Beyoncé will play the Odyssey Arena in Belfast in May next year

Beyonce on stage during the 2009 MTV Europe Music Awards at the 02 Arena in Berlin, Germany.

Beyonce on stage during the 2009 MTV Europe Music Awards at the 02 Arena in Berlin, Germany. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Thursday November 5, 2009. See PA story SHOWBIZ MTV. Photo credit should read: Ian West/PA Wire

Beyonce accepts the award for Best Video at the 2009 MTV Europe Music Awards at the 02 Arena in Berlin, Germany.

As Egypt gears up for pop diva Beyonce Knowles' first performance in North Africa, Islamic conservatives are branding her show an "insolent sex party" that threatens the Muslim nation's "social peace and stability".

On giant posters plastered across the Egyptian capital advertising this evening's concert, Beyonce sports a revealing, flame-covered outfit and grips a set of motorcycle handlebars extending from her hips -- a sharp contrast to Cairo streets, where most women wear the traditional Muslim headscarves.

TV ads promoting the show, part of Beyonce's "I Am ..." world tour, have run on Egyptian and Arab satellite stations. The tour, which took Beyonce to the United Arab Emirates last week, had grossed $53.5m (€36m) by October, said 'Billboard' magazine.

But in Egypt, Islamic lawmakers and their supporters have waged campaigns on social networking websites, accusing the government of encouraging debauchery and calling for the concert's cancellation.

"Why are you encouraging this insolent sex party?" lawmaker Hamdi Hassan of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood wrote in a letter to the government. "You are accused of disturbing social peace and stability, encouraging vice and debauchery."

Lawmaker Ali Laban called for the "nudity concert" to be banned. A Facebook campaign against the concert collected nearly 10,000 supporters. But the war of words has not derailed the concert in the Red Sea resort, Port Ghalib.

Source Irish Independent

Belfast Telegraph