The internet can be a scary place. With social media providing a barrier behind which strangers can threaten you, it’s no wonder many are scared to put themselves out there.
Regardless, we shouldn’t have to put up with persistent trolling – which can include anything from name calling to death threats – just because we choose to have an online presence.
One woman who knows this more than anyone is Amna Saleem, a Scottish Pakistani writer and comedian who, for the past three months, has been receiving rape and death threats from the same man online.
PexelsThe harassment got so bad it resulted in the stranger photoshopping the comedian’s face onto pictures of naked bodies and threatening to post them online. So what did Amna do? Screenshot every single one of the guy’s abusive messages and send them to his mum, of course.
Amna, who you might recognise as the name behind the Twitter handle @AGlasgowGirl, shared pictures of her interaction with the man’s mother on social media, alongside the caption: ‘sometimes grassing on someone to their mother is better than going to the police imo’.
Describing the man’s behaviour as ‘increasingly erratic’, the comedian acknowledges that what she is about to tell his mother might be ‘difficult to hear’, but stresses that if she were a parent, she would want to know.
One of the threats sent by the man, which Amna sent to his mother and included in her Twitter post, read: ‘You’re [sic] parents will kill you themselves when they see these naked pics of you slut and if they dont [sic] I will.’
After informing his mum of these threats, Amna wrote:
He seems offended by my existence as a woman from a Muslim background who doesn’t adhere to his strict standards. I’ve never met or interacted with your son so his grievances against me are quite baffling.
As you can imagine it’s not a very pleasant experience on my end. Would you mind speaking to him about this, please?
The mum then responded to Amna’s message and appeared appalled by her son’s actions, assuring the comedian she would be speaking to her ‘stupid son’ as soon as he got home.
She wrote:
He’s been doing what??? Haramzada. We did not raise him this way. We are not that kind of family I assure you. My daughter is actually a big fan of yours… Expect an apology from him later today.
An incredible response, if ever I saw one. One part of the message seemed to draw more attention than anything else though, with many of Amna’s followers admitting they had had to look up what the term ‘haramzada’ meant.
In fact, so many people searched for the term that Google Analytics showed searches for the word had spiked in recent days. So in case you’re wondering, here’s the definition as per Collins Online Dictionary: ‘an obnoxious or despicable male’. Brilliant.
Your influence… pic.twitter.com/cd76gKspwM
— Ruby May (@RubyMayMot) October 26, 2019
Despite the horrible situation Amna was put in, the comedian managed to inject a bit of humour into the whole thing by imagining her mum’s reaction if she had seen her face superimposed onto a naked porn star’s body.
Which, in case you’re wondering, would have sounded something like this: ‘see if you go to the gym you could look like that’.
Amazing. Keep doing you, Amna.
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A Broadcast Journalism Masters graduate who went on to achieve an NCTJ level 3 Diploma in Journalism, Lucy has done stints at ITV, BBC Inside Out and Key 103. While working as a journalist for UNILAD, Lucy has reported on breaking news stories while also writing features about mental health, cervical screening awareness, and Little Mix (who she is unapologetically obsessed with).