CAIRO: al-Agouza criminal court acquitted Egyptian actor Adel Imam and director Sherif Arafah, screen writer Lenin al-Ramley, director Nader Galal and Mohamed Fadel in the case of insulting Islam in films they had made over a decade ago. This, in its session on Thursday. Two days ago, the sentence against them was upheld on appeal, when a court handed Imam a three month hard labor jail sentence, and fine of about $170. The court today, however, ruled that no crime exists, and that therefore, the previous verdict is null and void. Family and friends of the artists cheered the sentence and welcomed it with screams and chants, according to reports from inside the courthouse. “The sentence against Adel Imam for creative work he has done is intellectual terrorism,” said the Association of Freedom of Thought and Expression in a statement released shortly after the team was acquitted. “[The sentence that was over-ruled] is a warning to the creative community. Beware, ideas can lead to prisons,” it added. The films in question include “The Terrorist,” “Terrorism and the Kabab,” among others. The impetus behind this, and another case featuring the founder of Mobilnil telecom, Naguib Sawiris (who tweeted an image Mickey Mouse with a beard and Minnie in a face veil), are indicative of the growing draconian influence of the ultra-conservative Salafists in Egypt. The Salafist Nour party won 25 percent of seats in Egypt's first democratically elected parliament, emerging as the second political party in Egypt, after the comparatively moderate Muslim Brotherhood's political wing, the Freedom and Justice Party. One Salafist MP Mamdouh Ismail, interrupted the inaugural session of parliament by shouting the call to prayer, which did not go over well. Sawiris was acquitted by two courts of his charge of blasphemy. Imam, it seems, also dodged a bullet. Imam, 71 years-old – and with a career that spans nearly half-a-century of cinematic portrayals – was found guilty of blasphemy in February. Under the decades-long rule of military strong-man Hosni Mubarak, government censors controlled cinema. The films Imam had starred in were approved by those censors.
