Shani Louk

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This is how Shani Louk's family asked for her to be remembered. Smiling and alive.

The biggest photojournalism competition in the world decided to trample on the family's wishes in favor of giving a photo of Shani's mutilated body a prestigious award. She wasn't even named in the caption.

Among the photographers honoured is Ali Mahmud, the AP freelancer who came under fire for logging photos during the early hours of October 7th, indicating previous knowledge of Hamas's brutal attack.

Photos showing violence and death can be newsworthy or important when they humanize the dead or galvanize the public. The "winning" photo does neither; it only further dehumanizes Shani, retraumatizes her family, and legitimizes Hamas's actions under the guise of journalistic neutrality.

No one should be rewarded on the backs of murdered women.

Rest in power Shani Louk, we'll remember you as the beautiful soul you were 💜

As for Ali Mahmud, it beggars belief that he is being celebrated for taking the photo of murder-rapist-terrorists with the brutalized and contorted body of Shani.

Seems to me he should be going to jail, not getting a prize.

So you say. Yet to see evidence of this.

I've reached the conclusion that if you want to post anything that expresses sympathy/empathy with anyone who is Israeli or Jewish, the ME board is not a safe space in which to do so. There are people with a vested interest in minimising such acts. It's sad and I'm so disappointed in MN but this is not a safe space for Jewish posters. There is simply no scope for nuanced discussion on here.

She wasn't even named in the caption.

I personally think this was at the request of her family wanting Shani to be remembered alive and full of joy and happiness. If she had been named as the victim in the caption of the photo, then their request would have been ignored.

In a way, I think the photo could represent and commentate the possibly hundreds of young women raped, mutilated and murdered by Hamas on October 7th. It turns it from a photo of a one off crime to a photo representing a mass rape and murder of innocent, defenceless teen girls and young women.

I feel the same applies to posters expressing grief or empathy with Palestinians, and especially Muslim posters. There's a lot of unchecked Islamophobia on these boards, which is sad. And, there is no dedicated board for Muslim posters either.

There are hundreds and hundreds of threads on the Middle East boards. Very few are chatting about Israeli loss. Whataboutery will no doubt follow your post expressing your concerns as well.

I disagree. On another thread a poster openly stated that they hate Israelis. MN deleted the comment. I have not seen such hatred expressed about Palestinians on here...which is a good thing obviously. I don't want to hear it either way.

Thank you for sharing that lovely picture. I think about the victims of that terrible day a lot.

Yes I lurked that thread. It was reported by a pro-Palestinian poster I think.

That's good that you haven't seen it, but as a Muslim I experience it regularly on these boards, and unlike the thread you mentioned (where I reported the posts in question, btw, along with others), it doesn't get challenged or explored regularly. It often doesn't even get removed.

Both Islamophobia and Antisemitism should have no place on these boards. Criticism of both Hamas and the Israeli government, yes, but not hate or discrimination against innocent people.

But we're getting off-topic.

How can you possibly know who reported it, much less where their sympathies lie?

I don't doubt that there is islamophobia too. It's unacceptable and shouldn't be there.

However, on a thread about a murdered young Israeli woman, which has attracted comments clearly intended to minimise/ dismiss the concerns of Jewish posters, I am talking about the fact that these boards are an area in which Jewish posters are being actively discouraged from posting.

We're getting off topic but tbh that seems to be the way of all these threads, so why should this one be any different I guess.

One poster publicly informed the individual that their post had been reported.

I also reported it.

https://shaniloukink.com/

This is a link to Shani's tattoo website. She was really talented - her work is stunning.

Nick Ut (Huỳnh Công Út) is Vietnamese; he was not "tagging along" with an occupying US army dropping napalm on innocent villagers. He lived there. He didn't immigrate to the USA until after the war. His older brother, also a photographer, was killed in the war and Nick started submitting his own photographs to AP at age 15 in order to support his family. **

Ut was filming planes dropping napalm on Trang Bang when he saw a group of people running toward him fleeing the attack, which he caught on film. He realized what was happening and stepped in and gave Kim Phuc water and tended her woulds, then took her to the hospital. When doctors refused to treat her, saying she could not be saved, Ut showed his press pass and threatened that pictures of her would be published to the world with the information about the doctors who refused to treat her. She says he saved her life. Only then did he send the photographs, including "The Terror of War" (aka "Napalm Girl") out for publication.

Even so, there WAS controversy surrounding the photograph - publication was delayed because AP would not approve the image of a naked child, and a case had to be made for the importance of the image outweighing the concerns about privacy and appropriateness. Various publications and platforms tried to censor it even after the Pulitzer - there was a big uproar in 2016 when Facebook deleted various retweets of the picture, including one from Norwegian PM and Zuckerberg eventually had to apologize and reinstate them.

Another instance that comes to mind is "The Vulture and the Little Girl", which won a Pulitzer in 1994. During the 1993 famine in Sudan, South African photographer Kevin Carter snapped a picture of a tiny starving child creeping toward a UN feeding centre, being watched by a vulture apparently waiting for her to die, and he did not intervene. When the picture appeared in the New York Times, there was a surge of viewers and journalists asking what happened to the girl. Carter said he didn't know and provoked a huge backlash including ongoing academic critique using Carter, and the photograph, as an example of "the appropriation of suffering". Carter later committed suicide.

So yeah - these types of photographs are controversial.

@AspiringChatBot I read a brilliant book called 'the bang bang club' about carter and others that took those pictures in South Africa.
Highly recommended.
I think the 'difference' between the two pictures and circumstance is huge.
Ignorance peacocked as fact.

I do to … when I first saw this picture of Shani I’m going to be honest my heart sank and found myself crying for her sitting in my kitchen

… her suffering the fear the pain that she experienced

She was a lovely young lady who went dancing with her friends that’s it she was dancing and enjoying a weekend break … and she was slaughtered ….

I personally am sick that a prize was given that depicted the horrendous act and celebration of Shani’s death. The young girl would went dancing lay broken in the back of a pick up while men cheered

We have and are at risk of becoming so desensitised.
whats next? what will prizes be given for in the future …. This needs to stop … the dead have no voice…

He was clearly affected by it, and there was rationale behind his actions from what I read. People of all ages were dying everywhere and being brutalised, truly horrific.

I believe that 'the little girl' turned out to be a boy, who did survive but died in early teenage hood.

Agree. That's why so many aren't around the boards anymore.

I agree a lot of people don't post anymore. It's sad that they no longer feel safe or able to post due to the constant whataboutery, minimising and general disrespect and disregard for people in pain who didn't cause this and want peace.

Have you tried asking for one?

If feels like what happened on October 7th changed things irrevocably that even talking about moving forward towards peace seems a huge step. So much death, hatred. It feels an insurmountable proposition. It's all very sad.

As awful as it is, the photo bears witness. It is worth a million women speaking up.

If the photo had never been taken, would it be believed this happened to Shani? Or any of the others?

I know women survivors of wartime rape are disbelieved and widespread denial is still to this day pervasive about men at war (soldier or terrorist) raping women to death as a form of torturous murder of helpless innocent civilians is often ignored, minimised and zero shits are usually given.

I have just read “Our Bodies, Their Battlefield” by Christina Lamb that lays this bare.

@Scirocco is there any reason Mumsnet have denied your request for one?

@stomachamelon it's been requested several times, by various people, but no joy. It would be nice. I think there's a current thread about one request in Site Stuff.