CITIZEN LAB RESEARCH REPORT NO.151 21 A Saudi activist explained that their key concern was the safety of others, saying “if my phone gets hacked, all these persons will be exposed to serious problems just because my mobile is hacked. The danger is not only to the person who has been targeted, but also to everyone who communicates with this person.” Similarly, an Iranian participant (previously identified as Arash) noted that one of his concerns with a lack of digital security was the safety of others. An activist from Balochistan noted that they were not worried about being tracked or monitored by the Pakistani government while in Canada, but they were “worried about people back home” when they contacted them. They noted that, while they came to Canada to have a free space to advocate for their people, they could not safely communicate with people back home. Ahmad: A Journalist from Yemen92 Ahmad was born and raised in Yemen and fled to Canada in 2014. Before leaving Yemen, Ahmad worked as a journalist and played a crucial role in the 2011 uprising and during the transitional period. Ahmad fled to Canada as it was no longer safe for journalists to stay in Yemen after Houthi militias took over Sana’a and a Saudi-led coalition subsequently intervened in the country. In Yemen, journalists were subjected to various forms of violence due to their work. Despite this situation, Ahmad was not dissuaded from doing these journalistic activities from Canada and continued to receive numerous online and offline threats. Numerous unauthorized attempts to access Ahmad’s email and social media accounts have been made, and he was targeted on WhatsApp with a suspicious message. He explained that the digital targeting he experienced means that “you [are] always thinking about what is going to happen next, what kinds of pictures you are taking, what kind of information you are keeping in your phone.” Further, he noted that he does not “trust anyone anymore online” and that: I used to be very open, very active, but now [...] I limit [my] social life [...] even not only online [...] I mean in real life. [I am] usually very suspicious of what [...] people [I am] meeting, especially if they have [a] certain background that could somehow put you [in] a difficult position politically with them or you expect that they might not be or they are not in the same way of thinking politically as you do. The digital targeting has led Ahmad to engage in self-censorship on social media, where he is cautious about every word he writes. Ahmad observes that: 92 The participant has been assigned a pseudonym to protect their identity.