Forty people were injured after a fight broke out between Kazakh employees and workers from several different Arab countries at a petrol deposit in Tengiz, a town in northern Kazakhstan on June 29. The violence was sparked by a suggestive photo of a Lebanese man and his Kazakh colleague. Photos of the attacks on Arab employees spread rapidly across the Arab world, sparking a diplomatic spat between Kazakhstan and several other countries including Jordan and Lebanon.

The story began with a photo of a Lebanese man named Elie Daoud, who works for Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC), which is one of the main exploiters of petrol in the region.

In the photo, Daoud is posing with a female Kazakh colleague. He’s holding a walkie-talkie and the angle makes it look like the antenna is in the young woman’s mouth. Daoud didn’t post the photo publicly, but he did make it his WhatsApp profile picture.

Daoud used this photo of himself and a female colleague in a suggestive pose as his profile picture on WhatsApp.



By June 28, some Kazakh social media users had gotten ahold of the photo of Daoud and his colleague and started sharing it on Facebook, where it started circulating widely. Many people expressed outrage, saying that the photo was degrading and insulting towards Kazakhs. Some even called on the government to punish Daoud.



As more and more people shared the photo of Daoud and his colleague, others began to circulate several erotic videos, which they claimed showed Daoud and his colleague. The appearance of these videos ratcheted up the anti-Lebanese rhetoric already poisoning Kazakh social media. It turns out, however, that none of the videos actually show Daoud and his colleague the actors bear no resemblance to the pair. Moreover, our team spoke to one of the actresses who appears in one of the videos a Kazakh Instagram model. She told our team that Daoud doesn’t feature in the clip. Meanwhile, Daoud took to Facebook to apologise for offending the Kazakh people. In the end he was taken away by Kazakh authorities, though the reaction did not prevent other reprisals. Meanwhile, Daoud took to Facebook to apologise for offending the Kazakh people. In the end he was taken away by Kazakh authorities, though the reaction did not prevent other reprisals.



Three hours of attacks

On June 29, a group of Kazakh employees of CCC (the company that employs Daoud) started to attack any workers who seemed to be from an Arab country. The violence lasted nearly three hours. When the Kazakh police finally intervened, they ended up evacuating 40 wounded people. Palestinians, Jordanians and Lebanese men all figured among the victims. Due to the shocking nature of these images, our team has decided to only post screengrabs.

These screen grabs were taken from videos of the violence that took place at the site run by the CCC in Tengiz on June 29. .

