New Delhi: On 23 April, Twitter suspended an account @SayyidaMona, which appeared to belong to Omani princess Mona bint Fahad, but was allegedly operated by Pakistani users.
The previous day, this account had posted a tweet that went viral for its anti-India stance: “Oman stands with its Muslim brothers and sisters in India. If the Indian Govt doesn’t stop the persecution of Muslims, then 1million workers living in Oman may be expelled. I will definitely take up this issue with the Sultan of Oman. @narendramodi”
The real Princess Mona issued a clarification on 22 April that the viral tweet was not posted by her. The Indian ambassador to Oman, Munu Mahawar, acknowledged the princess on the same day: “I thank HH @MonaFahad13 for clarification on fake social media posts attributed to her. India values its friendly relations with Oman and will continue working closely with the Government and people of Oman to further strengthen our special relationship.”
I thank HH @MonaFahad13 for clarification on fake social media posts attributed to her.
India values its friendly relations with Oman and will continue working closely with the Government and people of Oman to further strengthen our special relationship.@MEAIndia@MofaOman https://t.co/9FET0ADw1r
— Amb Munu Mahawar (@AmbMunu) April 22, 2020
The suspended account is now believed to have been operated by a Pakistani user, to make it appear as if high profile individuals in the Arab world are turning against India. According to a WION report, the account used to be called @pak_fauj.
But this is not the only such case. Tawab Ghorzang, former spokesperson for the Office of National Security Council of Afghanistan, called it “Twitter war from Pakistan against India”.
“This twitter war from Pak against India, using fake accounts impersonating the members of Arab royal families & spreading religious hatred, could be something new for Ind but not for us,” he wrote.
This twitter war from Pak against India, using fake accounts impersonating the members of Arab royal families & spreading religious hatred, could be something new for Ind but not for us. pic.twitter.com/HdAL5rvnVj
— Zia Ghorzang (@ZiaGhorzang) April 23, 2020
Another user, @Frontalfire, which “monitors LoK” and “Indo-Pak conflicts/Kashmir”, pointed to a number of such handles.
Pak ISI shud be held accountable by ME countries for:
•Creating fake Arab profiles with big names
•Abusing India from those handles
•Trying to create rift in Indo-Arab relations
•Let ME countries talk to Pak establishment@DrSJaishankar@MEAIndia pic.twitter.com/yGIe3K5714
— Frontalfire (@Frontalfire) April 22, 2020
Also read: Pakistan-linked hackers pose as Indian govt, carry out cyberattacks under Covid-19 cover
Not limited to one account
The anti-India tweets from alleged Arab Twitter handles come after a user, @AlGhurair98, pulled out an old tweet from BJP MP Tejasvi Surya that read: “95% Arab women have never had an orgasm in the last few hundred years!”
https://twitter.com/AlGhurair98/status/1251846220663963648
On the day the @SayyidaMona handle was suspended, another Twitter account, also believed to be operated by Pakistanis, deleted itself. This account’s name was “Princess Noura bint Faisal” (@NouraAlSaud), and its bio read: “Member of ‘Al Saud’, Parody, Advisor at Ministry of Culture, Founder of KSA Fashion Community”. It had over 13,000 followers.
The fake account @NouraAlSaud had tweeted on 22 April against Surya’s old post about Arab women saying: “Indian Parliamentarian @Tejasvi_Surya posted something disgusting about Arab women. I demand from the Indian Prime Minister @narendramodi that racist Tejasvi Surya be Sacked immediately…”
Also read: Pakistan busy exporting terror while India fights Covid-19 globally: Army chief Naravane
The case of @KahlownYasin
There are possibly more Twitter accounts operated by Pakistanis posing as Arabs to attack India online, Ghorzang alluded in the tweet quoted above.
One of the handles he highlighted was @KahlownYasin, allegedly Pakistani but posing as an Arab.
The account @KahlownYasin stated that the user was based in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, but Friday afternoon, changed its handle to @002saifullah, as well as its profile picture and its location to Dubai, UAE.
One of this account’s tweets used a picture, purportedly from the Northeast Delhi violence in February, and said: “This is Delhi, once ruled by Muslims is being watched by helpless Muslim after Delhi pogrom.”
https://twitter.com/002saifullah/status/1252701685316648960
Another tweet called the Indian government a “fascist” one.
https://twitter.com/002saifullah/status/1252819055586586629
According to Devesh Kumar, researcher at Reuters Institute, @KahlownYasin was originally an account named @MobeenKahlown. Kumar also pointed to a LinkedIn profile of one Mobeen Yasin Kahlown’, who studied at Faisalabad in Pakistan, but is now working for a Saudi Arabian company. ThePrint could not verify this independently.
Kumar also said the Twitter account now known as @AHMAD_ALWAHIDAH used to be called @pakcomrade. This account, with over 22,000 followers, and purportedly based in Kuwait, tweeted: “Rss party hijacks democracy in india (sic).”
https://twitter.com/AHMAD_ALWAHIDAH/status/1252592092053995521
In another tweet, featuring a video of a man being attacked, it said “Rudely, these terrorists document their attacks on this defenseless man !!”, using the hashtag #Islamophobia_In_India”.
