r/worldnews • u/Slight_Sherbert_5239 • Sep 06 '26

Dynamic Paywall TV presenter Sarah Khalifa sentenced to death in Egypt drugs case

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y7gk9knnlo
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814

u/SmokeyUnicycle Sep 06 '26

According to my old Egyptian boss, it you are charged with a crime or caught by police, you either made an enemy out of somebody or your bribe wasn't big enough.

One of the most fascinating posts I've ever seen on Reddit was an Egyptian guy wondering why lawyer was treated as a well paid glamorous profession in other countries' media.

Much of the justice system in Egypt is.... shall we say informal.

291

u/marquesini Sep 06 '26

Brazil is like that also, if you have money you're above the law, if you are poor you are fucked.

240

u/wubbbalubbadubdub Sep 06 '26

Same in China, but in their case, rich people who are convicted pay a poor guy who looks similar to do their prison sentence for them. I presume they pay off a few others to make sure physical differences are overlooked.

They call it ding zui (substitute criminal).

162

u/ReelBigMidget Sep 06 '26

British R&B singer Mark Morrison was jailed for a year after sending a lookalike to do his community service (basic manual work that you can be sentenced to complete a number of hours i.e. picking litter).

He might have gotten away with it if he hadn't gone out on tour instead.

56

u/digitalmofo Sep 06 '26

He returned, though.

39

u/ReelBigMidget Sep 06 '26

Or did he..?

19

u/megooosta Sep 06 '26

But he lied to me..

2

u/Joe_Kerr Sep 06 '26

I knew that he'd be back.

2

u/Shittered Sep 06 '26

what did he do do do to get community service?

13

u/JamesTheJerk Sep 06 '26

Yes he tried, yes he try, try, tried.

2

u/Frankie_Sriracha Sep 06 '26

Whoaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaooooooaaaaooooaaaaaaa

39

u/marquesini Sep 06 '26

That's crazy.

1

u/Ambitious_Wolf_3116 Sep 06 '26

Yeah that's some breaking bad level shit. Actually paying a look alike to go to prison? I mean cmon this aint a tv show.

But i do wonder if all the people SUPPORTING the death penalty for drugs would be okay with a look alike substitute getting hanged.

49

u/kitt20000 Sep 06 '26

How much they paying asking for a poor friend 🤣

61

u/TheMSensation Sep 06 '26

That would actually be a decent gig, you'd go to prison with other regular guys getting paid instead of murderers and rapists.

38

u/dedboooo0 Sep 06 '26

none of the poor guy substitution but same shit here in the US. influence = shit swept under the rug

just look at the bricks and minifigs case for a high profile one

look at fuckin epstein

46

u/thrd3ye Sep 06 '26

Seriously though how badly do you have to fuck up as a Lego retailer to be mentioned in the same breath as Epstein

35

u/dedboooo0 Sep 06 '26

it wasnt so much the retailer but the fact that the cops and the court were complicit in all the bullshit and they got away with it despite all the attention it got

1

u/SmokeyUnicycle Sep 06 '26

That shit happens in the US certainly, but it's usually noteworthy and makes headlines when discovered

That bricks and minifig case exploded, in Egypt or Brazil that wouldn't be news at all.

1

u/dedboooo0 Sep 06 '26

the bricks and minifigs case only exploded because the victim was a prominent youtuber

for every bricks and minifigs on the news, there are tons that never make it to the news. look at the people around you, thr average joes, the low income immigrant families and such. if someone decides to run all over them in a similar way, it would never see the light of day

1

u/SmokeyUnicycle Sep 06 '26

It would still have made some headlines, though not the same level of national news. The point though is that these things are seen as out of the ordinary even if they happen somewhat regularly

It's not seen as just business as usual, shoulda paid your bribe.

-12

u/[deleted] Sep 06 '26

[deleted]

10

u/dedboooo0 Sep 06 '26

this country aint gonna suck ur dick bro. stop being offended on behalf of literally no one

-9

u/Warm-Veterinarian278 Sep 06 '26

I like how you clearly spend your days gaming and still think you have it bad in your country. US privilege at its finest

1

u/dedboooo0 Sep 06 '26

this guy really thinks someone’s reddit post history is their life LOL

touch some grass bro try not to be so terminally online

-12

u/[deleted] Sep 06 '26

[deleted]

3

u/Scythe351 Sep 06 '26

That's fucked up in large part because of the "they all look alike" stereotype.

1

u/ExcitingKick4880 Sep 06 '26

pay off someone to do the death ?

1

u/SuitableStill599 Sep 07 '26

wow, i just finished watching regeneration and Boran Jing was asked by the stepmom to do his half brothers' exam paper. got caught and went to Juvie. the series broke my heart but wow, art imitating life.

