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Egyptian security forces arrested a pastry chef who provided cupcakes with penis decorations for a private birthday party at a sports club in an affluent Cairo neighborhood.
In the latest example of the Egyptian state’s attempts to control public morals, which tend to target women, the chef was arrested at her home after party attendees shared photos of the cupcakes with women. members of the Gezira club and on social networks.
State media reported that security forces identified the baker after taking statements from eyewitnesses.
The case caught the attention of the Minister of Youth and Sports, Dr Ashraf Sobhy, who oversees clubs like Gezira. Sobhy said his department would form a committee to investigate the incident and punish the alleged perpetrators.
The baker was questioned by the same criminal court that recently tried Egyptian actor Rania Youssef for “contempt of Islam and attacking Egyptian family values”, after commenting on her own physique on a television program.
Earlier this month, two female TikTok influencers who served prison terms last year for “violating family values” and undermining public morals were acquitted.
In June 2020, famous belly dancer Sama El Masry was jailed for three years and fined 300,000 Egyptian pounds (equivalent to £ 14025) for violating family values and “immorality”.
Egyptian tabloids were delighted to publish photos of the cupcakes, with the offending decorations blurred. Egypt’s largest state newspaper, Al Ahram, described the confectionery as “indecent and immoral forms”.
Timothy E Kaldas of the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy said: “On some level, it’s hard not to be first struck by the absurdity of penis cupcakes that grab the attention of prosecutors, police investigators, parliamentarians and the regime-controlled press. At the heart of the problem is not the prohibition of sexuality in the public sphere, it is the restriction of sexuality that is beyond the control of men.
Al Masry Al Youm newspaper reported that the pastry chef was in tears when she arrived at the Cairo prosecutor’s office. According to the newspaper, she told interrogators that club bosses “came to my store and gave me pictures of genitals, and asked me for cakes in these forms.”
After being questioned by prosecutors, the baker was released on bail of 5,000 EGP (£ 233).
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