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Egypt court jails eight men for three years over alleged 'gay marriage' video [Al-Akhbar (Lebanon)](Al-Akhbar (Lebanon) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Updated at 2:20 pm (GMT +2): An Egyptian court jailed eight men for three years on Saturday over a video prosecutors claimed was of a gay wedding, which went viral on the Internet. Homosexuality is not specifically banned under Egyptian law, so the men, arrested in September, were charged with "inciting debauchery and offending public morality." The court also sentenced the eight to three years of probation once they have served their terms. The video, filmed aboard a Nile river boat, shows what prosecutors said was a gay wedding ceremony, with two men in the center kissing, exchanging rings and cutting a cake with their picture on it. The video went viral on social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. One of the defendants, prior to their arrest, told a television talk show that the video was recorded during a birthday party. After the verdict, the defense again denied that the men were gay, as their relatives outside the court room yelled out in protest: "our sons are being oppressed." The relatives were kept outside the court room to protect the journalists inside. Several of them had tried to assault journalists in past hearings, saying they did not want further "scandal." One defense attorney, Emad Sobhi, insisted that the court had caved in to popular pressure in the conservative country. "My clients are innocent of practicing homosexuality," he told AFP. "The court succumbed to public opinion." At the last hearing, on October 11, a spokesman for the justice ministry's forensics department insisted the men were innocent. "The medical test showed that the eight defendants have not practiced homosexuality recently or in the past," Hisham Abdel Hamed told AFP. "The entire case is made up and lacks basis. The police did not arrest them red-handed and the video does not prove anything." He was referring to anal examinations, a long-standing practice in Egypt that New York-based Human Rights Watch has condemned. HRW has demanded that the men be released. The arrests were the latest in a string of highly publicized police raids on suspected gays in the country, prompting a US-based social networking application used by gays to urge caution to users in Egypt. Known as Grindr, it warned that Egyptian police, who had said they planned to monitor social networking sites, could be using it to entrap gays. In the past, Egyptian homosexuals have been jailed on charges ranging from "scorning religion" to "sexual practices contrary to Islam," the country's majority 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. (AFP, Al-Akhbar) (c) 2014 Al-Akhbar. All rights reserved Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info). |