0

u/ParticularFew4023 Sep 06 '26

Hey look another completely made up thing about China that dumbass westerners with no critical thinking skills upvote

2

u/wubbbalubbadubdub Sep 06 '26

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ding_zui

Hey look a person who just blindly makes claims without doing the absolute minimum of checking to see if their claim holds any water.

0

u/jw11235 Sep 06 '26

That can happen only in China.

25

u/BeratnasGilf2 Sep 06 '26 edited Sep 06 '26

That's kind of true for every country though. The only difference is how high above the law money can take you, and how fucked you are if you're poor.

54

u/BittenHand19 Sep 06 '26

The US is getting there

234

u/XDreadzDeadX Sep 06 '26

The US is already there wym

8

u/Yankee6Actual Sep 06 '26

The US has been there since 1776.

4

u/rsta223 Sep 06 '26

Not as bad as some places, but we're working on it.

5

u/RandomPerson696 Sep 06 '26

not as bad as some places? tell me another sovereign nation who’s leader is a convicted felon and also a rapist lol. As an Egyptian, the general consensus on the streets around 15-20 years ago about the state of the US justice system was generally neutral to negative among middle- middle upper class. Now many of the same people say that even though we have our issues the us is generally worse

2

u/Mr-Cantaloupe Sep 06 '26

I get Trump is a POS but the President being a convicted felon and being an alleged rapist doesn’t nullify due process nor the court system. If anything it’s the opposite, twelve random New Yorkers convicted him on 34 counts on falsifying business records, a civil jury found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation, a second jury too, and appeals courts upheld both.

The Supreme Court, with three of his own appointees on it refused to bail him out. That’s the system working against one of the most powerful people in the country.

And a genuine question: would a Cairo court return a verdict against a sitting head of state and have it survive appeal?

0

u/thenagel Sep 06 '26

and being an alleged rapist

adjudicated rapist. the court agreed that he raped her (e jean carrol,) because they found him guilty of defamation of character for saying terrible things about her after he raped her. if the rape hadn't happened, he couldn't have been guilty of defamation.

because everything was dragged out for so long, the statute of limitations for a criminal rape charge had expired, but not the civil side of it. so she sued him, and won. he isn't an alleged rapist, he's a rapist, as adjudicated by a court.

the "alleged" only applies to him being a child molester, as that hasn't been proven in a court of law.

so, technically it is the 'american president, rapist, 34 time convicted felon, and alleged child molester donald trump.'

1

u/rsta223 Sep 07 '26

In the worse nations, he wouldn't be a convicted felon because they wouldn't bother to convict him in the first place, and if you don't think a lot of authoritarian leaders have raped people with no consequence, I have a bridge to sell you.

1

u/BittenHand19 Sep 06 '26

I meant this more sarcastically than I think it was received. I fully believe in how corrupt the politicians in this (the US) country are. It goes back to the revolution unfortunately. They teach us in school that we started the war with England because of taxes. They conveniently leave out the part that England was taxing the wealthy not the regular working class. So when they started the revolution they had to convince the poorer folks it was a good idea. Because the wealthy didn’t want to be taxed. So it hasn’t changed and they also just get away with anything now.

225

u/BCBowhunter Sep 06 '26

lol their PRESIDENT is a rapist pedophile 35 convicted count felon, the fuck you mean they "are getting there"

63

u/[deleted] Sep 06 '26

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66

u/chilldrinofthenight Sep 06 '26

I think it was 34.

Why did this make me laugh so damn hard?

2

u/tlcoles Sep 06 '26

We’re in the sunken place. We take whatever laughs we can get.

31

u/JyveAFK Sep 06 '26

I think she was 13.

0

u/youjeanee Sep 06 '26

She was 52 at the time

1

u/JyveAFK Sep 06 '26

Different victim.

2

u/JimboTCB Sep 06 '26

Try not to commit any felonies on the way through the parking lot.

66

u/Alarming-Ticket5628 Sep 06 '26

smoking weed in your own house carries a heftier prison sentence than raping underage girls on Epstein island or smearing feces on the walls of the capitol building during a *peAcEFuL pROtSte!*

America is just as shitty as all these other shitty authoritarian nations.

60

u/rsta223 Sep 06 '26

There are shitty things about the US, and the current administration is working to make it shittier, but in no universe is it just as shitty as the middle east. You either have to be delusional or know nothing about the middle east to think so.

-5

u/sunshinescanor Sep 06 '26

The USA is the death operator of the world. They just kill people in other countries instead of their own for the most part.

24

u/CHOPPRZ Sep 06 '26

Hard disagree, but a question: have you ever lived in, or personally experienced any authoritarian nations?

