A performer, a parasite and the prickliness of Egypt’s courts

AFTER centuries of abuse, the Nile river will finally get its day in court. At a concert in the United Arab Emirates, a fan asked Sherine Abdel-Wahab to perform her patriotic song “Mashrebtesh Min Nilha?” (“Haven’t You Drunk From the Nile?”). The Egyptian chanteuse replied with a joke about the notoriously polluted river: “You’ll get bilharzia [a disease caused by parasitic worms] if you do.” Better to drink Evian, she said. It was sound advice. Though the government insists that the water is safe, people are often poisoned by it. But her comments sickened a lawyer called Hany Gad, who sued Ms Wahab for insulting Egypt. She will stand trial in December.

In many countries this case would be laughed out of court. No one has standing to sue on behalf of a resentful river. But in Egypt judges are often eager to restrict free speech and promote a paranoid strain of nationalism. In 2014 they investigated a puppet after someone took issue with a holiday advertisement for Vodafone featuring Abla Fahita, a popular children’s character (pictured). The claimant said the ad was a coded plan for a terrorist attack. The Christmas lights in the background were allegedly wires for a bomb; a reference to a shopping mall identified the target. His lawsuit was eventually dismissed, but not before Vodafone executives were questioned.

Egyptians are famous for their irreverent sense of humour. But the courts seem to lack one. The daughter of the late president, Anwar Sadat, sued the information ministry in 2009 over the Hollywood film “I Love You, Man”, which featured a dog named after the slain leader. She said the romantic comedy insulted both her father and Egypt, and demanded its removal from cinemas. Adel Imam, Egypt’s most successful actor, was convicted of “insulting Islam” in 2012 for his portrayals of fundamentalists in several films. In the same case, he was accused of offending Islamic beards. (The conviction was later overturned.) Naguib Sawiris, a telecoms mogul, faced a similar (unsuccessful) prosecution for tweeting an image of Minnie Mouse in a niqab.

Such cases still abound under Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi’s ostensibly secular regime. One blogger was charged for claiming that one-third of Egyptian women cheat on their husbands. A novelist was jailed for racy prose that gave a reader “palpitations”. In September Egypt chose the film “Sheikh Jackson” as its foreign-language submission for the Oscars. Two months later the drama’s lead actor was sued for contempt of religion over his portrayal of a cleric. Even poor Abla Fahita found herself back in court in 2016, this time for holding a copy of “Fifty Shades of Grey” in an ad and thus spreading “sexual innuendo”.

Ms Wahab has apologised and promised to avoid such “naive mistakes” in the future. But she has already been barred from performing in her native country. Egyptians often tell visitors that anyone who drinks from the Nile is destined to return. It seems the opposite is also true.