Egypt’s Ministry of Interior announced on Thursday, September 1, that police arrested a man who leaked a woman’s intimate videos on Facebook after she rejected his marriage proposal.
The police identified the man, who worked in Helwan’s police department, after investigating the leaked video, which was a recorded private video call between the defendant and the victim.
After the arrest, he confessed that he published the video as a revenge tactic to defame the woman he was in a relationship with and her family.
He added that her family refused his marriage proposal and that her cousin lured him to his home, assaulted him, and photographed him without clothes to force him to leave their family alone. The victim’s cousin was later arrested and confessed to committing the crime.
Egyptian Law: Personal Data and Blackmail
In mid-August 2018, Egypt enacted for the first time a new anti-cybercrime law that regulates internet activities. It covers a range of crimes, such as offenses against confidentiality, the integrity and availability of computer data, computer-related offenses, offenses related to infringements of privacy, and content-related offenses, such as immoral content, as well as such threatening national security.
According to the Egyptian Criminal Code, Article 309, it is illegal to take photos of individuals in a private place, tap into a private phone conversation, or blackmail individuals by threatening to release information. The violation of privacy without the consent of the victim could lead up to one year in prison, while the threat of blackmail increases the prison sentence to five years.
In May of this year, Egypt’s Criminal Court in Tanta sentenced three men on Tuesday, 10 May to 15 years in jail, and two others to five years in jail for blackmailing an Egyptian girl, Basant Khaled, with explicit images.
The five men are charged with several crimes, including blackmailing a minor with explicit images, invasion of privacy, cyber extortion, human trafficking by publishing the explicit images with the intent of forcing her to engage in ‘immoral acts’, and sexual assault.
Comments (3)
[…] In a similar case in June, Mohamed Adel stabbed college student Nayera Ashraf to death in nearby Mansoura. A video of the attack was widely shared on social media. […]
[…] In a similar case in June, Mohamed Adel stabbed college student Nayera Ashraf to death in nearby Mansoura. A video of the attack was widely shared on social media. […]