Egypt: Parents probed for poking sleeping baby

Cairo: An Egyptian couple face investigation over an alleged abuse of their newly born baby in a case that has triggered an outcry in the country.

In recent weeks, the couple, famous for posting YouTube footage on their personal life, have released a series of videos featuring their baby mostly while she was asleep. In the videos, the young spouses, identified as Ahmad and Zeinab, are seen poking their sleeping baby to wake up and sometimes tweaking her in the cheek to cry while urging viewers to subscribe to their YouTube site to generate high traffic purportedly for gaining money.

The footage has often earned the couple rebukes from followers who accused them of abusing their baby and putting her at risk by exposing her to a lot of camera light.

Egypt’s state National Council for Motherhood and Childhood said it has lodged a legal complaint against the parents, believed to be in their twenties.

“The council has filed the complaint after it received via its Child Help Service several reports and grievances about abusing the baby girl by her parents with the aim of achieving high viewing rates on social media,” the agency’s chairwoman Azza Al Ashmawy said in media remarks.

“The council analysed the content of the videos and concluded that they constitute a child abuse in violation of the law,” she added.

In response, Egypt’s chief prosecutor Nabil Sadeq on Saturday ordered an inquiry in the case.

No date has been set for the couple’s questioning. They could be charged with child abuse and commercial exploitation, offences punishable in the Egyptian law by up to five years in prison and a maximum fine of 50,000 Egyptian pounds (Dh11,110).