Dubai: A famous Kuwaiti fashionista known as "Umm Ryan" was referred by the police cybercrime unit to the public prosecution in Kuwait after she published a video of her 11-year-old son collapsing in tears.
Phonecia, who has 1.5 million Instagram followers, recorded a live video of the moment she told her son the shocking news of his grandmother’s (her mother) passing away.
What’s more shocking was that she didn’t stop recording when her son, Ryan, went into an emotional meltdown.
The video starts with her making an introduction, while the child looks scared and begs her to tell him what is happening.
People all over the Arab world took to social media with shock and anger over the insensitive act.
Some expressed their shock over how, for extra views, a mother would share such a moment of loss and grief to the public.
One social media user wrote: “She is cruel and has no heart, her mother just passed away and she is recording.”
Another user commented on the video, saying: “I swear to God, I have no words to describe what I just saw, am shocked and my brain cannot process what I just saw.”
Kuwaiti lawyer Fahd Haddad told Al-Arabiya TV: “She was referred to the public prosecutor, because she has committed a crime. She made a child a commodity of trade. She traded his feelings in a public forum. The Kuwaiti law (2015) states: ‘No mother or any person can record or take a picture of a child for the purpose of humiliation, degrading or destroying their psychology.’ This is not only a law, but part of the Kuwaiti Constitution.”
Hadded added: “She has committed a crime, and that’s why she was referred to the public prosecutor, by virtue of two complaints against her — one from the cybercrime department at the Ministry of Interior, and another from the Ministry of Health, the Child Protection Office.”
According to the lawyer, she may face at least one to two years in jail, in addition to a hefty penalty.
