Islamabad, Pakistan
CNN
–
When Sana Yousaf turned 17, she posted a video of her birthday celebrations to her over 1 million followers of Tiktok.
They saw her cutting pink and cream cakes under the arch of matching balloons. The June winds disrupt her long hair as she glowed against the cloudy Margara hills of Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad.
Less than 24 hours later, Sana was dead. A bullet from her chest, and graphic images of her corpse on social media in Pakistan have infuriated women all over the country, fearing that there is no safe space in real life or online.
Police are detaining 22-year-old Umar Hayat, unemployed in Faisalabad city over Sana’s murder. Islamabad police inspector Syed Ali Nasir Rizvi claimed that Rizvi “two attempts to contact him repeatedly” and that she killed her when she refused to respond. CNN was unable to find a legal representative for Hayat.
Sana’s father, Said Yousaf Hassan, told CNN there was no word to convey the loss of the family, and his daughter had not said she was being harassed. “My daughter was braveer than her son,” he said. “She was not afraid of anything.”
As Sana’s family prepared for her funeral, intrusive comments began to appear in her Tiktoku and Instagram posts. Read “I’m glad to see these things happening.” Another said, “My heart is happy today, I’m going to turn on the music and dance with joy.”
Under the photo of Sana wearing traditional Pakistani clothing covering her whole body, she commented, “Encouraging young women to look after attention or expose themselves can have serious negative consequences.”
The Digital Rights Foundation (DRF), a women-led nonprofit that promotes online safety, said such rhetoric “has dangerously linked women’s online presence or perceived morality with justification of violence.”
“This form of digital vigilance contributes to a wider culture of victim accusations where abuse is normalised and accountability shifts from perpetrators,” the DRF said in a report released shortly after Sana’s death.
Alongside toxic online comments, Reiji is simmering among women across Pakistan, demanding justice from Sana and pointing to the crisis of masculinity in the South Asian nation.
And Pakistan is not alone in seeing the heated debate over the valence of violence against women.
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Sana’s Tiktok content is familiar to teenagers online. Her recent shorts included showing off her fashion wear, singing songs while driving, and shooting blowdried photos at the salon.
But for a prominent women’s rights campaigner, Sana’s death was the ultimate result of unlimited online abuse of women in patriarchal countries.
Ambharahim Shamsi, a well-known news digital platform journalist and Pakistani editor, says she was mercilessly harassed online in 2020 on a variety of issues, including views on women’s rights.
“I was also stalked online and was frightened when stalkers began sending mugs and photos to my office. I’m just an example among millions of women in every step. Most people don’t have the privilege or social security net to protect themselves.”
Shambu agrees that there is a crisis in masculinity. “Especially about how it unfolds in our digital space.” And what we need to talk about “not just for women, but for men too.”
According to Shamsi, “Social media amplifies the voices of women, especially those of young women, who are increasingly educated, politically aware, and not afraid to own their choices. Confidence is unsettling for some men who have grown to believe in their authority, control.
“It’s an identity crisis,” says Shamsi. “A subset of men responds to anxiety and aggression over this change in gender dynamics, as if it were to reduce the space of women rather than question why so many boys are raised to feel equally threatened.”
The DRF report states that since 2017, the Helpline has “recorded just the number of gender-based violence and online threats in over 20,000 cases, growing numbers.”
Kanwal Ahmed, a Pakistani social entrepreneur and storyteller, runs Soul Sister Pakistan, a Facebook group that gained over 300,000 followers in 2013. For years it has been operating as a popular and safe digital space online for Pakistani women, but Ahmed says criticism of her page is unforgiving.
“We’ve been called the trauma bonding club, who hates men that all women do is gossip,” said Ahmed, who works with volunteers to help women in need who post on their pages.
Sana is not alone when it comes to unnecessary online attention that has moved into real life. Ahmed recalled the lawsuit of a young woman in 2019 who had creeped up a man after a friend leaked her number online.
“The only difference between her and Sana is that she was not killed. The stalker appeared at her door,” Ahmed said. “You don’t have to be an influencer to face this. It happens to everyone.”
Natalia Tarik leads the resource mobilization of the Association of Progressive Communications (APC), a global network of social activists using the internet to make the world a better place, informing CNN that there is a “full culture of immunity” on Pakistan’s online gender-based violence. She said the regulations and policies implemented in the country are “absolutely inadequate.”
In Pakistan, “violence that occurs online is not harmful because it is “not true,” Tarik said. But she added that what is sometimes seen as a “just a virtual” online threat can often turn into physical violence.
Many praise has been raised by Pakistani authorities for the delicate and prompt handling of Sana’s murder, but some commentators say it has missed the point.
Osama Khirj, director of Boro Bee, digital rights advocacy group Boro Bee, says Pakistan should talk about educating boys about online harassment.
“Men in leadership positions need to talk about these issues,” says Kirji.
Khirji said hate speech towards women in Pakistani remains “not a priority and called the government “indicates leadership in fighting online crime against women.”
Sana’s murder comes less than two weeks after the landmark ruling by the country’s Supreme Court that upheld the death penalty of Zahir Jaffer, who killed Noor Mukkadam, the daughter of a prominent diplomat, in 2021.
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Noor’s father, Shaukat Mukhadham, has been praised for his relentless campaign for justice for his daughter. After the verdict, Noor’s family issued a statement saying the verdict was “a powerful reminder that women’s lives matter.”
Sana’s father, Hassan, spoke to CNN about the immeasurable love for her daughter, her plans to become a doctor, and the simple things that gave her the joy of a birthday party.
“Every moment with her was unforgettable,” he said.
