Transnational Online Repression and Resistance: Gendered Digital Activism to Advance Democracy in the Muslim World 

While cyberactivism, defined as the utilization of online communication to advance social and political transformation (Howard 2011), has been an effective weapon in the quest for freedom and democracy in the Muslim World, as witnessed in the Arab Spring uprisings (Khamis and Vaughn 2011; ElTantawy and Wiest 2011), the new reality in this region is characterized by escalating authoritarianism, both offline and online. The new era of digital authoritarianism (Khamis, 2022) in this region is characterized by authoritarian governments’ reliance on digital transnational repression to silence voices of dissent outside of their borders. Therefore, although many of these regimes’ opponents started to exercise resistance from the diaspora (Khamis and Fowler, 2020), in an attempt to protect themselves and their families from their dictatorial regimes’ retaliation, they were not always safe when engaging in their relentless efforts to advance democracy and reform in their home countries. This presentation explores how women human rights activists and journalists in the diaspora from four Muslim countries, namely Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Syria, and Bahrain, are actively using varied forms of online activism to resist repression and hegemony, both on the political and social levels, in their quest for parallel political and social change. Based on qualitative in-depth interviews with twenty activists and journalists from these four countries, a full exploration of their digitally-based resistance tactics against dictatorship and authoritarianism, as well as patriarchy and misogyny, will be investigated. The study also unpacks their gendered digital resistance to governmental online repression mechanisms, such as monitoring, surveillance, defamation, and smear campaigns which aim to tarnish their images, stigmatize them, and intimidate them. The study highlights how intersectional gender-based digital resistance mechanisms transcend the domestic and offline spheres into the digital and transnational spheres. It also provides a futuristic outlook on the prospects for democracy, reform, and human rights in the Muslim World, moving forward, and the potential role which gendered digital activism, both nationally and transnationally, could play in boosting and advancing them.