Avaaz gets death threats

Avaaz, the campaigning petition site, raises money as well as amassing signatures, and has some astonishing successes. Last month, it sent an e-mail round saying, ‘We’re buying a rainforest!’ and sure enough, it had given $1million to protect two vital preserves in Borneo that are the last habitat of free-living orangutans.

Who could dislike that? Quite a few, it seems. Members of the Avaaz staff have received death threats. Their computers and emails have been hacked. They have been threatened on television and radio. One has had his car tampered with. An Avaaz campaigner arriving at Cairo airport to deliver a petition against Egypt’s largest mass execution in recent history was taken into a windowless room and interrogated for hours. They had, he said, detailed information about his personal life and his work with Avaaz. Still, it shows that the message is getting through.