Egypt has incarcerated eight men after they were allegedly seen in a video attending a gay wedding celebration, part of the north African nation's crackdown on public homosexuality.
Each man was sentenced to three years in prison for the video that Egypt's chief prosecutor denounced as "shameful to God" and "offensive to public morals," the Associated Press reported. In the video, two men are shown giving each other rings while surrounded by friends on a boat on the Nile.
The defendants, arrested in September, said they were not gay and claimed the video was not what it appeared to be, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
But they were convicted anyway for "inciting debauchery."
Though being gay is not illegal in Egypt, the country's "debauchery" laws have been enforced when acts of homosexuality are caught in public. LGBT groups have previously accused Egyptian police of using dating apps like Grindr to find and persecute gay people.
"Egypt's government, evidently not satisfied in jailing opposition members, students and human rights activists, has found the time to persecute (gays,)" said Graeme Reid, director of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights for the group Human Rights Watch, the AP reported.
Other experts say intolerance against gays, atheists and democracy supporters has increased ever since President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi came to power after ousting the previous Muslim Brotherhood. The arrests are his attempt to "show that he's just as conservative as they are," noted one BBC analyst.
The jailed men will be able to appeal their conviction, according to the AJC.
