Mariam Veiszadeh

Early life

Veiszadeh was born in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1984. In 1988, when Mariam was just four years old, her family fled Afghanistan due to the ongoing conflict in the region. Following refusal from a number of countries beforehand, she and her family arrived in Australia in 1987 via India, the Czech Republic and Germany and were finally granted asylum there in 1991 under the Refugee and Special Humanitarian Program.

Social media

Veiszadeh is ranked in the top 0.5% users on social media. Veiszadeh's tweets often make it to the NSHIP digital and Which-50 Retweets list (a report which takes the pulse of the Australian Twittersphere to discover the most-retweeted tweets).

Trolling and threats

Veiszadeh made global headlines as she endured months of cyber-bullying and several death threats, specifically including decapitation for simply speaking out against bigotry. Australians responded by rallying behind Veiszadeh and showing their support on social media using the hashtag #IstandwithMariam. Her experiences of cyber-bullying has been cited as a case study in several publications and books including in Targeted and Trolled: The Reality of Being a Woman Online.

The cyber-bullying Veiszadeh experienced intensified when in October 2014, she railed against a Cairns Woolworths supermarket selling a T-shirt adorned with the Australian flag and the words, "love it or leave". Veiszadeh took to Twitter to object to what she perceived to be a bigoted message she felt that the singlet carried, and the fact that an iconic Australian brand like Woolworths was seen as endorsing the message by selling the shirt.

Three months later, the anti-Islam group the Australian Defence League posted the tweet to its Facebook page, where Veiszadeh was subject to numerous offensive comments by the page's supporters. This abuse escalated when The Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi publication, wrote negative articles about her and deployed a "troll army" to attack Veiszadeh.

Joshua Goldberg

Veiszadeh also fell victim to Internet troll Joshua Ryne Goldberg, who was arrested by the US government for distributing information about bomb-making techniques as part of an attempt to incite acts of terrorism on the 14th anniversary of 9/11. Goldberg posted to The Daily Stormer as neo-Nazi under the pseudonym Michael Slay, and contributed to feminist blog Feministing under pseudonym Tanya Cohen. He promoted an illusory friendship between Australi Witness (his pro-ISIL Twitter account) and Veiszadeh, with the objective of smearing Veiszadeh's reputation. Under the penname "Michael Slay", Goldberg wrote the majority of articles on The Daily Stormer criticising Veiszadeh, including the initial piece criticising her stance on the flag shirt. Upon learning the true identity of the writer, website owner Andrew Anglin removed all content by Goldberg.

Accolades

Veiszadeh was selected by Elle Magazine Malaysia as one of 12 women who were helping "change the world" for International Women's Day 2015, alongside the likes of Michelle Obama and Angelina Jolie. And domestically in Australia, Get Up, an independent, community advocacy organisation featured her alongside other strong women advocates, including Rosie Batty, 2015 Australian of the Year, for ‘making it happen’. Veiszadeh was also featured in Elle Magazine Australia for their #WeAreWomen campaign and was a finalist in the Daily Life Women of the Year Awards as well as being awarded Westpac’s ‘Woman of Influence’ Award for 2015.

In December 2015, Veiszadeh was awarded the “Role Model of the Year” and “Woman of the Year” at the 9th Australian Muslim Achievement Awards.