The Bulaq Criminal Court acquitted Novelist Ahmed Nagy and journalist Tarek El-Taher on Saturday of charges of publishing and writing an article with "obscene sexual content", state media reported. The novelist had published a chapter of his novel "The Use of Life" in Akhbar Al-Adab, a literary journal affiliated with Akhbar Al-Youm, after it had already been published by Dar El-Tanweer publishing house. After Nagy's referral to court last November, several NGOs criticised the vagueness of the legislators in drafting constitutional provisions, and the vagueness of legal terms such as "violating the sanctity of public morals", questioning what constitutes "public morals". In several statements and a conference, journalists, intellectuals, and public figures called for solidarity with Nagy and other writers and scholars who had been legally prosecuted due to the content of their writing. Recently, a controversial verdict was issued sentencing the scholar Islam El-Beheiry to one year in prison on charges of contempt of religion.
