LEILA FADEL, HOST:
The June murder of a teenage social media star has become a part of a wider conversation in Pakistan about gender-based violence in the internet age. Since the killing, there's been a push by some Pakistani leaders to restrict social media access for young people. Betsy Joles reports from Islamabad.
BETSY JOLES, BYLINE: In videos on her social media accounts, Sana Yousaf addresses her followers like friends. She uses the slang word yaar, often used conversationally in Urdu, like dude is in English.
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SANA YOUSAF: (Speaking Urdu).
JOLES: A post from June 2 shows her cutting a cake in front of an archway of pink and white balloons. It was a celebration for her 17th birthday. Later that day, she was killed. The main suspect is a 22-year-old man named Umar Hayat, who knew Sana from social media and wanted to meet her. Police say after Sana declined, Hayat broke into her house in Pakistan's capital city, Islamabad, and shot her dead. He confessed to the crime and will now face trial for murder. Sana's family didn't know she was dealing with unwanted advances online. Her father, Yousaf Hassan, says it didn't show at home, where Sana used to be jovial with everyone. She was never in a bad mood.
YOUSAF HASSAN: (Speaking Urdu).
JOLES: "She was thinking that whatever happens, she will handle it by herself," he says.
Sana is one of several women murdered in Pakistan in the past year, in cases police have linked to social media. In October, a man was arrested for killing four female family members in the port city of Karachi. He admitted to police that he was angry over what he saw as their immodest TikTok videos. And in January, the father of 14-year-old Pakistani American Hira Anwar confessed to ordering her execution, telling police her social media posts brought shame to the family. A spokesperson for TikTok says the company will remove videos, comments and hashtags identified as containing misogyny. A spokesperson from Meta, Instagram's parent company, says it offers resources and tools to protect women from online abuse.
SHMYLA KHAN: It's been happening for a while, but the frequency is frankly quite concerning.
JOLES: Shmyla Khan is an independent digital rights researcher. She says these killings are part of a larger issue of gender-based violence in conservative Pakistan.
KHAN: At the core of, like, what's being contested is this notion of what a respectable or good woman is.
JOLES: And this tension is not new on the Pakistani internet, says journalist Sanam Maher. She's the author of a book about the life and death of Qandeel Baloch, a popular internet personality who was killed in 2016. Baloch, whose real name was Fouzia Azeem, was strangled to death by her brother, who took issue with her controversial social media posts. Maher says a lot has changed since then. And these days...
SANAM MAHER: Younger people see the online space as a space that they are entitled to.
JOLES: That's why when two senators in late July proposed a complete ban on social media for young people under 16, many were not convinced.
UME LAILA AZHAR: Whenever there is an incident, the only reaction we have is just ban these sites.
JOLES: This is Ume Laila Azhar (ph), chairperson of the National Commission on the Status of Women. She says technology has provided new avenues for women's empowerment, but it has also reinforced patterns of violence that need to be addressed more thoroughly.
AZHAR: It demands urgent attention from both the state and the society. But the kind of attention we want is prevention and security. Obviously, the state is trying to protect, but this is not the means.
JOLES: She says without addressing the misogyny Pakistani women have long faced, violence against them will continue online and off.
For NPR News, I'm Betsy Joles in Islamabad.
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