Cyber Extortion A Moral Crime before a Criminal One

Afra`a Hariri The moral decline in society is increasing day by day, amid the suspicious silence of the responsible authorities, and here the family is one of the most important of these authorities. With the development of the Internet and social media, which are accessible to everyone, morals are collapsing more and more, and what exacerbates the expansion of its scope is the absence of a law specific to it. We are still demanding that the deterrent law for other crimes prevail without the electronic ones, despite its antiquity. Cyber-crime in the form of cyber extortion surrounds us, which has emerged to destroy what remains of the system of morals that we have always boasted of as a conservative society. It is the crime that makes its victims shackled with fear, confusion, and isolation, and may push them to commit other crimes, compared to those crimes that are not related to the World Wide Web, especially in light of the openness that society is witnessing towards electronics, even in the presence of a weak and intermittent Internet network compared to networks at the regional and global level. The development of modern technology and the dissemination of personal data are the most important factors for falling into the trap of extortion, at a time when the lack of supervision exacerbates the problem, and matters become more complex when girls become the most vulnerable easy victims to such complex crimes. This reality, which is hidden from for the sake of the hour and honor, requires more talk and chatter about it, as well as the publication of protection methods and strengthening society on the one hand, and on the other hand, tightening penalties, by issuing legislation or a law urgently, such as a (presidential decree with the force of law) without waiting for the House of Representatives, which has be behind the time , and reality confirms that ignorance of the use of modern technology has The proverb "turned from a blessing into a curse and there are many risks due to rushing behind unreliable links such as dating sites and letters or video games and winning prizes, and applying for jobs of unknown source and obtaining donations from international hacking links. Out of fear of scandal in our conservative societies, most of those who are subjected to extortion and threats do not seek help (because they may be exposed and victimized twice) - once by the extortionist and once by those who play the role of helper or savior, and then again by those who take charge of the investigation. They prefer to try to overcome this problem alone, which in turn leads to cases of suicide, self-harm, or severe psychological disorders in many cases. Add to this the great calamity that the Yemeni legislator stopped at the year 1994 in the Penal Code and Crime Law, and neither the judicial nor the security authorities took the initiative to object or even express that society needs protection compared to the development of crime outside the virtual world, as it did not explicitly provide for a clear punishment for the crime of electronic extortion and left the outdated and dilapidated Penal Code to deal with the defendant. If we want to define the crime of electronic extortion in the way that society understands it, it is the unauthorized access through one of the social media networks or the private means of communication of a person to threaten or extort him, in order to compel him to perform a certain act or refrain from it, even if performing this act or refraining from it is legitimate. Whereas the person in Sharia is respected in his self, money, honor, mind and religion, and these five are what is called the purposes of Islamic Sharia, and extortion in fact and reality constitutes a usurpation of human freedom in one of those five purposes, and constitutes a danger that threatens the security of the human being in his reputation, honor or himself and body, and all of that is prohibited by Sharia. Therefore, extortion is considered a moral crime, a deviant behavior, and a meanness of the soul, before it is a crime prohibited by Sharia.