Not less than five female social media influencers in Egypt have bagged a two years jail term for posting indecent contents on the video-sharing app Tiktok.
This verdict Haneen Hossam, Mowada al-Adham and three others were given by an Egyptian court on Monday to each on the charges of violating public morals.
According to the Judicial source, “the Cairo economic court sentenced Hossam, Adham and three others to two years after they were convicted of violating society’s values.”
The ruling, which can be appealed, included a fine of 300,000 Egyptian pounds ($18,750) for each defendant, the source noted.
Hossam was arrested in April after posting a three-minute clip telling her 1.3 million followers that girls could make money by working with her.
In May, authorities arrested Adham who had posted satirical videos on TikTok and Instagram, where she has at least two million followers.
Lawyer Ahmed Hamza al-Bahqiry said the young women are facing separate charges over the sources of their funds.
The arrests highlight a social divide in the deeply conservative Muslim country over what constitutes individual freedoms and “social norms”.
Human rights lawyer Tarek al-Awadi has previously told AFP that the influencers’ arrests showed how society was wrestling with the rapid rise of modern communications technology.
