Rasha Awad is not a permissible target

Zuhair Osman: The most dangerous aspect of the Sudanese war is not just that it has brought weapons into the streets, but that it has begun to make violence present in our language as well. When language reaches the point of explicitly calling for the killing of a journalist because of her opinions and political stance, it is no longer just a difference of opinion or a transient smear campaign on social media, but a dangerous shift from disagreement to incitement, from incitement to threat, and from threat to the potential for crime. Therefore, solidarity with our colleague, the journalist Rasha Awad, is not a personal stance toward her, nor does it necessarily mean agreement with everything she writes or says. Personally, I may disagree with her on some positions and assessments, as others do, and this is natural in the public sphere. But disagreeing with her—or with any journalist, writer, or activist—does not give anyone the right to call for her killing. This is the point we must not allow to be blurred. Rasha Awad is a journalist, not a permissible target because she holds an opinion that some do not like. The statement from the Sudanese Journalists Syndicate came at a highly sensitive time, after the Syndicate monitored what it described as an explicit inciting post calling for the killing of Rasha Awad, containing hate speech, insults, and direct threats based on her views and positions. The Syndicate demanded that the competent authorities open an immediate and serious investigation, identify the inciters, and hold them accountable. It also called on political and professional forces and public figures to condemn these campaigns and reject violence and incitement. This is a position that should not remain the responsibility of the Syndicate alone. The issue here is bigger than Rasha Awad herself—the issue is: Do Sudanese people still have the right to disagree without that disagreement turning into a death sentence? If the answer is yes, we must say it clearly and stand with this right even when the person expressing the opinion is someone we disagree with. But if every political, military, or ideological faction becomes capable of labeling its opponents as traitors, agents, or enemies, and then opens the door to inciting against them, then we have not exited the war, even if the guns fall silent. We will only have moved the war from the streets to our heads, screens, and phones. Herein lies the true danger. The Sudanese press has paid a heavy price in recent years. Journalists have been arrested, others threatened, many have left the country, and media institutions have been shut down or destroyed, while the journalist is often required to prove first that they are not with this side or that before being allowed to practice their profession. This is one of the most dangerous things that can happen to a society living through a war. The journalist is not a fighter on a front line, and should not be required to carry a military affiliation card to be allowed to speak. Their primary job is to ask, criticize, analyze, and sometimes be wrong and sometimes be right, and to pay the price for their mistakes through criticism, correction, and rebuttal—not with bullets. It is the right of any person to write a response to Rasha Awad, to refute her arguments, to disagree with her, and even to criticize her using the harshest political and professional terms, as long as they remain within the bounds of law and ethics. But calling for her killing is not 'another opinion'; it is an attempt to abolish opinion itself. Even more dangerous is that incitement in an armed society cannot be treated as mere words that vanish with the wind. We live in an environment where weapons are widespread and hate speech has become more capable of producing violence. Therefore, words that might have been said in the past in a moment of anger may today turn into a bloody act. Hence the responsibility of the state and the competent authorities, not only to protect Rasha Awad but to deal seriously with every incitement to kill journalists and citizens. A great responsibility also falls on political and social forces and the elites, who must stop practicing moral selectivity. We cannot condemn incitement when it targets our ally, then remain silent when it targets our opponent. The principle of freedom of expression cannot become valid only for our own supporters; freedom that we protect only for those we like is not freedom; it is a privilege. True freedom is protecting the right of those who disagree with us to speak, even when their words bother us. Therefore, defending Rasha Awad today is not a defense of one person, but a defense of a very small space remaining for all of us to disagree without killing each other. Tomorrow, the target could be another journalist, a writer, a university professor, an activist, or even an ordinary citizen who wrote a sentence that someone did not like. That is why our stance must be clear from now on: We disagree with Rasha Awad as we wish, but we refuse to kill her. We discuss her ideas as we wish, but we refuse to incite against her. We respond to her articles, but we refuse to make her a target. Journalism is not defeated by bullets, and ideas are not killed by threats. If we truly want to emerge from this war into a civil and democratic state, we must learn from now that our political opponent is not our enemy who must be silenced, and that the journalist who disagrees with us is not a legitimate target for hate. The first step toward peace is not just silencing the guns, but silencing the language that justifies firing them. Solidarity with Rasha Awad at this moment is, in essence, solidarity with the right of all Sudanese people to disagree without that disagreement becoming a death sentence.