However, these allegations are not true and Egyptian laws impose severe penalties in similar cases.
The brief message, which was widely shared by Egyptian accounts on Twitter and Facebook platforms, read: “Abduct your beloved for 72 hours, and the law will marry her to you, in accordance with Article 395.”
In this context, although many users treated these posts sarcastically, many others took them seriously.
Faced with this, Egyptian sites and platforms denied this news, which feared that it would encourage violence.
Egyptian lawyer and human rights activist Ahmed Abul-Magd told the Agence France-Presse investigation service that “what is contained in these publications is misleading”.
He added: “There is no article in the Egyptian Penal Code bearing number 395 that talks about the kidnapper’s relationship with the kidnapped woman.
He continued: “The only article close to what the post promotes was number 291, and Egypt adopted it in 1904 from French law before it was abolished (..) and it exempted the rapist penalty if he married the victim.”
Article 291 of Egyptian law was repealed in 1999.
Fearing that this publication is a factor encouraging kidnappings to facilitate marriage, Egyptian human rights defender Ahmed Samih, director of the Andalusian Center for Studies on Tolerance and the Fight against Violence, pointed out that the kidnapping is in right “a crime, even if motivated by emotional justifications.”
He explained to “Agence France Presse”: “The law does not marry anyone by coercion, and international conventions on human rights treat women on the basis that they are part of the groups that need support and defense.
He added: “The message is intended to mislead people, in economic conditions that have made marriage difficult … The information in the message is not correct, the logic is not disciplined and the law does not allow it.”
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