«#iamnotdarlingtoyou » movers filed complaint to police about cyber-bullying

IMI media expert Iryna Zemlyana and human rights activist Elizaveta Kuzmenko, movers of the #iamnotdarlingtoyou (#yatobinedorogenka) flashmob, have filed the complaint to the police about having been harassed and threatened on social networks. The relevant complaint was lodged to the department of cyber police of the National Police and to Commissioner for Human Rights in the Parliament.

The  screenshots of threats and bullying in social networks were joined to the complaint.

“Since the harassment and cyber bullying is systematically done, it looks like deliberate action. So we have a suspicion that we are intentionally targeted on Facebook page related to some political forces," the statement said.

They associated the Facebook bullying with their professional activities: “After having been targeted by harassment messages, we feel emotional oppression (…), which prevents us from engaging in gender equality and media activities. We fear persecution. ”

In this regard, media experts ask the National Police to submit relevant information to the Unified Register of Pre-trial Investigations and to initiate proceeding, as well as to take other actions within in accordance with the legislation in force.

They asked the parliamentary Commissioner to record that incident and to take appropriate measures.

“We have been undergoing systematic online hiring for a long time. Every time, during every subsequent unreasonable sexist statement of Ukrainian politicians, we get a new wave of hatemessages. And since I always urge the journalists not to be silent and file complaints to the police if their rights are violated, so I decided to set an example with myself, ”Iryna Zemlyana told IMI.

It should be reminded that the flash mob #atobinodorozhenka emerged in response to Petro Poroshenko's appeal to journalist of the media detector Maryna Baranivska: “… My key idea, my darling, is that we have to change the country with you”.

On March 7, 2018, Iryna Zemlyana and Elizaveta Kuzmenko posted on their personal pages on Facebook, and launched a flash mob #iamnotdarlingtoyou protesting against sexism of politicians towards the journalists.

IMI reported the #iamnotdarlingtoyou movers claimned they would file complaint to the police in order to set the preccedent. 

“Our goal is to set a precedent. Actually, we don’t know what, in fact, can be done to counteract the online bullying. That is why we want to record all these incidents and the fact that we contact the police, so that changes can be made later to protect at least journalists against cyberbullying. Because they are affected by harassment, " the flashmob movers said.

IMI reported, the Verkhovna Rada deputy Maksym Buzhansky, elected as member of the presidential party "Servant of the People", called the journalist "dopey cow".

On August 21, women working in the media sphere addressed political forces, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the President of Ukraine, executive bodies and local self-government bodies with demands, in particular, to develop and implement a code of ethics that would prohibit sexism and imply the responsibility for its usage of deputies men and deputies women of various levels, political parties, and other government employees.