Nas Daily: Calls grow to ban prominent influencer from the Philippines
Calls to ban Nas Daily from the Philippines are growing, as the fallout from accusations that the vlogger "exploited" a 104-year-old indigenous tattoo artist continues.
A petition set up last week calling on the government of the Philippines to declare Nas Daily as a persona non grata had gathered nearly 20,000 signatures by Tuesday.
It accuses the social media personality of violating a Filipino law that seeks to protect the rights of indigenous communities.
Nuseir Yassin, better known by his social media name Nas Daily, has amassed tens of millions of followers on social media by making one-minute video clips from around the world.
Yassin, who describes himself as "Palestinian-Israeli", comes from Arraba, an Arab town in the Galilee, and has been frequently accused of whitewashing the Israeli occupation and presenting both sides as equal.
Last year, the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement criticised Yassin's search for 80 new Arab content creators, claiming that the training programme was a cover for normalisation with Israel.
Earlier this month, Yassin came under scrutiny after setting up a traditional tattooing course by iconic indigenous tattoo artist Whang-od.
Nas Academy, a learning platform set up by Yassin, created a course in which the "104-year-old legend will reveal all her rituals, tools and methods for making traditional tattoos".
However, last week Whang-od's grandniece took to Facebook to denounce the course, calling it a "scam" which her grandmother did not agree to, and accused Nas Daily of "taking advantage of our culture".
Yassin rejected the claims and posted a video of Whang-od affixing her thumbprint to a document, as apparent proof of consent for the course.
The supposed agreement is now under investigation by the Philippines' National Commission on Indigenous Peoples.
Nas Daily loses over 600k followers
On August 10, social entrepreneur Louise Mabulo met with the Commission on Human Rights in the Bicol Region of the Philippines and asked for assistance in calling on the government to declare Nas Daily a persona non grata.
Mabulo is the founder of the Cacao Project, an initiative that aims to combat deforestation by empowering farmers.
She has been embroiled in a row with Yassin over the past two weeks after accusing the vlogger of belittling farmers and using discriminatory language towards Filipinos during a 2019 visit to her project.
Yassin responded by rejecting the discrimination claims and calling Mabulo's initiative a "fake story".
Since the controversy erupted more than two weeks ago, Nas Daily has lost over 600,000 followers on his Facebook page.
In addition, Filipino media personalities have withdrawn from working with Nas Academy.
Veteran reporter Jessica Soho cancelled a planned course with Yassin’s learning platform on broadcast journalism. Meanwhile, Catriona Gray, a Filipino-Australian model who was crowned Miss Universe in 2018, paused a course titled: “How to be a Queen”.
Last week, Nas Academy shared a statement with Middle East Eye (MEE) indicating that it had paused all its activities in the Philippines to "strengthen its processes".
The academy did not respond to MEE's request for comment on the campaign to ban Yassin from the Southeast Asian country.
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