Egypt’s TikTok Girls Declared Innocent After a Year in Detention; But Why Were They Charged to Begin With?
2020 is going to forever be known as the year of unexplained incidents, and yes we’re not just talking about the pandemic. Focusing on Egypt, Um El Donia, is known to be armed with laws which have long focused on belly dancers mainly, as well as female pop stars in their efforts to police women’s behavior and charge whoever violates the society’s “family values”. But what surprised us the most is the recent incident when social media stars were also being targeted as a way to tame their content and the type of videos they upload, which needs to meet society’s conservative standards, this includes Egypt’s TikTok girls.
Last year, five girls were accused of breaking these laws in their TikTok posts, each of them was sentenced to two years imprisonment, two of these girl’s names echoed the most; Haneen Hossam, 20, and Mawada el-Adham, 22. Millions of people have followed them to watch them dance, sing, and clown around, however, apparently not everyone took it as lightheartedly. Sadly, they were kept in detention for almost a year with a 300,000 pound fine for each.
Today, the Cairo Economic Court of Appeals declared the innocence of Haneen Hossam and Mawada el-Adham as well as three other girls of the charges of violating family values and principles, revoking the Cairo Economic Court misconduct ruling to punish them with two years imprisonment and a fine of 300,000 pounds, but instead, upholding the fine only for Mawaddah Al Adham.
