By the big smiles , warm hugs and loud cries of ululation , the video seems to show a joyous celebration . An Egyptian prosecutor looked at the same footage and saw something very different : a `` satanic ceremony '' with images that are `` shameful , regrettable and anger God . '' However it is characterized , the event has landed eight men in jail for three years , an Egyptian court ruled Saturday . The men will face three years of probation upon their release , according to Egypt 's state-run Ahram Online . It 's all because of a roughly 1-minute video set upon a Nile riverboat . It shows several well-dressed men , one of which pulls out a ring and slips it on another man 's finger . The two had a brief kiss , then hug -- all as others on the boat cry out happily around them . There 's a cake with two men 's picture on it . `` May your night be filled with pomp and ceremony , '' one man says . The video went viral after posting online . In early September , the suspects were detained as part of an investigation ordered by Prosecutor-General Hisham Barakat for allegedly broadcasting footage that `` violates public decency . '' The prosecutor 's office accused the men of `` debauchery '' and `` undermining public morals '' for their part in what it described as a same-sex wedding . The prosecutor 's statement claims the event took place in April , but was only recently posted as an act of revenge against one of the men filmed in the video . Very soon after , on September 8 , Egypt 's forensic authority announced that seven of the arrested men had been physically inspected and were determined to be `` not gay , '' according to another Ahram Online story . The authority 's spokesman , Hisham Abdel-Hamid , said the inspection found that they `` have never had sex with other men . '' The eighth suspect -- who was an alleged groom in the video -- did n't show up for a physical inspection , according to the report . A man in the video has denied , in an interview with privately owned Rotana Masriya TV , that it depicted a marriage between the two men . Rather , he claimed that he was holding a birthday party for a friend and gave him a silver ring as a gift . There are no laws explicitly against same-sex relations in Egypt . Still , other laws -- such as those against `` shameless public acts '' -- have been used in recent years to arrest and prosecute gay men in recent years , Ahram Online notes . The eight men in this case , for instance , were convicted on charges of `` debauchery . '' In September , a judicial source told Ahram that six men were arrested and soon thereafter sentenced to two years in jail with labor for `` committing debauchery '' after an apartment raid . Four men were sentenced to prison in April for similar morality charges . And in 2001 , Egypt arrested more than 50 men in a raid on a gay nightclub on the Queen riverboat .
Eight arrested after an online video showed what authorities called a same - sex ceremony . A prosecutor called it a ` ` satanic ritual '' with words that are ` ` shameful ... and anger God '' Homosexuality is not explicitly illegal in Iran ; men have been charged in other countries .