- Marisa Papen and her team snapped nude photos at a host of Egyptian landmarks.
- When spotted, they bribed security staff at the Pyramids of Giza.
- They were arrested for a similar stunt in Luxor but received a caution from a sympathetic judge.
- As many Egyptian women face prison, Papen's case has raised questions over their lack of freedom on their home turf.
The case of a Belgian model arrested after posing naked at some of the country’s most iconic landmarks has raised questions about the state’s treatment of Egyptians in comparison to wealthy foreign visitors.
Marisa Papen and her team were arrested and questioned by cops before being let off with a warning for filming the controversial shoot at the Giza Pyramids and the Karnak Temple in Luxor.
Initially, Papen, who has posed naked in over 50 countries, had a lucky escape in Giza, where they were able to bribe security staff to look the other way.
Despite their earlier brush with the law, the crew decided to repeat the stunt at Luxor’s heavily-secured Karnak Temple.“At Karnak, they even took it up a notch, five guards for each pillar. It was silly,” Papen said in a blog post about the incident.
Regardless of the tight security, Papen stripped off and started to dance.
“Dust swooping up underneath my soles while making pirouettes in Cleopatra’s footprints. The thought that probably no-one ever danced in their Birthday-suit between this time and hers made me only spin faster,” she said, describing the spectacle.
But it wasn’t long before the stunt caught the attention of security staff.
“You can guess what happened next… busted, once again. And yes, this time we were in some serious trouble,” Papen said.
“Like 2 beaten dogs we got guided out by 4 security guards including the principal of the temple where police would be waiting for us with open arms,” she added.
The team was then brought to a nearby police station where they were questioned and put into a cell.
“I knew that a prison in Egypt looks slightly different than in Belgium or any Westernised country but I had no idea what to expect before actually going in,” Papen said.
“We got sent from one police station to the other, to court back to jail, back to court and we just kept telling each of these institutions the same facts of our story over and over again,” Papen said, speaking about the ordeal.
“The first cell we encountered was packed with at least 20 men, some were passed out on the floor, some were squeezing their hands through the rails, some were bleeding and yelling. I had never seen something like this before in real life. Jesse kept telling me, ‘Marisa don’t look’ but there was no way not to look,” she added.
While the experience was undoubtedly a harrowing ordeal for Marisa and her team, the group were later released with a caution and returned home to Belgium.
Since then, Papen has penned a blog post in which she describes the incident with little inkling of how different the story might have been had she been an Egyptian national.
Women’s rights activist Azza Soliman, the founder of the Center for Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance, stands accused of slandering Egypt’s image. She has been banned from travel, her assets have been frozen - and she could be sentenced up to 15 years in prison.
Meanwhile, Suez Canal University lecturer Dr. Mona Prince was referred to the prosecution and had her salary cut after she taught John Milton's ‘Paradise Lost’ to students in her English literature class. The poem describes how the Devil tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
Many Egyptian women have also had their liberty and even their lives taken away for protesting and speaking out against the regime.
Activist Shaimaa Al Sabbagh was shot dead by police in Downtown Cairo in January 2015. Al Sabbagh had gathered to lay a wreath in memory of those killed in the January 25 uprising in 2011. The police officer convicted over her death had his sentence reduced to just 10 years in June this year.
An Alexandria misdemeanor court sentenced 21 women and girls under 18 from the “7 am movement” to sentences ranging from 11 to 15 years in jail in November 2013. Their sentences were later reduced on appeal.
Cairo resident Esraa al-Taweel was forcibly disappeared in June 2015 by security forces. She appeared later at Qanater women’s prison, charged with being a member of the banned Muslim Brotherhood organization and spreading false news about Egypt.
Meanwhile, political activist Sanaa Seif has been imprisoned multiple times since President Abdel Fattah El Sisi seized power in power. She was initially imprisoned for demonstrating against the country’s protest law in June 2014 and later served a six-month sentence for insulting the judiciary.
However, the reality of life for Egyptian women under the Cairo regime appears lost on Marisa Papen. She faced a rather different outcome in front of the Egyptian judiciary.
Speaking about her team’s experience, she wrote: “As soon as we entered ‘court-room’, our lawyer was waiting for us. I told him to move out of the way because probably the only thing he wanted was money and I wanted to speak for myself. Our judge was browsing with his big thumbs through these books that looked as old as the pyramids did. Eventually, he gave us a warning and told us never to do something so foolishly shameful ever again.”
Papen and her team were granted their freedom. But many may now question whether the same rights will ever be given to men and women born on Egyptian soil.
