A court in Egypt has sentenced five young women to two years in prison for posting “indecent videos” on the video-sharing app TikTok. The women were fined almost $19,000. Haneen Hossam was arrested in April after posting a three-minute clip telling her 1.3m followers that girls could make money by working with her. Mawada al-Adham was arrested in May after posting satirical videos on TikTok and Instagram, where she has at least 2m followers. The “immoral behaviour” charge has even been levelled against women using the site to make a call for help about a rape and blackmail ordeal, as in the case of Menna Abdul Aziz, who was arrested, detained, and charged after doing so in April. The jail sentences are the first to have been issued by a court as part of a campaign by the authorities against social media influencers. Activists have mounted an online campaign in response, demanding the release of those detained.
SOURCE: BBC
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