Iraq Yazidis want Big Tech held to account for Islamic State crimes

[Published here on February 17, 2022]

BEIRUT, Feb 17 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Wahhab Hassoo’s family had to pay $80,000 to buy the release of his niece from the Islamic State (IS) militants who abducted her in 2014, and then offered her “for sale” in a WhatsApp group.

Now, Hassoo’s family and dozens of others from Iraq’s minority Yazidi community want social media companies to be held to account, accusing them of having facilitated the trafficking of Yazidi women and girls by the jihadists.

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From Middle East to India, women ‘violated’ in Pegasus hack

[Produced with colleague Rina Chandran and published here August 11, 2021]

BANGKOK/BEIRUT, Aug 11 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Dozens of women across India, the Middle East and North Africa who were likely targeted for surveillance by governments using Pegasus spyware are now at a heightened risk of being blackmailed or harassed, tech experts and victims said.

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