Egypt court prolongs detention of social media influencers

An Egyptian court Thursday prolonged the detention of two young women, accusing them of human trafficking connected to social media videos, after their acquittal this week on other charges, legal sources said.

The court in Cairo "renewed the detention of Mawada al-Adham and Haneen Hossam for 15 days in a human trafficking case," said a judicial source, who did not want to be named.

The two young influencers had been acquitted just two days before by the court of appeal on other charges related to their videos - "incitement to debauchery" and "attacking society's values".

The women had been sentenced to two years in prison in July 2020.

"It is the sole and same affair that yields these three principal allegations - publication of images that harm society's values, attacking public morals and human trafficking," a lawyer for the two women said.

Their pre-trial detention was extended "while awaiting their referral to the criminal court" on the trafficking charge, the lawyer confirmed.

Hossam had been arrested in April after posting a video on TikTok, telling her 1.3 million subscribers that girls could work with her for money.

Adham, who has some two million Instagram followers, was also arrested in May after publishing satirical videos.

They are among a dozen "influencers" arrested in 2020 for "breaching public morals" in the conservative country.

Agencies contributed to this report.