Saudi Arabia: Journalist Ghada Oueiss is once again attacked by accounts suspected to be tied to the Saudi government
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Saudi Arabia: Journalist Ghada Oueiss is once again attacked by accounts suspected to be tied to the Saudi government
October 7, 2020, Saudi Arabia— Journalist Ghada Oueiss was targeted by online attacks, for the second time in less than 2 months by Saudi government linked accounts over her dissident views. The Coalition For Women In Journalism stands with Ghada against these disgraceful attacks.
Mohamed Al-Ahmed, a Saudi media professor at King Saud University, published a video of Ghada Oueiss personal pictures with the title “Ghada’s Scandals”. The video included personal photos and videos of the journalist. The same content was circulated and by Saudi officials accounts last July. These personal pictures were obtained after hacking Ghada’s cellphone.
The video was followed by a series of online attacks on Ghada, name-calling her, accusing her of being paid to attack the Saudi government, and belittling her accomplishments as a journalist along with tying her success in the field to sexual favors, not competency.
Following the attack against Ghada, cartoonist Fahd Al-Geibry also created a “work” insulting Ghada. The same Cartoonist had made another cartoon mocking journalist Zahara Hankir when she refused to host a women's summit in Saudi Arabia in solidarity with imprisoned women human rights defenders and prisoners of conscience in Saudi Arabia.
It seems that Saudi authorities invest in deploying and buying accounts to troll and attack political dissidents and women journalists. An analysis by Marc Owen Jones, a researcher, and professor at Hamad bin Khalifa University in Qatar, found that the campaign against Ghada in July was driven by numerous prominent Saudi Twitter accounts.
Apparently, online trolling, hacking, phishing, and tailing opponents’ voices, are Saudi authority’s key weapons to silence opponent voices either by physical attacks using data of their whereabouts like the case of murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi or by doxing and cyberbullying in the case of Ghada, Zahra, and many others.
On another note, Social media platforms don’t have policies in place to protect women in general, on their platforms and women journalists particularly. In September, The Coalition For Women In Journalism raised the issue of threats to women in journalism online. CFWIJ launched a campaign shedding light on online attacks against women journalists around the world. On the same day, Amnesty issued a report about how twitter is not a safe space for women. Both organizations urged twitter to update its policies to protect women on the platform.
The Coalition For Women In Journalism stands firmly with Ghada against these odious practices and asks the following:
1) King Saud University, shall take punitive action against professor Mohamed Al-Ahmed whose actions contradict the media ethics that he should be teaching.
2) Twitter shall review its policies and create tools to protect women journalists on their platform and create an instrument to prevent republished doxed content.
3) Saudi authorities should stop targeting and intimidating political dissidents and women journalists through its electronic armies.
4) Media outlets should suspend work with Cartoonist Fahd Al-Giebry due to his misogynist cartoons that target women journalists like Ghada and Zahra until he refrains and apologize for these practices.
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The Coalition For Women In Journalism is a global organization of support for women journalists. The CFWIJ pioneered mentorship for mid-career women journalists across several countries around the world, and is the first organization to focus on the status of free press for women journalists. We thoroughly document cases of any form of abuse against women in any part of the globe. Our system of individuals and organizations brings together the experience and mentorship necessary to help female career journalists navigate the industry. Our goal is to help develop a strong mechanism where women journalists can work safely and thrive.
Follow us on Instagram @womeninjournalism and Twitter @CFWIJ. Our website is WomenInJournalism.org and we can be reached at press@womeninjournalism.org