Mona el-Mazboh has been sentenced to eight years in jail in Egypt after she posted a video on social media claiming she was sexually harassed
A Lebanese holidaymaker who was arrested for calling Egypt a ‘son of a b***h country’ during a Facebook video has been sentenced to eight years in jail.
Mona el-Mazboh was arrested at Cairo airport at the end of her stay in Egypt last month after sharing a 10-minute video about her experiences there which had gone viral.
The 24-year-old complained of being sexually harassed by taxi drivers and young men in the street, as well as poor restaurant service during the holy month of Ramadan.
She also claimed money was stolen in an incident from her during a previous stay.
A Cairo court found her guilty of deliberately spreading false rumours that would harm society, attacking religion, and public indecency, judicial sources told Reuters.
An appeal court will now hear the case on July 29, according to Mazboh’s lawyer.
The 24-year-old holidaymaker, from Lebanon, made a series of insults in the clip that was widely shared on Facebook, prompting her arrest
‘God willing, the verdict will change. With all due respect to the judiciary, this is a severe ruling,’ said Emad Kamal.
‘It is in the context of the law, but the court was applying the maximum penalty.’
Kamal said a surgery Mazboh underwent in 2006 to remove a brain clot has impaired her ability to control anger, a condition documented in a medical report he submitted to the court.
She also suffers from depression, he said.
In the video, Mazboh labelled Egyptians the ‘dirtiest people on earth’ and a ‘country of pimps… the country of beggars.’
She also lashed out at the state for the prevalence of widespread begging and and spoke of an incident in which money was stolen from her during a previous stay.
She took aim at President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who was sworn in for a second term as president in June, by saying: ‘You deserve what Sisi is doing to you, I hope God sends you someone more oppressive than Sisi.’
Mazboh later posted a second video apologising to ‘respectable Egyptians’ for her remarks.
Egyptian rights activists say they face the worst crackdown in their history under Sisi, accusing him of erasing freedoms won in the 2011 Arab Spring uprising that ended Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule.