An Egyptian security officer’s “inexperience” has been blamed for arresting a group of 10 reportedly naked tourists in a Red Sea resort earlier this week, assuming they had been shooting a porn movie.

The tourists, a group of men and women in Hurghada, who had been diving and filming their dives when spotted by security, were released on Sunday after police found nothing illegal in the recordings.

“These tourists were diving and shooting the beautiful aquatic flora and fauna. The security officer had wrongly assessed the situation due to his inexperience,” a spokesperson for Egypt’s tourism minister said, according to local media reports.

The tourists, all from Georgia, had been conducting a swimwear photo-shoot, The Commentator news site reported on Sunday.

The crew were representatives of the Georgian reality show "Top Gogo" (Top Girl) which is about the lives of models, Archil Dzuliashvili, Georgian Ambassador to Egypt, Syria and Tunisia told Georgian media.

The ambassador said the group was detained on Saturday and the embassy was informed the same day.
“The incident is over now. Police of Hurghada officially apologized, while the crew continues working in Hurghada,” he said.

Although local media had said a total of 10 tourists had been detained, Georgia's Rustavi 2 TV reported that the detained people were 12 Georgian participants of the reality show.

In recent months, porn has been a controversial topic of discussion in Egypt.

In November 2012, former Prosecutor-General Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud submitted an official letter to the ministries of telecommunications, information and interior ordering that measures be adopted to ban pornographic websites in Egypt based on a 2009 court order to this effect.

On Saturday a new lawsuit was filed against Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi for failing to implement a ban on porn websites which was ordered last year.


*Photo courtesy of Reuters