CAIRO, Egypt: A court in Cairo on Tuesday sentenced an Egyptian pop singer to two years in prison for “inciting debauchery” over a racy music video clip, a judicial source said.
Shyma, a little-known 21-year-old singer, was also fined 10,000 pounds ($560).
The director of the clip, Mohamed Gamal, received the same sentence. Both can appeal the ruling.
Shyma was arrested on November 18, police said, following complaints about the video for her song “I Have Issues.”
In the video, she appears in a mock classroom licking an apple and appearing to mimic fellatio on a banana in front of a chalkboard scrawled with “Class #69.”
“Singer Shyma presents a lesson in depravity to youths,” said the Youm 7 newspaper in an article after the video was released.
In a Facebook post at the time, Shyma apologized for the video and said she had not anticipated the backlash.
“I didn’t imagine all this would happen and that I would be subjected to such a strong attack from everyone, as a young singer... who has dreamt from a young age of being a singer,” she wrote.
The authorities have cracked down on some artists in Egypt using wide-ranging morality laws.
In 2015, a court jailed a female dancer to a year in prison for “inciting debauchery” in a raunchy music video for a song called “Let Go of My Hand.”
Egyptian singer jailed over video inciting debauchery
Egyptian singer jailed over video inciting debauchery
Two Tunisia columnists handed over three years in prison
- Mourad Zeghidi and Borhen Bsaies have already been in detention for almost two years
- They were due to be released in January 2025 but have remained in custody on charges of money laundering
TUNIS: Two prominent Tunisian columnists were sentenced on Thursday to three and a half years in prison each for money laundering and tax evasion, according to a relative and local media.
The two men, Mourad Zeghidi and Borhen Bsaies, have already been in detention for almost two years for statements considered critical of President Kais Saied’s government, made on radio, television programs and social media.
They were due to be released in January 2025 but have remained in custody on charges of money laundering and tax evasion.
“Three and a half years for Mourad and Borhen,” Zeghidi’s sister, Meriem Zeghidi Adda, wrote on Facebook on Thursday.
Since Saied’s power grab, which granted him sweeping powers on July 25, 2021, local and international NGOs have denounced a regression of rights and freedoms in Tunisia.
Dozens of opposition figures and civil society activists are being prosecuted under a presidential decree officially aimed at combatting “fake news” but subject to a very broad interpretation denounced by human rights defenders.
Others, including opposition leaders, have been sentenced to heavy prison terms in a mega-trial of “conspiracy against state security.”
In 2025, Tunisia fell 11 places in media watchdog Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF) World Press Freedom Index, dropping from 118th to 129th out of 180 countries.
