The first verdict came in July 2020, and it caused head-shaking and outrage around the world: Several young women had been sentenced to prison terms of up to three years in Cairo, as well as fines that could also ruin members of the middle class. Her alleged offense: a little karaoke, a little dancing, a little make-up, filmed with a mobile phone camera and posted on the Internet in short clips. What many young women around the world do who dream of a career as an influencer.
Mawada al-Adham and Haneen Hossam not only dreamed, they already had millions of followers on Tiktok. And they already earned with their posts – also because another platform from China recruited them, Likee. How you can earn money with streaming in this network, the two revealed to their followers in short articles – which called the public prosecutor’s office to the scene. She accused the two of them, along with other influencers and some Likee employees, of alleged “violation of family values and principles”. The lawyers understood the said videos as a call to prostitution. The two women, now 20 and 23 years old, are not even particularly revealing in their videos. Hossam sometimes wears tighter clothes and bright red lipstick, but also always a headscarf. Bare skin or suggestive: there is no such thing.
The judgments are based on law passed by the Sisi government, which wants to score points with the conservatives
Draconic punishments for offenses that can only be called such with a lot of bad will: There was great applause when an appeals court overturned the judgments in January of this year. The fact that public prosecutors soon tried to reopen the case was drowned out in the general relief. Last Sunday, these new trials against Hossam and al-Adhan came to an end – with judgments that go much further than the first: The two are now in custody for six and ten years and still pay a fine of 13,000 euros each, the charge was now human trafficking. Haneen Hossam, who went into hiding after being re-charged, was tracked down Tuesday. Shortly before her arrest, she pleaded with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in a tearful video for mercy.
It is unlikely that Haneen Hossam will hear him – the judgments are based on law passed by his government. For three years there has been an Internet law in Egypt that not only imposes the same rules on every private account with a certain number of followers as the press, but also knows the vague criminal offense of endangering the Egyptian family. Al-Sisi wants to score points with the conservative part of society, which may have leaned towards the Muslim Brotherhood in the past. The social policy of the secular Sisi regime is becoming much more rigid.