Cairo: An Egyptian court on Sunday accepted appeals filed by a female singer and a male colleague and commuted jail sentences handed to them on charges of inciting debauchery in a high-profile case.
The Cairo Appeals Court reduced jail terms from one year to six and three months for singer Reda Al Fouly and cameraman Rezq Ahmad respectively.
Last month, a lower court convicted the two for participating in a steamy music video that went viral on the Internet. A third defendant, Wael Sedik, who was tried in absentia, was sentenced to one year in prison.
The court Sunday did not look into the verdict against Sedik, an Egyptian man who also holds US citizenship, because he is still fugitive and did not file an appeal.
Sedik, allegedly Al Fouley’s boyfriend, appeared with her in the video titled “Seeb Eddi”, Arabic for “let my hands go”.
Sedik left Egypt after the video caused an outrage in the conservative country.
In the video, the singer dances in low-cut tops and short skirts, shaking her breasts to the camera as she tells the story of a woman being groped on a public bus.
The video was condemned on social media and local TV stations as teeming with sexual innuendo.
Meanwhile, prosecutors extended for 15 more days the jailing of two belly dancers pending further investigations into alleged debauchery. The dancers, known as Bardis and the Egyptian Shakira, were arrested last week after they performed in videos denounced as immoral. Inciting debauchery is an offence in Egypt punishable by up to one year in jail.
