Egyptian TV presenter, Mohamed Al-Gheity sentenced one year jail after interviewing gay man after being accused of promoting debauchery and homosexuality.
A television host in Egypt has been sentenced to one year of ‘hard labor’ in jail after interviewing a gay man on a privately owned TV network.
Mohammed el-Gheiti was fined 3,000 Egyptian pounds ($167USD) for ‘promoting debauchery and homosexuality’ on his LTC TV show ‘Wake Up’ in an August 2018 episode, according to Egypt’s state-run news agency Al-Ahram.
The TV personality was also accused of ‘contempt of religion’.
In addition to the jail sentence and fine, Gheiti is to remain under surveillance for 12 months after serving his prison term.
Gheiti has the legal right to appeal the ruling and will remain free pending the final verdict, according to The Telegraph. The sentence can be suspended pending an appeal if Gheiti pays 1,000 Egyptian pounds ($56) in bail, prosecuting lawyer Samir Sabry said, according to the BBC.
Sabry’s legal team argued that the show discussed the financial gains and other benefits of engaging in homosexuality, Al-Ahram reports.
Gheiti’s sentencing follows the TV presenter previously speaking out against homosexuality prior to the lawsuit, according to CNN.
The August 2018 interview featured a journalist named Mustafa Mekki, who said he posed as a gay man on the gay dating app Grindr with the goal of learning more about the Egyptian gay community.
During the interview, Mekki told Gheiti, ‘Many of the men I met through the application are unhappy with what they’ve involved themselves in and want to change their situation.’
The anonymous guest on ‘Wake Up’ was one of the men Mekki met on the app, who talked on the show about his life as a sex worker.
The guest’s face was blurred out during the interview to conceal his identity.
The man said he was motivated to share his experience as a way to warn other young Egyptians to not repeat his mistakes, ABC News reports.
Lead Egyptian prosecutor: ‘People fear me’.
Immediately after the show’s airing, Egypt’s top media body, the Supreme Council for Media Regulation, took the channel off the air for two weeks, claiming LTC TV had committed ‘professional violations’.
In a statement at the time, the council said the LTC TV had violated its decision ‘banning the appearance of homosexuals or promotion of their slogans’.
The council banned the appearance of homosexuals on any outlet after a rainbow flag – symbolic of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community – was waved during a Cairo concert in 2017.
At the time, the authorities launched a large-scale crackdown on suspected homosexuals, triggering condemnation from right groups.
A regard of the lead prosecutor’s public records reveal Samir Sabry having filed over 2,700 criminal complaints against celebrities and media personalities in a bid to influence Egyptian politics and enforce public morality.
‘Egyptian art is in its worst state ever at the moment,’ the Cairo prosecutor told the nytimes in a June 2018 profile. ‘They are relying on nudity, swear words, drugs and thuggery, and are showing our Egyptian women as whores. We have to stop them,’ adding, ‘People fear me.’
In 2017, Egypt’s media council banned homosexuals from appearing on any media outlet, according to the BBC.
Homosexuality is not technically illegal in the country, however LGBT individuals are regularly subjected to arrest on charges of debauchery, immorality, prostitution and pornography.
Yet to be made clear is whether Gheiti will seek to appeal his sentence.
