Egypt – An Egyptian singer is in detention facing “debauchery” charges after she appeared in a music video in her underwear while suggestively eating a banana, the BBC reports.
Shaimaa Ahmed, a 25-year-old known professionally as Shyma, was arrested by Egyptian police on Saturday on suspicion of "inciting debauchery". On Monday, the prosecution extended her detention for a week.
Ahmed's incarceration followed moral concerns in the conservative North African country following the release of her video 'I Have Issues’.
The video includes the singer in a classroom with several young men, standing in front of a blackboard with ‘Class #69’ on it, before she begins to eat fruit in a suggestive manner.
"I didn't imagine all this would happen and that I would be subjected to such a strong attack from everyone," she wrote apologetically on her now-deleted Facebook page.
The public prosecutor has also issued arrest warrants for the directors of the video.
Three female dancers were sentenced to six months imprisonment each last year after they were convicted of inciting debauchery in music videos.
An Egyptian TV presenter, Doaa Saleh, was sentenced to three years in jail at the beginning of November after she discussed ways of becoming pregnant outside a conventional marriage.
Saleh was charged and convicted of outraging public decency when she asked if her viewers had considered having sex before marriage.
She also suggested women could marry briefly to have children before divorcing and that the husband could be paid for taking part in the marriage and donating his sperm.