Facebook celebrity jailed for three years over unfaithful wives comments

A popular Facebook user has been jailed for three years with hard labour after saying many married women in Egypt were unfaithful. Taymour el-Sobky, whose remarks on a TV talk show provoked a furore, was accused of slandering Egyptian women and damaging their honour. Sobky, whose Facebook page Diaries of a Suffering Husband has more than one million followers, was arrested last month. His remarks particularly inflamed people in the traditional south of the country where he said arranged marriages exacerbated the problem of infidelity because women ended up with men they didn’t know.

These days, it is very normal for women to cheat on their husbands and seek it out … Many women are involved in extramarital affairs while their husbands are abroad

Taymour el-Sobky

Mr Sobky had told TV host Khairy Ramadan that 30 per cent of married women in parts of Egypt had a readiness for “immorality” but could not find someone to encourage them. His remarks stirred up such animosity he faced online death threats. His trial was seen as the latest step in Egypt’s so-called morality crackdown which led to a a well-known author jailed for two years for writing a racy novel. His book was cleared by censors but he was put on trial after one reader, Hani Tawfik complained that an excerpt made him ill.

Taymour el-Sobky