Rudely, these terrorists document their attacks on this defenseless man !!
This man’s voice must reach out to all media and international organizations to end these violations.
#rss@BBCWorld @cnnbrk @CNBC @AJABreaking #HumanRights #Islamophobia_In_India #India #Kashmir pic.twitter.com/drK1oTtMPG
— أحمد الوهيدة (@AHMAD_ALWAHIDAH) April 23, 2020
Rules for parody and satire accounts
A Twitter spokesperson told ThePrint that the social media platform’s rules for parody and satire accounts are clear — the bio and the account name “should clearly indicate that the user is not affiliated with the subject of the account”, while “non-affiliation should be stated in a way that can be understood by the intended audience”.
However, in the case of the now-suspended @SayyidaMona account, it would have been impossible for a general user to know beyond doubt that it had no affiliation to the actual princess, since the fake account’s name and description was “H.H. Mona bint Fahd al Said”, with the bio reading “Princess, Doctor, Assistant V.C. for International Cooperation at Sultan Qaboos University”.
The fake profile carried the same designation that the princess carries in real life, according to the Sultan Qaboos University website.
Also read: Twitter ‘mistakenly’ suspended account of Chinese embassy in Sri Lanka. This is what happened
Using their religion Arabs very well know that they can control certain populations in all countries of the world. The Arabs don’t except these “controlled” people as their own because the Arabs consider themselves to be “Blue Blood” but at the same time, the Arabs will fool these people into thinking that the Arabs are their WELL WISHERS, PROTECTORS and BIG BROTHERS. Using religion, the Arabs can create chaos in any country of the world via funding terrorism, promoting Wahabism and religious anarchy which will prevent certain people from integrating into the Republic and contributing to the welfare of their own countries.
Any Twitter against any one leads no where. We indians are committed believe our democracy. Even our some countries think that they can bring bad name to India, it is there foolishness. First those countries trying to defy our beloved India let them repair their cunning, corrupt powerty ridden administration first.
Looks like “theprint.in” is an ally of rss. Because even if there’s no water in some fellow Indians house, “theprint.in” will say “pakistan is responsible for this” and you will say that “pakistan did something”, when the water is not coming in your toilet tap.
You will never repent until you go to hell. N soon you will.
@theprint.in: You fool, remove the hatred, arrogance from you along with your foolishness. Then everything will be fine.
Looks like “theprint.in” is an ally of rss. Because even if there’s no water in some fellow Indians house, “theprint.in” will say “pakistan is responsible for this” and you will say that “pakistan did something”, when the water is not coming in your toilet tap.
You will never repent until you go to hell. N soon you will.
@theprint.in: You fool, remove the hatred, arrogance from you along with your foolishness. Then everything will be fine.
I can say the same for you too. When Lanka refused to play in India. Paxtani be like India ke karan hua. Lol ?? And this also already proven. Not only that Print is an anti BJP Newspaper and Congress bootlicker.
Aren’t you indians ashamed of your racist people?
Look inwards, your enemy is your mindset, not pakistan
Pakistan, you have time and again proved that you are the worst neighbour any country could have ( barring North Korea ofcourse). So suspecting is pretty right on our part
Is Modi also being operated by ISI??
Because no one has weakened the great Indian peaceful Brand of Gandhi India than this present day fascist leader !!!
India should take the matter with the twitter, and if does not take concrete steps, we must make our rules stringent for twitter.
So what exactly you are trying to prove. The handles or the information, which one is wrong. You are becoming more like our barking media channels to put the blame for everything on someone else
This incident should be enough to wake up our intelligence and government establishments. It has shown an alternate reality where Arabs could arm twist us and affect our decision making. Hence we should make up a plan to decrease our reliance on gulf state and should scrutinize all their investments. We should also keep a tab on all the funding of the religious and educational establishment by these gulf states. They could use it for a proxy warfare to keep us in check. We should go on an offensive against these fake news peddlers instead of always being defensive. And OIC needs to be shown its place to. The way they are interfering in our internal matters is alarming We should also start commenting on their internal matters and all the point out all the wrongs being committed by them. Enough of being defensive.
Quite possible. Agencies have unlimited unaudited accounts for this kind of stuff. However, the sharp response from the Gulf is genuine and it likely has the tacit approval of the authorities. The region will become less welcoming of Indians at a time when oil revenues are plunging and there will be more seekers than jobs.
Twitter is a perfect sham job. The fix for all of this is right in the face but I fail to understand the “intelligence” of silicon valley engineers. Firstly, Twitter should NOT allow any user to change their name. Secondly, country where account was created MUST be displayed.That would simply lead to such situations not happening. Thirdly,it is actually doing Pakistan more and more harm to its whatever miniscule credibility it has. They were caught peddling fake pictures and news in the UN red handed. The only straw they are holding onto is to instigate the Muslims in India . That is all they have ever known! In the highly mature world of diplomacy , this is the worst and crude joke Pakistan tried to play using the shoulders of Arab countries. It has been unable to come to terms with the relations between India and Arab nations which is a pandoras box of contradictions if one were to see but it still has started working out!