Cairo: A video from an Egyptian mother-from-three dancing who became viral online pushed her husband to divorce her and her employer to dismiss her had revived a fierce debate over women’s rights.
Aya Youssef’s short cellphone video, a 30-year-old elementary school teacher, showed him wearing a headscarf, trousers, and top long arms as he danced beside the colleague, smiling when he enjoyed the river cruise in the Nile.
But the video, which has been broadly distributed on social media because posted earlier this month, has divided the opinion.
Some critics accused him of violating the conservative values ​​of Muslim communities mostly – while others stand firmly with solidarity.
In recent years, Egypt has witnessed several cases where women have experienced a defamation campaign in social media, stirring the demands of anger for those responsible for taking into account.
It comes as a group of rights warn of crackdown on freedom in North African countries that are increasingly conservative since President Abdel Fattah al-Side serves in 2014.
Youssef, in a recent interview with a private TV channel, said he had been “happy “On the way and that the movement is” spontaneous “.
Other colleagues danced beside him on the boat in the sun, some waved in the air.
“We all dance,” he said.
But after the video was distributed online, some who watched giving a scathing comment about what they saw as “inappropriate” behavior.
One Twitter user, al-Qalyubi jihad, said the teacher’s actions were “embarrassing”.
Others, Ahmed Al-Beheiry, said he “could not understand how a married woman would dance in this way Lewd”.
But in a country where 90 percent of women aged between 18 and 39 reported being harassed in 2019, according to a survey by the Arab Barometer Research Network – the others supported.
After the video became Viral, the Ministry of Egypt in the Dakahlia region – Northeast Cairo – Referring to the teacher to the Disciplinary Committee, where he was fired from his work in Mansoura City.
In the middle of the next open, he was this week restored.
Nihad Abu Al-Qumsan, Head of downtown Egypt for women’s rights, defend the teacher and offered him a job.
“We will ask the court about the rules of the right dance – so that all women will adjust to the right rules if they dance in the marriage of their brothers or their sons, or on a birthday,” Qumsan said with sarcastic.
The fact that Youssef’s husband also divorced him after watching a video pushing an angry reaction from the popular Egyptian actress of Sumaya Al-Khashab, said it showed a double standard.
“Why doesn’t men take their wives back?” Khashab asked.
“There are so many women who support their people when they even go to prison, for example, or don’t leave their husbands when their condition worsens,” he added.
Youssef told the Egyptian Al-Watan newspaper that he did not know who had published a video online, but vowed legal action to get those who “slandered and destroyed his house”.
This is not the first embarrassing case online to trigger anger in Egypt.
Two young men were arrested this week after a 17-year-old daughter committed suicide last month.
He swallowed poison after he allegedly extorted with a photo that was changed digitally after he reportedly refused to cheat with them.
And in July 2021, a Cairo court sentenced two women to six and 10 years in prison for “breaking public morals” after they published a video in Tiktok’s social media channels.
They included a dozen social media “influencer” arrested by 2020 for “attacking community values” in Egypt.
Opinion shifts; Egypt has long been considered a place for the birth of a stomach dance, but some stomach dancers and pop singers have been targeted in recent years rather than online content that is considered too excited or suggestive.
Egypt has seen the homegrown dancers’ community shrink, mostly caused by increasing professional fame because the country became more conservative for the last half century – and for silver from widespread freedom.