Women mourn by a grave during a mass funeral for Yazidi victims of ISIS. AFP
Women mourn by a grave during a mass funeral for Yazidi victims of ISIS. AFP
Women mourn by a grave during a mass funeral for Yazidi victims of ISIS. AFP
Women mourn by a grave during a mass funeral for Yazidi victims of ISIS. AFP

Yazidis want Big Tech held to account over ISIS atrocities


Simon Rushton
  • English
  • Arabic

Yazidi activists are demanding social media companies are held accountable for their alleged role in the genocide of the mid-2010s.

ISIS, as it was sweeping through Iraq and Syria, persecuted the Yazidi population and trafficked its women and girls as part of a campaign against the religious group.

WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were all used to help sell girls and women into slavery and death, the Yazidi campaigners say.

A 120-page document seen by the Thomson Reuters Foundation alleges the tech giants did not act robustly enough to stop ISIS members using their platforms to trade women and girls kidnapped when it controlled the Yazidi heartland of Sinjar, Iraq, eight years ago.

“This will bring justice for Yazidi victims,” Wahhab Hassoo, 26, a student who resettled in the Netherlands in 2012, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

He says his family paid $80,000 for the release of his niece from ISIS after she was abducted in 2014 and offered her “for sale” in a WhatsApp group.

Men carry a coffin wrapped in the Iraqi flag during a mass funeral for the Yazidi victims. AFP
Men carry a coffin wrapped in the Iraqi flag during a mass funeral for the Yazidi victims. AFP

“We are asking governments to do an investigation because we believe these platforms have contributed to the genocide,” Mr Hassoo told Reuters.

The report, produced with the help of lawyers in the US, accuses social media companies of failing to stamp out hate speech against the Yazidis on their platforms, pointing to weaknesses in content moderation and demanding tougher government regulations.

In a campaign of violence that a UN investigation team said constituted genocide, ISIS fighters killed Yazidi men, enlisted boys as child soldiers and bought and sold women and girls as sex slaves.

ISIS was buying and selling them like they were packs of cigarettes

The report, which details about a dozen examples of online trafficking, includes screenshots of Facebook users haggling over the price of a young Yazidi woman and YouTube videos discussing what characteristics would merit a higher price.

One Yazidi woman, whose sister is still missing, said she became involved in the campaign because she wanted justice and answers, not money.

“I used to look through the Facebook pages and WhatsApp groups every day to find a picture of her,” the woman, who asked not to be named, said from her new home in the Netherlands.

“The hardest thing was seeing posts of the Yazidi girls online. ISIS was buying and selling them like they were packs of cigarettes,” she said.

The Dutch Yazidi advocacy organisation NL Helpt Yezidis compiled the report over four years. AFP
The Dutch Yazidi advocacy organisation NL Helpt Yezidis compiled the report over four years. AFP

YouTube declined to comment on the report's accusations, but a representative told Reuters the site had removed “250,000 videos alone for violating our violent extremism policies from July to September 2021".

Meta, formerly Facebook, which also owns the WhatsApp messaging platform, declined to comment after seeing a copy of the report.

A Twitter representative told Reuters “threatening or promoting terrorism is against our rules”, but declined to comment on Yazidis specifically.

We want the truth to come out
Catherine van Kampen

Catherine van Kampen, a securities fraud lawyer, volunteered with Dutch Yazidi advocacy organisation NL Helpt Yezidis to help compile the report over four years.

“This is literally a case of David and Goliath,” she told Reuters.

She said officials in the US — where many of the accused social media firms are based — and the Netherlands, which was part of the US-led coalition against ISIS, had already received copies of the report.

“If an investigation does lead to a criminal process and an indictment, so be it. If it leads to civil litigation, so be it. We want the truth to come out,” said Ms van Kampen.

US-based websites are protected from most lawsuits if their users post illegal material by the 1996 Communications Decency Act, but later legislation means that would not cover trafficking, according to the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation think tank.

Tewellah by Nawal Zoghbi is out now.

GIANT REVIEW

Starring: Amir El-Masry, Pierce Brosnan

Director: Athale

Rating: 4/5

The specs: 2018 Nissan Altima


Price, base / as tested: Dh78,000 / Dh97,650

Engine: 2.5-litre in-line four-cylinder

Power: 182hp @ 6,000rpm

Torque: 244Nm @ 4,000rpm

Transmission: Continuously variable tranmission

Fuel consumption, combined: 7.6L / 100km

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Where to donate in the UAE

The Emirates Charity Portal

You can donate to several registered charities through a “donation catalogue”. The use of the donation is quite specific, such as buying a fan for a poor family in Niger for Dh130.

The General Authority of Islamic Affairs & Endowments

The site has an e-donation service accepting debit card, credit card or e-Dirham, an electronic payment tool developed by the Ministry of Finance and First Abu Dhabi Bank.

Al Noor Special Needs Centre

You can donate online or order Smiles n’ Stuff products handcrafted by Al Noor students. The centre publishes a wish list of extras needed, starting at Dh500.

