Egypt jails YouTuber over claims her son, daughter committed incest

An Egyptian YouTuber named Heba El-Sayed has recently made news headlines after claiming in a video on her YouTube channel that she found out that her teenage son and daughter had seemingly committed incest.

In the video in question, Sayed, also nicknamed "Umm Ziad and Heba," claimed that she herself caught her son and daughter committing the shocking act.

The YouTuber, who lives in a lower-middle-class area in Qalyoubia province, north of the capital of Cairo, appeared in a 35-minute video with three of her younger children during which she narrated the incident. 

Local news outlets reported leaks of her confessions during interrogation that she lied about her children to attract more viewership.

However, The New Arab could not verify these reports at the time of publishing.

"There is an obsession among persons with low education to gain fame and money by using social media to speak about socially outrageous acts in order attract views regardless of legal and social consequences," prominent political sociologist Said Sadek told TNA.

"Influencers compete and the audience will only follow shockers…The stronger the shock, the more followers you gain and the more famous the trend becomes," he remarked.


The video sparked shockwaves among Egyptians, prompting the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood and several lawyers and advocates of children's rights to file complaints against Sayed before the prosecutor general. She was arrested shortly afterwards.

On 5 May, a prosecutor ordered her to be remanded in custody, pending further investigations into the charges against her, the office of the public prosecution said in a statement.

Sayed has been faced with the charges of "child exploitation via using technology to shoot video and derive profit," "endearing children," "child trafficking through using their videos online," "the use of technology and the internet to slander children" and "violating family values."

"If proven guilty, Sayed is probably expected to receive up to a 25-year sentence with labour in prison for the psychological and physical harm she has inflicted upon her children," lawyer Ibrahim Hosny told TNA.

"That's only for human trafficking apart from other charges such as violating family values and public slander which could add 10 more years in prison," he added.