Khaberni - The Cairo Economic Court has closed the curtain on the case of media personality Maha Al-Sagheer stealing international paintings and attributing them to herself, sentencing Al-Sagheer to a month in prison and a fine of 10,000 Egyptian pounds.
The relevant authorities had referred Maha Al-Sagheer to the Economic Court, accusing her of stealing designs from a Danish artist and displaying them on the program "With You", hosted by the media personality Mona El Shazly, claiming they were her own paintings.
On her part, Maha Al-Sagheer's defense filed an appeal against the imprisonment sentence immediately after the court issued its previous judgment.
Details of the crisis surrounding Maha Al-Sagheer attributing international paintings to herself
The roots of the crisis go back to Maha Al-Sagheer's appearance as a guest on the program "With You, Mona El Shazly", where she showcased artistic paintings and attributed them to herself, prompting the original painters, including a Danish artist, to come forward with statements confirming their ownership of the work, accusing Maha of violating intellectual property rights.
Despite Maha Al-Sagheer's formal apology to the original artists after the significant controversy it stirred, the case moved to the legal path where the Economic Court decided on it.
The Supreme Council for Media had issued several decisive decisions against Maha Al-Sagheer and the team of the program "With You, Mona El Shazly", in the incident of the paintings that were displayed on the program and attributed by Maha to herself without referencing the real owners.
The official page of the Council on "Facebook" published a statement regarding the decisions it made on the incident, stating: "The Supreme Council for Media Regulation, chaired by Engineer Khaled Abdel Aziz, during its recent meeting, decided to prevent Ms. Maha Al-Sagheer from appearing in all media outlets for six months, for violating the standards and codes issued by the Supreme Council for Media Regulation."
It added: "The Council also decided to issue a 'warning notice' to the team of the program 'With You, Mona El Shazly' for not verifying accuracy during the preparation of the program, which led to the violation of the standards and codes issued by the Council."
The statement continued: "In addition, the Council decided to refer the incident regarding Ms. Maha Al-Sagheer's infringement on the intellectual property rights of artistic works owned by others to the Public Prosecution to take the necessary actions in accordance with Articles 138/1, 139, and 140/9 of the Intellectual Property Law No. 82 of 2002, and Articles 69/5 and 70/3 of the Law Regulating the Press and Media No. 180 of 2018 issuing the Law Regulating the Press and Media and the Supreme Council for Media Regulation."
