2024: The New York Times Fires Anat Schwartz
According to Israeli news site Ynet News, The New York Times has fired reporter Anat Schwartz. Thousands of people worldwide had slammed The New York Times for hiring Ms. Schwartz, a former member of Israel’s air force intelligence with a record of liking racist and genocidal social media posts against Palestinians. Thousands of Freedom Forward activists had called on The New York Times to fire both Schwartz and columnist Thomas Friedman for their history of pro-Israel bigotry. Read more here.
Freedom Forward’s human rights campaign and a fan boycott made “Real Housewives of Dubai” the lowest ranked “Real Housewives” series in the entire Bravo franchise. We targeted the TV series (letter, petition, release) and the UAE dictatorship because of the monarchy’s human rights crimes, including kidnapping of women, accusation of rape, and the brutal war in Yemen.
The human rights coalition campaign was covered in many entertainment outlets, including Yahoo Entertainment, Radar Online, Heavy.com, The Daily Mail, Screen Rant, The Things, All About the Tea, Reality Blurb and the Youtube show Kempire.
Read more about the campaign here.
2021: European Parliament Calls for Boycott of UAE Dubai Expo
In 2021, Freedom Forward and allies launched a global campaign to boycott the United Arab Emirates’ Dubai World Expo. The campaign was a success – with the European Parliament voting to boycott the UAE Dubai Expo, a major rejection of the UAE dictatorship’s propaganda event.
Freedom Forward’s victory was covered by The Jerusalem Post, The New Arab (1,2), The Column, Inside Arabia, and in a podcast by the European Centre for Democracy and Human Rights.
To drive our boycott campaign, Freedom Forward organized human rights coalitions that focused on the Yemen War and women’s rights violations. These coalitions anchored our call for participants to withdraw from the UAE monarchy’s high publicity event. Over 12,000 people joined our online petition campaign.
2020: Boycott of Saudi Arabia’s G20 Summit
Freedom Forward and a global coalition of organizations organized a successful boycott of Saudi Arabia as host of the 2020 G20 summit of world leaders. Read about our successes with the US Congress, European Parliament, UK Parliament, and the mayors of London, Paris, New York, and Los Angeles.
2019: United Nations and New York Public Library Cancel Saudi Propaganda Event
Freedom Forward and a coalition of allied organizations scored another success by pushing the United Nations and New York Public Library to cancel a propaganda event by the Saudi Arabian dictatorship in New York during the September UN General Assembly. Read more here.
2019: Global Controversy Engulfs UNESCO Partnership with Saudi Dictator’s “Foundation”
Freedom Forward built global pressure to challenge UNESCO’s partnership with the Saudi Arabian Crown Prince’s MiSK foundation. The campaign was covered in international media, including Radio France Internationale, Le Monde (France), Le Figaro(France), The Telegraph (UK), ABC (Spain), Le Soir (Belgium), and The New Arab.
2019: Ending Bloomberg’s Saudi Sponsorship
In 2019, Mike Bloomberg’s annual Global Business Forum in New York City was sponsored by the Saudi dictator’s MiSK foundation. Freedom Forward online activists took over the event’s Twitter hashtag (#BloombergGBF) and drove a steady drumbeat of criticism. One month later, Bloomberg announced that their reporters would no longer participate as panel moderators in Saudi Arabia’s “Davos in the Desert.”
