Egyptian ‘influencer’ arrested in Saudi Arabia for Tik Tok video “contrary to public morals”

Saudi Arabian Police have arrested Egyptian ‘influencer’ Tala Safuan for a video posted on the Tik Tok platform “contrary to public morals” in which she appears talking to a Saudi friend whom she invites to her home, which unleashed a wave of criticism on social networks.

According to the information gathered by the Saudi newspaper ‘Saudi Gazette’, the woman would have published a voice message addressed to a second woman with a “sexually explicit” content and has stated that “legal measures” have been taken against her and that the case has been sent to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, without giving further details.

Police have not identified the detainee as Tala Safuan, although they have included in the note an image of the video of the ‘influencer’, a few days after the Saudi media regulator demanded YouTube to remove ads considered offensive to the values and religious principles of the country.

Safuan, a resident of Saudi Arabia, has nearly one million followers on his YouTube channel and has nearly five million followers on Tik Tok. After the aforementioned video, users on social networks charged against her and launched a hashtag on Twitter, ‘Tala offends society’.

In the video, the ‘influencer’ appears chatting with a Saudi friend whom she invites to her home, after which she makes statements that have been interpreted as “sexually suggestive.” However, Safuan rejected the criticism and pointed to a misunderstanding because the cut of the recording had been taken out of context, as reported by the British television channel BBC.