Cairo appeals court reduced on Saturday the sentence of 8 men, accused of “debauchery”, to one-year in prison instead of the three-years they were given in November.
The men convicted were shown in a video appearing to take part in a Nile boat wedding celebration featuring two men as the celebrants.
The video went viral on social media sites.
In early September, a man who said he was one of those who appeared in the video denied the allegations in an interview with privately-owned Rotana Masriya television channel. He said he was holding a birthday party for his friend and got him a silver ring as a birthday gift.
Consensual same-sex relations are not explicitly prohibited in Egypt, but other laws have been used to imprison gay men in recent years, including charges “debauchery” or “shameless public acts.”
In September, Egypt’s forensics authority announced that the defendants had undergone physical inspections and were found to be “not gay.”
In a different case in September, an Egyptian court sentenced six allegedly homosexual men to two years in jail with labour for the same charges of “committing debauchery.”
The six men were arrested during a raid on an apartment.
Source: Ahram Online