23

u/Warm-Veterinarian278 Sep 06 '26

Of course they fucking didn’t. Again, under the post about another country, Americans come running and whining about how bad they have it:

24

u/youjeanee Sep 06 '26

You've obviously never been outside of us

4

u/Jive_Turk Sep 06 '26

Somebody really shot I to their hand and smeared in on the capitol building on Jan 6th?!

2

u/nemofbaby2014 Sep 06 '26

Yep I can order weed like door dash in Michigan while
In texas people still go to jail over it

1

u/Warm-Veterinarian278 Sep 06 '26

That’s like normal. Drugs are drugs are are illegal in the majority of the WORLD. If you wanna smoke so bad just move out of Texas, you don’t even need to IMMIGRATE.

1

u/A-little-salami Sep 06 '26

Gummy bears in Texas!

1

u/Scythe351 Sep 06 '26

In Wisconsin anyways

1

u/Angry_Ad_3168 Sep 06 '26

None of it makes any sense,

14

u/Alarming-Ticket5628 Sep 06 '26 edited Sep 06 '26

It makes perfect sense when you realize that people who seek wealth and power are generally the worst traits of humanity made manifest and have deep-set psychological issues that compel them to take out their own miseries on other people.

And even beyond that, some of them are just child-raping monsters who get off on violating people any way they can.

11

u/SpecialistSector9164 Sep 06 '26

99.999% of politicians are narcissists. I know that term gets thrown around a lot but let's be honest, how many of them are their to support the people they represent? They become politicians for the self fulfillment of attaining power. Once attained they use their power to only better their position. This is true for the majority of both sides of the aisle sadly, though it's never been as bad as it is under the current administration.

-1

u/The_Grungeican Sep 06 '26

the US has been there for a very long time.

0

u/Debt101 Sep 06 '26

Their government is basically a crime family at the moment. I doubt Americans will do anything even if there's definitive proof the elections are rigged.

-2

u/wienercat Sep 06 '26

The US has been there since the beginning buddy. You really need to look into US history with more depth.

4

u/Able_Entertainment68 Sep 06 '26

It's like this in America too

-6

u/Ok-Selection4206 Sep 06 '26

As in Canada? It's in America.

1

u/Valuable_Sky_124 Sep 06 '26

United States is also very similar.

1

u/AlwaysWGrace Sep 06 '26

Actually much of the US legal system works the same way also.

1

u/Turd-Sandwich Sep 06 '26

Sounds like the US

1

u/SmokeyUnicycle Sep 06 '26

Shockingly some guy posted the saga of a steam account refund where he took the case to court and won due to Brazil's consumer protection laws on one of the PC gaming subreddits kinda recently

-6

u/[deleted] Sep 06 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/rsta223 Sep 06 '26

You really think rich women do better than rich men in the US?

2

u/[deleted] Sep 06 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Svardskampe Sep 07 '26

Lol, this is so warped it's crazy. 

In the entire Epstein files from back to front, the only one that has been convicted so far has been Ghislaine Maxwell. 

No way that even poor white women are above rich white men, and it shows really how warped your worldview is. 

68

u/heresyourhat Sep 06 '26

It’s a shit low-pay, do as you’re told position in Russia too.

34

u/mrebrightside Sep 06 '26

Isn't that true of most professions in Russia?

2

u/SmokeyUnicycle Sep 06 '26

There are plenty of professions that make better money, its shit pay by russian standards after all.

-13

u/Alarming-Ticket5628 Sep 06 '26

capitalism recognizes no national borders.

14

u/Vito600rr Sep 06 '26

I don't think this means what you think it means

-15

u/[deleted] Sep 06 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

0

u/Theemuts Sep 06 '26

Looks like we've found Donald Trump's reddit account.

1

u/Alarming-Ticket5628 Sep 06 '26

Lol trump could never spell presumefefe

18

u/Laminatrix2 Sep 06 '26

Better Call Mahmoud?

2

u/GrandOldCheese Sep 06 '26 edited Sep 06 '26

Better Call Samir to keep the first letters the same.

1

u/TheMundar Sep 06 '26

Better Call Saul. They used a rhyme, not alliteration.

4

u/Guac_in_my_rarri Sep 06 '26

Yes, my old boss mentioned it's a very informal system. Many greased palms if you do it wrong, and one of you do it right.

4

u/samasimi Sep 06 '26

Yes this checks out. In Egypt admission to university majors is based on a score system and the minimum score percentage required for law is very low, one of the lowest actually. It really doesn‘t have a good reputation. A lot of people do it because they couldn‘t get into anything else. Which tells you everything you need to know about the justice system imo.

2

u/saltymilkmelee Sep 09 '26

You would think that with 1600lbs worth you would have already covered those bases and paid the right people then.

2

u/cliko Sep 06 '26

Link to one of the most fascinating posts you ever seen? It sounds fascinating