CAIRO — Rida al-Fouly, also called Salma, is known for her video clip "Sib Idi" ("Let Go of my Hand"). Suha Muhammad Ali, known as Egypt's Shakira, has a famous video clip called "Al-Kamoun" ("Cumin"), and Dalia Kamal Youssef, whose stage name is Radis, is the dancer in "Ya Wad ya Tqil" ("You Cold-Hearted Man"). On June 2, lawyers Mohammed al-Nimr filed charges with the general prosecutor's office against the three Egyptian dancers for incitement, immorality and indecency, crimes punishable by three months to more than three years in prison, according to Article 9 of Law No. 10/1961 on the Combating of Prostitution.

It all started March 25, when forces from the General Directorate for the Investigation of the Arts arrested Fouly on charges of incitement, immorality and indecency. The video clip’s producer, Wael Sadiqi, who holds Egyptian and US nationalities, fled to Tunisia then to the United States. He had lived there for 17 years from 1996 to 2013 and had done a series of documentaries in 2014 under the name of “Let Me Show You Egypt,” to promote Egyptian tourism. The film, dubbed in English, French and Arabic, was donated to the Egyptian state broadcaster.

On June 28, the Agouza Misdemeanors Court sentenced Fouly and Sadiqi to one year in prison. Fouly appealed the decision and on July 26 had her sentence reduced by the Agouza Appeals Court to six months in prison with labor.

On March 30, Sadiqi posted a YouTube message addressed to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in which he recognized that his clip was vulgar. But he said that he had made it in response to the vulgarism in Egyptian cinema. Sadiqi said that he has completed 155 works of art and that no one paid him any attention because producers only want to make vulgar works.