Sherine Abdel Wahab banned from singing over insulting Egypt

CAIRO –14 November 2017: Egyptian singer Sherine Abdel Wahab has officially been outlawed from singing for insulting her home country in a concert performance, the Musicians Syndicate announced in a statement released on Tuesday.

The syndicate also banned her from performing until further investigations are done.

The decision was provoked after the singer threw an off-hand joke while performing in one of her recent concerts where fans asked her to perform “Mashrabsh Min Nilha” or “haven’t you swigged Egypt’s Nile water yet?” and then Abdelwahab replied that she would go through schistosomiasis if she would drink it, a phrase deemed by some social media users as an inappropriate.

“We will keep drinking Nile’s water and will stop listening to Sherine’s song,” is a hashtag that has been trending in Egypt in the past few hours and was launched immediately in response to the aforementioned incident.

For its part, the Health Ministry released a statement contending that it has long fought schistosomiasis and reduced its prevalence to 0.2%.

Abdelwahab, 37, is consistently hailed as one of the talented and successful singers of her era, dubbed as “the queen of emotions” for her popular romantic tunes.