Aya Youssef, an Arabic teacher for three years in a primary school in Mansoura, north of Cairo, did not think one day of making the headlines of the most populous of Arab countries.

However, it took little: a dance among his colleagues – women and men – during a leisure outing on a boat on the Nile for the controversy to explode.

The video, filmed by one of the participants and then posted on social networks, has been viewed millions of times.

Derogatory comments towards the 30-year-old teacher have rained, as have those questioning the probity of a husband accepting such behavior.

"Vulgar", say some, "violation of teaching ethics", add others.

The husband, visibly stung by these opinions from strangers, immediately asked for and obtained a divorce from the mother of his three children.

The Ministry of Education itself took up the case, ordering the referral to a disciplinary board of Ms. Youssef and five of her colleagues.

Divorce and defamation

On social networks, a few voices still denounce a video filmed and above all posted without consent.

Because it is the question of distribution that is scandalous here.

In a country like Egypt, a beacon of cinema and Arab song for decades, whose cabarets have made people dream from Rabat to Aden, at weddings or at parties, everyone dances.

But the spread of a rigid vision of Islam since the 1970s, the conservative traditions of a stiffened society and the battering against women's rights have built a wall of shame around accepted practices in between oneself but denounced in public.

Ms. Youssef herself took some time before agreeing to speak in public.

To local media, she finally said that this filmed scene was "ordinary".

"We were going on a boat trip over the weekend, lots of people were dancing, not just me," she repeated.

She also promised to sue the person or persons who published the video, for "defamation" towards her but also "her family".

But at this point, the damage was done: the young mother, in a country where husbands generally inherit custody, saw her children drifting away and her marriage falling apart.

On Twitter, actress Haidi Karam protested against "a delusional story in the face of which everyone is silent".

The actress Soumaya al-Khachab denounces unequal treatment: "Why do husbands not support their wives when so many women do not abandon their husbands when he goes to prison for example or loses all his means".

"Laws of Dance"

In a video posted on Facebook, lawyer Nihad Abou al-Qoumsan, director of the Egyptian Center for Women's Rights, even offered to hire Ms Youssef as a proofreader in her law firm.

Increasingly singled out, the Ministry of Education ended up reinstating the teacher.

But the lawyer did not stop there.

"We will go to court to find out if the criminal is the one who posted the video on the internet or the one who danced," she promises.

"And the court will also be able to tell us what the laws are in force for dancing," she says again, ironically.

"So that we can tell women (...) the rules to follow to stay within the framework of legal dancing and avoid obscene dancing".

Images of women online have already caused drama in Egypt.

On December 23, a 17-year-old student committed suicide after a photomontage showing her naked was published online, according to local media.

Before that, in July 2021, two influencers were sentenced to six and ten years in prison for "corrupting family life" and "inciting debauchery", after videos posted on the TikTok and Likee apps.

© 2022 AFP