DOAM : Documenting Oppression Against Muslims – Compromised?

This article will investigate the Online group called “DOAM” who claim to identify Oppression against Muslims, sounds like a great cause, but there is a sinister twist…

 

DOAM claim on their website that :   

 

we started this project called DOAM  which stands stands for Documenting Oppression Against Muslims.

This is an unique and online interactive website/resource documenting and visualising oppression against Muslims worldwide. Based on maps with searchable features of articles, audio and video.

On our team, we have people who are from Asian, Arab and English backgrounds. We also have members of different faiths and ideologies. It’s important to appreciate that people of the Islamic faith are of different races and have different interpretations of the faith, all of which should be respected. So one of our Asian supporters went to their site and noted that the ISIS attacks in Bangladesh were not covered. They put this down to oversight and thought nothing of it. Then one of our Arab supporters viewed the section on Iraq, again, no mention of the massive suicide ISIS bombing in Baghdad that killed over 300 people. Coincidence? We took a look at the Saudi section, again no mention of the suicide bombing of Mosques, which was widely reported. There is also a serious and overt sectarian nature to the articles.

We had a closer look. It turns out the site is not what it is claiming at all.

 

 

DOAM : The Reality 

 

Doam’s article’s consist of Western attacks on Muslims and apparent censorship of Salafi texts. In the “Iraq” Section, there are two pages of articles, not one of them is about the Oppression of ISIS against the Muslims and the Non Muslims of Iraq. Instead we see sectarianism that is disturbingly similar to that of ISIS, DOAM are openly Anti Shia. Amazingly they even include an article of “Yazidi Massacre”,  dated June 2015, even if these story turned out to be true, there were much larger massacres taking place that appear to be completely unmentioned on DOAM website.  

They are hand picking the Oppression they are reporting, thus creating a distorted view of what is happening to Muslims.   

 

Instead of documenting all oppression against Muslims, they have selected and distorted the news in order to create a world view that is Anti Non Muslim, and highly sectarian. Its a very worrying trend as readers who take seriously DOAM’s propaganda, will be left with a very perverted view of the world which could lead to radicalisation.

 

DOAM : Effects and Radicalisaion

Imagine if someone claims that they are going to document crime against local convenience stores. However, instead of publishing all of the crimes, they only publicise the ones committed by Black people. It’s not difficult to see how the reader is going to end up with a distorted view of reality. It would paint a picture that crime is only committed by black people and create hatred to them, before you know it the masses are whipped into a fury and innocent black communities are being targeted. As we know, ISIS depend on the Salafi Ideology, and a corner stone of that is a hatred of all groups who have any opinions different to theirs. Other Muslim sects, religions, etc are all not tolerated and actively hated. This is symbolised in the Treat of Madin, a Fatwa from Ibn Taymiyyah and quoted by Osama Bin Laden. It is the religious justification for so many attacks that appear evil and insane to Non-Salafis, but is the religious justification to Salafis. DOAM are feeding this hatred and are acting parallel to the Salafi agenda of creating angry, hateful people who feel that everyone else is against them.

The DOAM propaganda is also worryingly similar to ISIS Dabiq content. DOAM’s coverage of the Syria and Yemen civil wars are equally warped. If one was to read the Syria section, you would think there is only one side who takes causalities and Syria has always been a disaster. DOAM also seem to have a selective memory loss when it comes to ISIS, they have so far not managed to include any of their atrocities, nor any of the Saudi / Western backed groups. The recent beheading of a Palestinian child by the American backed Jihadi group Nour el-Din al-Zinki (article here), also managed to miss DOAM’s radar. Perhaps a 12 year old Muslim boy being beheaded is not Oppression by DOAM standards? Or more likely, it doesn’t fit their narrative. DOAM want to make out that the Non-Muslims and the Muslims who DOAM do not like (Eg Shia) are trying to wipe out Muslims and victimise them. What could be the intention of this?  A backlash against non-Muslims and the Shia, sound familiar?   

 

DOAM = ISIS Mouthpiece?

 

 

If we could imagine the ISIS Propaganda checkbox of “Must Haves” it would include :

• Anti shia 
• Anti minority 
• Anti West 
• Distorting world events to create a bias view 

DOAM tick all these boxes. They may not openly support ISIS, but they do create the same feelings in their readership as ISIS propaganda. They also do not condemn ISIS or their massacres.

 

In our view, DOAM is creating a dangerous victimisation and blame attitude within the Muslim community that could easily lead to radicalisation. We therefore suggest that this fitnah should be avoided and all their content disregarded. We do not believe DOAM is linked to ISIS, however, unwittingly they maybe aiding the ISIS cause and supplying their followers with propaganda assets.

As we continued our investigation into DOAM, the evidence became more and more damming. In January 2016 a series of sectarian hate-filled posts appeared on the official DOAM Facebook page. It was the kind if language and attitude that ISIS routinely use. Several
organisations have picked up on the extremist behavior, including Tell Mama and the Guardian.

 

 

The Facebook comments show that the incitement has worked, people are making death threats, the hatred is real. The actual post is simply of a damaged and burned copy of the Quran, we do not actually know how this has occurred. DOAM are accusing the Iraqi and Shia volunteer forces, who are tasked with removing ISIS from Iraq of doing it. They do this with no evidence. It could, and more likely be the result of ISIS occupying the town and booby trapping the whole area, a tactic which is well publicized. Either way, the propaganda mission has succeeded, and the minds of the masses have been filled with the poison of hate. Their reactions of death threats and cursing is predicable. 

 

We have asked DOAM to comment via Twitter, but they have ignored us.