The Sunday Age, 18 February 2024, 31:

The Toll of Standing Tall

As an advocate for Palestinians, I have been doxxed repeatedly. But no one has
done anything about it.

In the past four months, I have seen and heard things which will never leave me:
children taking their last breaths, the tiny bodies of babies who were born and died
in war, mothers having caesarean sections without anaesthetics.

The humanitarian crisis imposed on Gaza is beyond anything in living memory. The
population is being starved, deprived of water, shelter and basic medicines.
Particularly shocking is the effect on healthcare. More than 400 of my colleagues
have been killed. Most of Gaza's hospitals have been destroyed or attacked.

Being a doctor, committed to medical ethics, to international humanitarian law, and

having a responsibility to ease suffering, I want this horrific conflict to end, in line
with international medical organisations. And so I devote my time to advocacy for
Palestinians.

I work with Doctors for Palestine, a group of doctors which has grown to 900
members, to push for a ceasefire, to increase aid, to reject violence as a solution
and to recognise the rights of the Palestinian people to autonomy. We use legal
means to push for these goals. We write and have petitions tabled, we attend rallies,
we organise vigils, we meet politicians. We support each other in our grief at the
loss of human life, culture and security.

We set up this group as talk of Palestine was being banned in our usual medical
Facebook groups, or posts about grief or fundraising were being attacked by pro-
Israel doctors. The group became an important place for solidarity, the sharing of
information and fundraising. I am one of the admins of the group and we do not
allow antisemitism or calls for doxxing or targeted harassment.
Trying to be a force for human rights while holding down a full-time job and raising
children is difficult. Still, we do not question our advocacy - it shouldn't be
controversial to oppose violence and want international law upheld.

So it was a shock when, several days before Christmas, I received screenshots of

an Instagram page with a photo featuring myself, my husband and a member of the
Palestinian community. This post named me, named my place of work, and implied
that I wasn't safe to work with Jewish junior doctors and patients. Comments on the
post, some from fellow healthcare professionals, suggested I supported Hamas.

Another screenshot posted was one taken out of context from a series of posts I
made criticising Israel's prison system, in which I referred to the thousands of
people arrested without charge since the October 7 attack - many of them women,
children and elderly - as "Palestinian hostages". This was presented as if I believed
the terrorists who enacted the massacre were "hostages". The post included a
photo of me with my child, their face obscured by a bunny rabbit emoji. I was
described as "disgusting" and "horrendous". As a doctor, I abhor violence against
any human including the more than 1100 people, most civilians, killed on October 7.
Stopping such violence is the point of my advocacy.

This Instagram page had "profiles" of many of my colleagues and published

"stories" where obscene language was used against doctors advocating for the
Palestinian cause. Many posts included screenshots obtained from our private
Facebook group. We reported the page to Instagram's parent company Meta, but it
was not considered to be against community standards.

I have been featured repeatedly. They use photos of my family and private life lifted
from social media. I am called a racist, a Nazi, an antisemite. My workplace and
AHPRA, the body responsible for accreditation of health professionals, are
repeatedly tagged. Many comments have suggested my medical licence should be
taken away. I have been reported to the Health Care Complaints Commission over
my advocacy - thankfully, the complaint was dismissed.
The abuse and doxxing of my colleagues followed a similar pattern. Some were
notified of complaints to the regulator more than two months ago and are still
dealing with the anxiety of not having the complaint finalised.

Some doctors have had threats made to their workplaces; some have received
workplace complaints. Many are frightened and have been silenced. All of us are
anxious about our photos, identifying details and horrific commentary remaining
online. We just want the doxxing to stop - neither we nor any member of the Jewish
community deserves this.

We have been trying to get assistance with this situation for over two months.
Police, AHPRA, politicians, the eSafety Commissioner, and the Australian Human
Rights Commission have all been informed. Nobody was able to do anything
substantive.

Imagine, then, how confusing it was to see our prime minister immediately pushing
for doxxing law changes in response to the release of the WhatsApp transcript
involving 600 people, mostly from the Jewish community. It was shocking to see
that the rights of some people seemed more important than ours.

We are motivated by our pain at the human suffering in Palestine. This group is not
about bullying, harassing or doxxing any person.

We are all scared to some degree, and some are silenced now. Some have
sustained irreversible damage to their careers. Our struggles are barely worth
mentioning in the context of a genocide, but it remains alarming that they were not
seen until raised by those defending Israel.

Dr Kate Ahmad is a Sydney neurologist. She co-runs the Australia New Zealand
Doctors for Palestine organisation.