{"id":31308,"date":"2016-12-23T02:32:20","date_gmt":"2016-12-23T02:32:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/egypt-novelist-ahmed-naji-released-from-prison\/"},"modified":"2016-12-23T02:32:13","modified_gmt":"2016-12-23T02:32:13","slug":"egypt-novelist-ahmed-naji-released-from-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/egypt-novelist-ahmed-naji-released-from-prison\/","title":{"rendered":"Egypt novelist Ahmed Naji released from prison"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{Author accused of &#8220;violating public modesty&#8221; leaves Cairo jail early but will face court again in January.}<\/p>\n<p>An Egyptian author on Thursday walked out of a Cairo police station after a court suspended his two-year prison sentence pending review of his appeal on obscenity charges.<\/p>\n<p>The year-long case of Ahmed Naji, after a magazine published a sexually explicit excerpt of his novel, The Use of Life, has drawn international condemnation and accusations of a crackdown on freedom of expression.<\/p>\n<p>Prosecutors said Naji &#8220;violated public modesty&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>It was seen as part of a larger crackdown on civil rights in Egypt under the rule of army chief-turned-President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.<\/p>\n<p>Surrounded by his friends, Naji was rushed into a car with tinted windows and made no comments to reporters.<\/p>\n<p>Writing on Twitter, Ramy Yacoub, deputy director of The Tahrir Institute for the Middle East, said Naji &#8220;opted not to be photographed once he left the police station&#8221; and he would &#8220;drive him home safely&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Naji was initially acquitted, but prosecutors appealed and a higher court in February sentenced him to two years in prison.<\/p>\n<p>A court on January 1 will either decide to order another trial or send Naji back to prison.<\/p>\n<p>Cairo-based literary critic Marcia Lynx Qualey told Al Jazeera: &#8220;Naji&#8217;s imprisonment, like the closure of the Karama libraries, is terrible evidence of the narrowing space for public laughter, creativity, art, reading.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As we pass the days until his appeal, we must continue to demand the space for his freedom.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In November, two Al Karama community libraries in Cairo, founded by human rights activist Gamal Eid, were closed by authorities.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-17256 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/7e56f27163e4432da13335fbd8143b2c_18.jpg\" alt=\"A court will decide on January 1 to order another trial or send Naji back to prison\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{Author accused of &#8220;violating public modesty&#8221; leaves Cairo jail early but will face court again in January.} An Egyptian author on Thursday walked out of a Cairo police station after a court suspended his two-year prison sentence pending review of his appeal on obscenity charges. The year-long case of Ahmed Naji, after a magazine published [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-31308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31308\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31308"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=31308"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=31308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}