1. Personal information:
a. Birth: Ms. Haneen was born on 5 December 2000. She was arrested at the age of 20.
b. Upbringing: Ms. Haneen grew up in the Shubra area of Cairo and is continuing her studies at the Faculty of Archaeology, Cairo University, from her prison cell in Al-Qanater Women’s Prison.
c. Occupation: Content creator.
d. Political activity/affiliation: She was one of the most prominent Egyptian figures on the social media sharing app TikTok, with a large audience of nearly one million followers, while her content received 7.5 million likes. Ms. Haneen mainly posted singing and dancing videos on the app, and she also published her videos on YouTube.
e. In the spotlight: Ms. Haneen first came into the spotlight as one of the most famous young women on TikTok, and she was on the list of the most followed Egyptian figures on the app. She stirred controversy after she attacked artists who joined TikTok during the lockdown period in Egypt, which made her the talk of the town at the time. She was first arrested in April 2020 after inviting her female followers to join another video sharing platform, “Likee”, saying they could make money by streaming live videos. She faced many charges, chief among them inciting debauchery, violating the values of Egyptian society, and human trafficking.
2. Previous arrests:
First: the “TikTok girls” case
– 21 April 2020, arrest: Ms. Haneen was arrested on nine charges, the best known being violating Egyptian family principles and values and taking part with others in luring girls and exploiting them through live streaming. The Public Prosecution ordered her and others detained in Case No. 1087 of 2020 Economic Crimes Inquiry, registered as No. 1047 of 2020 Financial Misdemeanors, known in the media as the “TikTok girls” case.
– 11 June 2020, referral: The Public Prosecution referred Ms. Haneen to the Economic Court in the same case.
– 27 July 2020, verdict: She was sentenced to two years in prison and a fine of EGP 300,000.
– 12 January 2021, acquittal: The Third Misdemeanor Appeals Circuit of the Cairo Economic Court acquitted Ms. Haneen Hossam, but she was not released because she had already been added to another case, the “human trafficking” case.
3. Timeline since the latest arrest:
Second: the human trafficking case
a. Background of the arrest and stages of the case
– April 2020, charge: While Ms. Haneen was detained in the first case, the “TikTok” case, she was added to another case, Case No. 4917 of 2020 El-Sahel Felonies, registered as No. 2106 of 2020 North Cairo Plenary, known in the media as the “human trafficking” case, in which Ms. Mawada El-Adham and 6 others are also charged.
– 27 January 2021, first release: After nearly a year in pretrial detention, the Cairo Criminal Court ordered her release on bail of EGP 5,000 pending investigations in the “human trafficking” case, and the decision was carried out.
– 14 March 2021, referral: The Public Prosecution referred the case to the competent criminal court.
– 21 June 2021, verdict in absentia: She was sentenced in absentia to ten years in prison and a fine of EGP 200,000 in the case known in the media as “human trafficking”.
– 22 June 2021, second arrest: Ms. Haneen Hossam was arrested again to carry out the sentence issued against her in absentia by the competent criminal court, just two hours after she appeared in a Facebook live stream appealing to President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi to intervene and resolve her situation.
– 14 November 2021, retrial: The Cairo Criminal Court held a retrial session on the in absentia sentence of 10 years of aggravated imprisonment and a fine of EGP 200,000.
– 18 April 2022, final verdict: The Cairo Criminal Court, 15th South Cairo Circuit, sentenced Ms. Haneen in person to 3 years in prison and a fine of EGP 200,000 in Case No. 4917 of 2020 El-Sahel Felonies, registered as No. 2106 of 2020 North Cairo Plenary, in which she was charged with human trafficking. The court also ordered her to pay the criminal court costs.
b. Charges:
– Human trafficking.
– Exploiting girls in activities that contradict the principles and values of Egyptian society for financial gain.
4. Detention conditions
a. Places of detention: Ms. Haneen is serving her sentence in Al-Qanater Women’s Prison.
b. Violations:
– Being subjected to defamation campaigns and social stigma in full view of the authorities, without any legal action being taken.
– The arrest and summons report was invalid because it did not include Ms. Haneen’s details, in violation of Article 127 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
– Her personal phone was searched and her chats opened by the arresting officer without any clear legal justification, in violation of Article 21 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
– The prosecution appealed the release decision issued by the deliberation chamber, in violation of Article 167 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, on the pretext that new technical evidence (a video) had emerged, even though the prosecution had already confronted her with it.
c. Living conditions in prison: Ms. Haneen spent her first night after returning to Al-Qanater Women’s Prison in a state of total collapse. She cried from the moment she got out of the transport vehicle until she entered the ward assigned to her, then began screaming nonstop and stayed like that the whole night. Her fellow prisoner Ms. Mawada El-Adham tried to calm her, but she kept screaming: “I did nothing wrong.. I swear to God I did nothing wrong, it’s not fair for me to spend 10 years in prison.” She spent the night holding the Quran and praying. Afterwards she was overcome by sadness, staring at the ward window, then went to her sleeping place still crying, according to a report published by Youm7 newspaper.
She was also subjected to taunts and mockery about her and her actions from other prisoners, which led to a fight between her and the other prisoners in the ward. It almost escalated further, but some women in the prison stepped in to break it up.