Adel Imam -- who has been described as the ‘Al Pacino of Egypt’ owing to his popularity in the country -- has already been found guilty in a private prosecution brought by an ultra-conservative Muslim lawyer, according to a report in The Independent newspaper in the UK.

Court protest

Mr Imam has since been granted a retrial, but film industry insiders are pessimistic over his chances and gathered outside of a Cairo court today in protest. And the verdict and sentence will stoke fears in the west that the ‘Arab spring’ will be a springboard for radical Islamists in Egypt and elsewhere in the region.
Film critic Ahmed el-Gazer said: ‘It’s very difficult for the Egyptian film industry when the courts are supporting these prosecutions.
Producer and studio owner Mohammed al-Adl commented: ‘I see it as the Islamists trying to stab us in the back. They went for the biggest Egyptian actor so that other artists will get scared.’

Poking fun

Mr Imam, a comedian who has been in the spotlight since the 1960s, came under scrutiny for films such as ‘The Terrorist’ in which he played a wanted radical, and ‘Morgan Ahmed Morgan’, which includes a scene poking fun at Muslims.
The incident has brought the so-called ‘hisba’ cases –a branch of Islamic law -- to the fore, as private individuals are allowed to initiate legal proceedings, often on religious grounds.
At the original trial, the actor was sentenced to three months in prison and fined £105.