Cairo: An Egyptian author will be retried in a Cairo court for publishing sexually explicit material and could face jail time.
Writer Ahmed Naji and Tarek el-Taher, the editor-in-chief of Egypt’s top literary magazine, are due back in court next month. They were acquitted less than two weeks ago.
Their lawyer, Mahmoud Othman, says Naji faces up to two years in prison and a fine of up to 10,000 Egyptian pounds (USD 1,245) if found guilty of violating a law against publishing material deemed contrary to public morals.
The prosecution took up the case after an individual filed a lawsuit claiming he was harmed by an excerpt of Naji’s novel, “The Use of Life,” which was published in el-Taher’s Akhbar al-Adab magazine in August 2014.