Thread by @monaeltahawy

#Egyptian vice police have arrested TikTok Star Mawada Eladhm, 22, on charges of “violating family principles and values.” She is the 2nd Egyptian woman to be arrested for posting videos deemed in violation of societal principles and values since April. egyptianstreets.com/2020/05/16/fro…

On April 21, Haneen Hossam was arrested for “inciting debauchery” and “promoting human trafficking” through her use of TikTok. #Egypt

Attention is power. When you command it, you command power, and so patriarchy swoops in and punishes you.

From The Seven Necessary Sins For Women and Girls: Attention

The arrests of female social media influencers in #Egypt reminds me of a more brutal targeting of influencers in #Iraq, where in the space of 6wks in 2018, four prominent Iraqi women were murdered or died in mysterious circumstances. Women with attention have power & are punished

And also the murder, by her brother, of #Pakistani social media influenced Qandeel Baloch. Women who command attention command power and are punished by patriarchy. #7NecessarySins

I wrote this in 2015 after #Egypt arrested female performers for “inciting debaucheey.” And I reminded that it’s not just Islamists who obsess over “morality” but military-backed dictators like Sisi and earlier Mubarak.

google.com/amp/s/www.nyti…

The lesson is that “respectability politics” has the power to unite military regimes and religious zealots alike.

We will truly be free only when morality and decency no longer depend on policing the length of a woman’s skirt and criminalizing suggestive videos.

We are all in chains so long as we punish those whom society judges “debauched” and “deviant.” It is beyond time to rid the Middle East’s penal codes of these morality laws that serve only the hypocrites and misogynists. #Egypt

When a regime - like Sisi’s - massacred almost a 1000 people in just a few hours, what “morals” and “principles” is it enforcing?

What is more indecent: torture, beheadings, car bombs and mass incarceration or “inciting debauchery”? #Egypt