that criminalises “habitual debauchery” to charge people who they suspect of engaging in consensual homosexual conduct.<\/p>\n Mr Sabry was also\u00a0the lawyer who filed a case against Egyptian actress Rania Youssef<\/a>\u00a0on charges of “inciting debauchery” over a see-through outfit she wore at an awards ceremony last year. He later dropped the case after Ms Youssef apologised.<\/p>\n He has filed hundreds of similar cases in recent years.<\/p>\n Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"