An Egyptian actress is to face trial for appearing at a film festival wearing a revealing dress.
Rania Youssef was charged with inciting “immorality and promoting vice”, after a group of lawyers made a complaint to the country’s chief prosecutor.
The 44-year-old appeared at Cairo Film Festival on Thursday wearing a black leotard covered by a see-through overdress with criss-cross detailing and a large bow belt.
Three lawyers accused her of committing an obscene act in public, “inciting debauchery and temptation”, and “spreading vice in ways that violate established norms in Egyptian society.”
The pictures of the star, who is known for her role in a number of popular Egyptian TV series, left social media users divided, with some calling her names and other defending her right to wear what she wants.
AFP
“This dress and design is called ‘I forgot my trousers while going to be honoured,” wrote one Twitter user.
Another Twitter user writing under the name Zakaria MJ frowned at the criticism.
“Rania Youssef is looking gorgeous,” he wrote in a message in English. “I don’t get why everybody is mad at her.”
Ms Youssef had just finished shooting for the film "Aswar Aaliya" (High Fences), in which she plays the role of a famous artist who is sent to prison.
She will be tried on January 12 in a court in Cairo, where she faces up to five years if convicted.
Ms Youssef’s arrest is the latest in a long line of cases of Egyptians falling foul of the country’s more religious elements.
Egypt is a mostly conservative country with a Muslim majority. The Arab country has retained vestiges of secularism despite decades of growing religious conservatism, but Ms Youssef’s case serves as a reminder that Islamic fundamentalism still pervades society five years after an Islamist president was ousted by the military.
An Egyptian court last year sentenced little-known singer Shyma to two years for inciting debauchery, after she appeared in a music video in her underwear suggestively eating a banana.
In 2016, author Ahmed Naji was handed a two-year prison sentence after being charged with obscenity for publishing a book with references to sex and drugs.
Prosecutors said he "violated public modesty" with his novel The Use Of Life but was soon released and his sentence was suspended following an appeal to a Cairo court.