«#iamnotdarlingtoyou » movers to file complaint on cyber-bullying aiming to set precedent

IMI media expert Iryna Zemlyana and human rights activist Elizaveta Kuzmenko, movers of the #iamnotdarlingtoyou (#yatobinedorogenka) flashmob, are going to file complaint to the police about harassment and threats on social networks, both for themselves and for other journalists. Iryna Zemlyana told it at the Donbass Media Forum - 2019, as ZMINA Human Rights Center reported.

As Iryna Zemlyana said, she still received daily messages such as "drop dead, b…," and threats on the network through the flash mob and her standpoint as to discriminatory words of officials.

“When we made T-shirts with the hashtag “#iamnotdarlingtoyou”, we faced a wave of hatred. Then, as the President Zelensky said that women are Ukraine’s tourism brand and we replied, the insults were resuming. Then it followed with the incident over the journalist for “Schemes” program and Volodymyr Zelensky and the flash mob #iamnotladtoyou. And the last was when MP Maksym Buzhansky called the journalist for Novoe Vremya weekly Olga Dukhnych a “dopey cow”. She also was bullied on the net, "- said Zemlyana.

Together with Kuzmenko, they are going to collect links and photos on the incidents that took place and to communicate it to the law enforcement:

“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."

It should be reminded that the flash mob #iamnotdarlingtoyou 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”.

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.

Photo credit:ZMINA.ifo