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Egypt releases social media influencer jailed for ‘immoral videos’

July 30, 2020 at 6:46 pm

Egyptian TikTok influencer Manar Samy [Twitter]

TikTok influencer Manar Samy has been released from Egyptian jail on a bail of 20,000 Egyptian pounds ($1,253) after being arrested earlier this month for posting “immoral videos”.

Samy was sentenced to three years imprisonment earlier this month 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, “offensive to public decency” and accused her of sharing immoral videos ”with the aim of committing prostitution”.

Samy, who has almost 200,000 followers on the social media app, used to post videos dancing  along to pop music on a beach with her dog, in a manner some have described as “suggestive or inappropriate”.

READ: Egypt sentences TikTok female influencers to 2 years in prison

Her detention was the latest in a string of immorality arrests targeting working-class young women as part of the Egyptian regime’s crackdown on social media and freedom of expression.

According to the New Arab, five other female social media influencers – Haneen Hossam, Mowada Al-Adham and three others – remain in jail over content posted to TikTok.

Egyptians under President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi are witnessing an unprecedented crackdown for a wide array of alleged offences. Women, who were largely left alone and seen as a red line under previous administrations, have also been rounded up and imprisoned.