BBC Africa reports that Egyptian TikTok star Haneen Hossam has been sentenced to three years in prison and an LE 200,000 ($1,074 USD) fine on human trafficking charges in her retrial today, 18th April 2022. 

As part of a group known as the “TikTok girls”, five young women who were given the same prison sentence and a fine of nearly $20,000, she had previously been sentenced in absentia to ten years in prison in June 2021.

Hossam, a 21-year-old Cairo University student who has about 900,000 followers on TikTok, was first arrested in April 2020 after posting a video inviting her female followers to join another video-sharing platform, Likee, telling them that they could make money by broadcasting videos on it. 

Prosecutors later charged her with "violating family values and principles".

Human rights activists say that the Tik Tok girls are being prosecuted as part of a crackdown by Egyptian authorities targeting female social media influencers on charges that violate their rights to privacy, freedom of expression, non-discrimination and bodily autonomy.

Mai El-Sadany, a US-based human rights lawyer and director of the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, tweeted that the verdict meant Egypt's justice system was "criminalising what influencers globally do every day when they invite others to work with them and monetize TikTok activity".

Activists also point out the relationship of social class and justice: “In Egypt, we see women who belong to the high class exercise their freedom by wearing what they want or choosing to act a certain way without being blamed or prosecuted. Whereas women from lower classes face social restrictions and state scrutiny, leading to prosecution. In the Tiktok cases, many women who were from middle to low classes were prosecuted and imprisoned for simply singing and dancing”, says Egyptian writer Alaa Hasanien..