Beit Al Khair Society

Beit Al Khair Society has the motto “From – and to – the UAE,” with donations going towards the neediest in the country. Its website has a list of physical donation sites, but people can also contribute money by SMS, bank transfer and through the hotline 800-22554.

Dar Al Ber Society

Dar Al Ber Society, which has charity projects in 39 countries, accept cash payments, money transfers or SMS donations. Its donation hotline is 800-79.

Dubai Cares

Dubai Cares provides several options for individuals and companies to donate, including online, through banks, at retail outlets, via phone and by purchasing Dubai Cares branded merchandise. It is currently running a campaign called Bookings 2030, which allows people to help change the future of six underprivileged children and young people.

Emirates Airline Foundation

Those who travel on Emirates have undoubtedly seen the little donation envelopes in the seat pockets. But the foundation also accepts donations online and in the form of Skywards Miles. Donated miles are used to sponsor travel for doctors, surgeons, engineers and other professionals volunteering on humanitarian missions around the world.

Emirates Red Crescent

On the Emirates Red Crescent website you can choose between 35 different purposes for your donation, such as providing food for fasters, supporting debtors and contributing to a refugee women fund. It also has a list of bank accounts for each donation type.

Gulf for Good

Gulf for Good raises funds for partner charity projects through challenges, like climbing Kilimanjaro and cycling through Thailand. This year’s projects are in partnership with Street Child Nepal, Larchfield Kids, the Foundation for African Empowerment and SOS Children's Villages. Since 2001, the organisation has raised more than $3.5 million (Dh12.8m) in support of over 50 children’s charities.

Noor Dubai Foundation

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum launched the Noor Dubai Foundation a decade ago with the aim of eliminating all forms of preventable blindness globally. You can donate Dh50 to support mobile eye camps by texting the word “Noor” to 4565 (Etisalat) or 4849 (du).

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Director: Jesse Armstrong

Rating: 3.5/5

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Essentials

The flights

Emirates and Etihad fly direct from the UAE to Geneva from Dh2,845 return, including taxes. The flight takes 6 hours. 

The package

Clinique La Prairie offers a variety of programmes. A six-night Master Detox costs from 14,900 Swiss francs (Dh57,655), including all food, accommodation and a set schedule of medical consultations and spa treatments.

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Tamkeen's offering
  • Option 1: 70% in year 1, 50% in year 2, 30% in year 3
  • Option 2: 50% across three years
  • Option 3: 30% across five years 
New UK refugee system

 

  • A new “core protection” for refugees moving from permanent to a more basic, temporary protection
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  • A longer path to settlement with no indefinite settled status until a refugee has spent 20 years in Britain
  • To encourage refugees to integrate the government will encourage them to out of the core protection route wherever possible.
  • Under core protection there will be no automatic right to family reunion
  • Refugees will have a reduced right to public funds
Liverpool's all-time goalscorers

Ian Rush 346
Roger Hunt 285
Mohamed Salah 250
Gordon Hodgson 241
Billy Liddell 228

The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre turbo 4-cyl

Transmission: eight-speed auto

Power: 190bhp

Torque: 300Nm

Price: Dh169,900

On sale: now 

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Groom and Two Brides

Director: Elie Semaan

Starring: Abdullah Boushehri, Laila Abdallah, Lulwa Almulla

Rating: 3/5

Conflict, drought, famine

Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.

Band Aid

Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.

Skoda Superb Specs

Engine: 2-litre TSI petrol

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Torque: 320Nm

Price: From Dh147,000

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Polarised public

31% in UK say BBC is biased to left-wing views

19% in UK say BBC is biased to right-wing views

19% in UK say BBC is not biased at all

Source: YouGov

Company Profile

Company name: Yeepeey

Started: Soft launch in November, 2020

Founders: Sagar Chandiramani, Jatin Sharma and Monish Chandiramani

Based: Dubai

Industry: E-grocery

Initial investment: $150,000

Future plan: Raise $1.5m and enter Saudi Arabia next year

ACL Elite (West) - fixtures

Monday, Sept 30

Al Sadd v Esteghlal (8pm)
Persepolis v Pakhtakor (8pm)
Al Wasl v Al Ahli (8pm)
Al Nassr v Al Rayyan (10pm)

Tuesday, Oct 1
Al Hilal v Al Shorta (10pm)
Al Gharafa v Al Ain (10pm)

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MATCH INFO

Uefa Champions League semi-final, second leg result:

Ajax 2-3 Tottenham

Tottenham advance on away goals rule after tie ends 3-3 on aggregate

Final: June 1, Madrid

The burning issue

The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.

Part three: an affection for classic cars lives on

Read part two: how climate change drove the race for an alternative 

Read part one: how cars came to the UAE

First Person
Richard Flanagan
Chatto & Windus 

The specs

Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo

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Transmission: 9-speed auto

Fuel consumption: 6.9L/100km

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Ferrari 12Cilindri specs

Engine: naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V12

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Updated: February 18, 2022, 11:59 AM