A 25-year old singer in Egypt has reportedly been jailed for two years after she appeared in a music video eating a banana in what the court deemed a suggestive manner.
Shaimaa Ahmed, known professionally simply as Shyma, was arrested last month after the video sparked outrage in the conservative Muslim country. On Tuesday, a court found her guilty of “inciting debauchery” and publishing an indecent film, the BBC reported.
The video’s director also got two years in jail.
Before she was arrested, Shyma apologized to anyone who thought that during her video for the song, “I Have Issues,” she acted “in an inappropriate way.”
“I didn’t imagine all this would happen and that I would be subjected to such a strong attack from everyone,” she wrote on her now-deleted Facebook page.
It was unclear whether the way she ate an apple and a taco in the video (below) had any bearing on her sentence.
This isn’t the first time an Egyptian court has punished women for what they consider indecent performances. Last year, a court sentenced three female dancers to six months each in prison after convicting them of inciting debauchery in music videos.
“Another singer is meanwhile facing trial for spreading provocative publicity because she suggested that drinking from the River Nile could make someone ill,” the BBC reported.