By Sherine Tadros, Middle East Correspondent
Eight men have been sentenced to three years in prison by a Cairo court after video emerged of them allegedly taking part in a gay wedding ceremony.
The mobile phone footage shows two men exchanging rings during a private boat party on the Nile.
There is a cake and at one point the men are seen embracing while others cheer.
While the ceremony is not legally or religiously binding, in a conservative society where homosexuality is frowned upon, the video - leaked months after the event - has sparked controversy.
Within days of its release, dozens were rounded up by police.
After a short trial, eight of the men in the video were handed jail sentences for "inciting debauchery" and other charges.
A close friend of the men in the video told us the sentencing has sent shockwaves through the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community.
Kim, which is not his real name, told Sky News: "We are terrified, really terrified.
"To get to the people in the video, the police raided three parties in the space of 48 hours and made arrests. They took people from their homes."
Kim also said there is nowhere safe for homosexuals to meet or even talk now.
"There's no chatting, messaging or online dating. It feels like we are being strangled," he said.
Homosexuality has long been a social taboo in Egypt and it is not the first time the LGBT community has been persecuted.
In 2001, the famous Queen Boat trial saw 52 gay men charged with debauchery and offending religion.
But since President Abdel Fatah al Sisi took power last summer, rights organisations say there has been a sustained and co-ordinated crackdown, with more than 80 homosexuals and transexuals arrested since June last year.
Scott Long, a Cairo-based human rights activist who focuses on LGBT rights, thinks the latest arrests are part of a general crackdown.
He said: "Whether it's young atheists, or long-haired revolutionaries or even guys who sell clothes illegally on the streets downtown, there's an enormous police crackdown on any kind of behaviour the state doesn't like.
"But it's really easy for them to target LGBT people because they're unpopular nobody will stand up to defend them."
In the hours and days after the alleged gay wedding video emerged, the homophobic backlash played out on the airways.
One of the so-called grooms called in to a popular TV station insisting the party was for a birthday and that he is not gay.
But the host mocked him, asking him repeatedly if he was gay and whether he had a girlfriend.
Unlike other countries, Egypt does not have a law explicitly criminalising homosexuality.
Prosecutors use existing laws to do with morality and public decency to arrest those they suspect are from the LGBT community.
They are not the only ones who currently feel targeted as the state increasingly closes in on those who will not conform to its ideals - regardless of whether they pose a threat.
It is a crackdown that often seems to care more about appearances than the truth.
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