Two Muslim women, Zubaidah Djohar and Deni Rahayu, faced bullying, intimidation, hate speech, and threats, including death threats, in a Facebook group after they were involved in a March 2021 webinar in West Sumatra during which Djohar defended the freedom of Muslim girls and women to choose whether to wear a jilbab. They showed Human Rights Watch more than 60 pages of bullying and threats they downloaded from Facebook. Both women and Human Rights Watch reported the threats to Facebook, but no known action was taken for months and Facebook has not revealed the outcome of its investigation. In April 2022, nearly a full year later, Facebook assigned a staff person to meet Djohar in Jakarta, but she declined the meeting.
© Andreas Harsono/Human Rights Watch