Brazilian doctor returns after Egypt revokes arrest for harassment

Rio Grande do Sul physician Victor Sorrentino, arrested in Egypt on charges of sexual harassment, returned to Brazil on Sunday, June 6, “after providing all requested clarifications and being released by the Egyptian authorities,” according to a statement issued by his legal counsel.

His return occurs 2 days after the doctor was shown in a video apologizing to the victim of a sexual “joke” that led him to be detained in the country. According to Sorrentino’s counsel, “his priority is to be reunited with his family, and in due course he will speak publicly about the incident.”

On May 24, Sorrentino published a video on his Instagram profile, with almost 1 million followers, in which he is shown making what he considers to be a “joke”, with sexual puns, with a Muslim woman who tried to sell him a papyrus during a trip to Egypt.

The doctor asks her in Portuguese: “You really like it rough, don’t you? And he reaffirms, “and long is also nice, isn’t it?” The saleswoman, who does not understand the language, eventually answers “yes” amid laughter from him and his friends.

The video went viral in Egypt after activist Antonio Isuperio posted a subtitled version on his social network, after being approached by Fabio Iorio.

The two began to spread the video among their contacts until they reached Speakup, a network of Egyptian feminists who distributed the video in the country. On May 30, the Egyptian Interior Ministry reported that it had arrested a foreigner, with no names mentioned, following “harassment of a woman, after he posted a video with footage of the incident on a social network where the security services were able to identify both the victim and the perpetrator.”

Since then, the doctor had been in the custody of Egypt’s Prosecutor’s Office, which was keeping him detained in one of the authority’s buildings for investigations, forbidden to leave the country. Before being detained, he returned to the store and recorded a video saying that everything had been “a Brazilian joke.”

On Wednesday, the family released an open letter in Arabic and English in which they apologize for the incident, with signatures of the doctor’s parents, siblings and wife. On Friday, June 4, Victor used social networks again to speak about the case. He posted a video in which he is shown standing alongside the saleswoman apologizing for the harassment.

“I represent Egyptian women and the Egyptian people, we are a hospitable and caring people who welcome visitor from all parts of the world and it is enough for me that he apologizes so I will accept his apology,” she said.

Source: Veja