Court rejects motion to overturn Egyptian novelist Ahmed Naji’s 2-year sentence

A Cairo court on Sunday ruled against a request to overturn the two year prison sentence handed down to novelist Ahmed Naji for publishing a “sexually explicit” novel.

The misdemeanour court stated in its reasoning that Naji did violate public decency by using “explicitly obscene phrases and words” in the novel’s chapters.

The court added that the novelist did not denying writing the novel.

Naji was sentenced to two years in prison in February over charges of violating public decency after excerpts of his novel The Use of Life were published in a literary magazine in 2014.

Naji had been acquitted in January but the prosecution appealed the verdict and he was sentenced in a retrial.

The case was brought against him by an individual who claimed to have experienced health issues after reading the excerpt.

Naji’s defence team have filed an appeal before the cassation court against the two year sentence, but the appeal has not yet been scheduled.

Egyptian novelists and intellectuals declared their support to Nagy, demanding his releasing and stating that his prison sentence is unconstitutional.