Twitter Trolls Are Reporting Middle Eastern Women Who Support LGBTQ Causes, Punishment Could Be Death

Twitter trolls are reporting Middle Eastern women who support LGBTQ causes to local authorities, and they could be punished by death.

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A group of Twitter trolls are going after Muslim women and girls, and could potentially cost these women their lives. According to The Daily Beast, the trolls claim to be from the Middle East and are reporting Muslim women and girls who have expressed support for LGBTQ people to local authorities, who could potentially punish their pro-LGBTQ views with death.

The Daily Beast reported that a Twitter account called @old_gaes, whose account was created this month is now empty of any tweets, sent out a screencap of a tweet sent by a young Muslim girl, @Pharaohoe, who reportedly lives in Kuwait. The tweet composed by @Pharaohoe, an account that no longer exists, contained a passage from the Koran where the word "domain" had been replaced with a slang term for the word "vagina."

@old_gaes tweeted the screencap with a message in Arabic, saying, "This is the end of another atheist and we should continue exposing every Arab atheist child to their parents who do not know of their atheism," according to The Daily BeastThe Daily Beast further reported that the official Twitter account of the Dubai police department responded to one of @old_gaes' posts where the user called out a pro-LGBTQ woman and asked for details to be sent over email.

On Monday, The Daily Beast reported that @Pharahoe tweeted "they fucking found me," "im gonna puke," and "i'm deactivating guys." She deleted her Twitter account shortly after. Before @old_gaes cleared their Twitter account, The Daily Beast writes that they and supporters on Twitter were celebratory about @Pharahoe's account going dark.

A woman who only identified herself as Afra spoke to The Daily Beast, saying that she and others have repeatedly reported @old_gaes and similar accounts who repeatedly threaten the safety of LGBTQ and ex-Muslim women living in the Middle East. Additionally, she imparted how dangerous their tweets are. 

A woman who spoke to The Daily Beast anonymously said, "Twitter is absolutely useless. They don’t take this sort of thing seriously. I don’t know what the solution is." Afra said that "He’s [@old_gaes] so dangerous. I don’t know how his account is still up."

Twitter did not immediately reply to Complex's request for comment.

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