Egyptian TikTok star Haneen Hossam arrested after ‘human trafficking’ conviction

Egyptian police arrested Tiktok influencer Haneen Hossam on June 22 two days after she failed to appear in court for her sentencing to 10 years on “human trafficking” charges, a security official said.

Hossam,  who has about 900,000 followers on TikTok, a Cairo University student, was first arrested in April 2020 after posting a video inviting her female followers to join another video-sharing platform,

She was earlier sentenced to two years for “attacking society’s values” in videos published on TikTok.

Mawada al-Adham, 23, who once had three million followers on the video-sharing platform TikTok and has 1.4 million followers on Instagram, was accused of the same offense the following month after posting what prosecutors said were “indecent” videos in which she lip-synced to famous songs and danced in fashionable clothes.

Tiktok influencers have also been accused of violating the principles and values of Egyptian Society and degeneration of ‘Social and Family Values’ through her obscene online content.

On Monday, hours before her arrest, Haneen Hossam posted a video in which she asked President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi for a pardon.

“10 years! I didn’t do anything immoral to deserve all this. I was jailed for 10 months and didn’t say a word after I was released … Why do you want to jail me again?” she said, as she cried and pleaded.

“I was wronged, and I did not do anything. I am literally dying. Save me. My mother is about to have a stroke after the ruling,” she added.

On the other hand, Hossam’s lawyer, Hani Sameh, in a statement on Monday said that she would appeal the prison sentence handed down to her.

“We will demand the restoration of the case proceedings because there are contradictions between the verdict and the merits on which the court’s decision is based,” said Sameh.

“We hope that she can get a reduced jail sentence or an acquittal,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.