Like hundreds of young women and men all across the Arab world and beyond, Dana Bakdounis, posted her photo to the online campaign, The Uprising of Women in the Arab World's Facebook page. Holding her passport and a hand-written message along with a defying stare on her unveiled face, she boldly states: "I'm with the uprising of women in the Arab world because for 20 years I was not allowed to feel wind in my hair and body." But on the morning of October 26, 2012, Facebook removed Dana's photo, and blocked the administrator of the Facebook page who posted the photo from posting anything for 24 hours. The picture was taken down by Facebook because the social network had received complaints. The photo was allegedly reported as being "insulting."

This is the "controversial" photo of Dana Bakdounis that was posted on the Facebook page of the online campaign "The Uprising of Women in the Arab World."

The administrators of the Facebook group posted this message after Facebook deleted the photo:

"Uprisers, male and female, what do you expect the gift is the gift to you from the extremists, infidelators, the ignorant and facebook? this morning the picture of dana bakdounis was wiped off from the page by facebook on the claim that it infringes on public decency!! dana who took off the veil forced on her and took a picture of herself without it!! Since when has the freedom of choice become an infringement on public decency and religions when all legal codes affirm that being convinced comes before belief, and that all legal codes and religions cannot be enforced by threats, repression, ignorance making and infidelation.

This page has never interfered in the belief of any of you and we also have many veiled and face-veiled who have also participated and were welcomed. they themselves refuse this kind of malicious maneuver.

We will continue on this uprising of ours. Dana Bakdounis and other women will continue to live free despite those haters of women and haters of freedom.

May your morning be an uprising, so uprise and like us support dana this morning, and expose this malicious attempt from your haters and the haters of your uprising.
Share this status or support dana in your own way

Follow us on Twitter @UprisingOfWomen.

Support DANA with this hashtag #WindToDana"

A photo of Fatma, in support of Dana Bakdounis posted to the "Uprising of Women in the Arab World" Facebook page.

The Twitter hashtag #WindtoDana was created to support Dana Bakdounis's right to express herself about removing her hijab (the arabic word for the veil or head-scarf worn by Muslim women) Here is a sample of the tweets:

An online protest was launched to "make noise" about the censorship of Dana's picture.

On November 7th, The Uprising of Women in the Arab World admins issued a press release after 5 admins logged into their Facebook accounts "to find out that one’s account has been blocked for 30 days, another for 3 days, 2 others for 24 hours, and 1 other received a warning notification.
According to Facebook, those persons had violated its policy by sharing a post asking for supporting Dana Bakdounes on Twitter. The message that was sent to the admins as the reasoning for the ban from Facebook was: “You have posted a content that violates Facebook Community Rules, the post says: Follow us on Twitter @UprisingOFWomen. Support Dana with hashtag #WindToDana”

In an article posted by the dailydot.com on November 8, a Facebook spokesperson commented on the banning of Dana Bakdounis's photo by saying: "Facebook has responded to two reports concerning this page – both relating to posted items [...] In one instance a photograph was removed in error, but later reinstated. The person who posted it was informed and their temporary block lifted. In the second instance an item was removed because it was reported to us and found to have violated our community standards."

The dailydot.com article also states: "The spokesman also noted that high-profile pages and campaigns inevitably receive more attention, and it's more likely posts which violate the rules will be flagged."

In response to the comments made by the Facebook spokesperson on the dailydot.com, The Uprising of Women in the Arab World admins wrote the following:

To learn about about the online campaign and to view the photos that have been uploaded to the Facebook page, which has over 60,000 likes, go to: https://www.facebook.com/intifadat.almar2a?ref=ts&fref=ts