Old Cairo Misdemeanor Court canceled on Tuesday a ruling issued against host Mona Iraqi sentencing her to six months in prison and LE10,000 bail over charges of defamation and broadcasting false news.
Iraqi was acquitted of charges of defamation and spreading false news for her controversial filming of a bathhouse raid in December 2014.
Iraqi received wide-spread criticism for cooperating with police to raid a bathhouse near Ramses neighborhood in Cairo, accusing the 26 men inside of “debauchery”, a blanket legal term for homosexual activity. As the naked men were being escorted out of the bathhouse by the police, Iraqi filmed the incident for her undercover TV program “Al-Mostakhbai”.
Iraqi spun the episode as a public safety campaign in conjunction with World AIDS Day to help protect Egypt by ridding it of places like the bathhouse, which she called a “den for spreading AIDS”.
The group of men were then forced to undergo anal exams by the Forensic Authority to provide evidence of their homosexual activity. The exams were used as evidence in court and the men were later declared innocent on January 12, 2015. They filed a lawsuit against Iraqi later that accused her of defamation and spreading false news.
