An Egyptian appeals court today ordered the jailing of author Ahmed Naji for two years for publishing in a literary magazine a sexually explicit excerpt of his novel that prosecutors said violated public morals.
Mahmoud Othman, a lawyer representing Naji, said the court also ordered the editor-in-chief of Egypt's top literary magazine, Tarek el-Taher, to pay a 10,000-Egyptian pound (USD 1,277) fine.
The trial stems from a complaint filed by a private citizen after Akhbar al-Adab magazine published an excerpt from Naji's novel, "The Use of Life," in August 2014. The excerpt contains explicit sex acts and references to habitual drug use by the characters.
Naji was initially acquitted, but prosecutors appealed the verdict, and in the latest ruling he received the maximum legal penalty.
