An Egyptian court Wednesday jailed the sixth woman in a week over TikTok videos, deeming the clips in which she dances and lip-syncs to popular songs to be “inciting debauchery”, a judicial source said.
The sentencing of Manar Samy to three years imprisonment is the latest such ruling against popular female social media users in Egypt over content posted to the video-sharing app TikTok and Instagram.
Samy was arrested earlier in July on charges of “inciting debauchery, immorality and stirring up instincts” through her online videos, according to a prosecution statement.
Prosecutors found her videos – in which she dances and lip-syncs to popular music – to be “offensive to public decency” and to have been posted “with the aim of committing prostitution”.
According to the judicial source, the verdict can be appealed and “includes a fine of 300 000 Egyptian pounds ($19 000)”.
The sentence can be suspended if Samy pays a bail of 20 000 pounds, the source added.
Wednesday’s ruling came days after another court sentenced five female social media influencers, Haneen Hossam, Mowada al-Adham and three others, to two years each in jail over content posted to TikTok.
