{"id":12058,"date":"2017-11-07T09:47:41","date_gmt":"2017-11-07T12:47:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tedic.org\/?p=12058"},"modified":"2019-11-01T09:51:45","modified_gmt":"2019-11-01T12:51:45","slug":"tedic-could-be-censored-for-publishing-about-gender-based-violence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tedic.org\/en\/tedic-could-be-censored-for-publishing-about-gender-based-violence\/","title":{"rendered":"TEDIC could be censored for publishing about gender-based violence"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>We want to warn of efforts to censor<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tedic.org\/el-8m-nosotras-paramos\/\"> <strong>a post that we published recently, where we brought up cases of gender-based violence on the Internet in Paraguay.<\/strong><\/a>\n The post included screenshots of a conversation on Facebook Messenger \nwhere a group of men chat about sexually abusing a journalist to \n\u201ccorrect\u201c her sexual orientation. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/karen_ovando\/status\/830115920425185280\"><strong>The conversation became public because the journalist had access &nbsp;and decided to publish it on her Twitter account<\/strong>. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to the journalist\u2018s recount,\n someone in the conversation included her without her consent. TEDIC \nused this case as an example of the type of violent language against \nwomen and LGBTQI minorities that fosters rape culture. Afterwards, one \nof the individuals that appears on the conversation &nbsp;filed a lawsuit \nagainst the journalist and TEDIC. He argues that our post damages his \nhonor and reputation, while also claiming that our publication violates \nhis privacy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For us, the lawsuit itself is an \naffront to the fight against gender-based violence of women and \nminorities in Paraguay and around the world. &nbsp;If the lawsuit succeeds \nand the judge accedes to the \npetition of &nbsp;the complainant \u2013 which is to take down our content \u2013 it \nwould leave a terrible precedent. It could mean that in the future, \nhuman rights organizations, media outlets or anyone who serves as a \nplatform of awareness and denunciation could be the subject of \ncensorship by individuals who, at a minimum, feel threatened to lose \ntheir impunity to use violence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Details of the case<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Below we share a short summary of the case:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>February 10th: A journalist \npublished a group chat where several men talk about sexually abusing her\n to \u201ccorrect\u201c her sexual orientation. She had access to it because \nbecause someone included her in the conversation. She took screenshots \nand posted them on her Twitter account. The case was a viral topic of \nconversation on social media for a &nbsp;couple of days.<\/strong><\/li><li><strong>February 14th<\/strong>: We published a report about the reasons we have to join the International Women\u2018s Strike on March 8th. Among some <strong>the<\/strong>\n reasons, we put forward the issue of gender-based violence on the \nInternet. We used the screenshots of the group chat as an example of the\n type of language that fosters rape culture.<\/li><li><strong>February 15th:<\/strong>\n The journalist presented her evidence to the Public Ministry. \nProsecutors rejected it, saying that the content of the chat group was \npart of a joke.<\/li><li><strong>February 24th: <\/strong>One\n of the men that appear in the chat group filed a lawsuit against the \njournalist and TEDIC, arguing that we damaged his honor and reputation, \nwhile claiming also that we violated his right to privacy. <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>As an organization, we keep a firm stance on this issue. <strong>Violence against women on the Internet and everywhere else must be identified and repudiated without hesitations.<\/strong>\n We consider that there has been no harm done to the claimant because we\n did not expose his legal name. We limited ourselves to using the \nscreenshots that the journalist herself made available on her Twitter \naccount. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Also, we have argued our case based on\n principles of the Inter American Commission on Human Rights and the OAS\n Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression. For example, \nthe 10th principle of the Declaration of Principles on Freedom of \nExpression establishes that \u201cprivacy laws may not inhibit or limit the \ninvestigation and dissemination of information that is in the public \ninterest\u201c. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The case that we used as an example of\n gender-based violence in our post represents a threat to the physical \nintegrity of a journalist. Hence, the content that we published is in \nthe public interest. Also, the violence displayed in the group chat is \nnot isolated. <a href=\"http:\/\/webfoundation.org\/2015\/09\/womens-rights-online-views-from-around-the-world\/\">According\n to the World Wide Web Foundation, this is a type of violence that \nbloggers, journalists and activists, who are more active on the \nInternet, are particularly vulnerable to.<\/a>\n They are more exposed to suffering aggressions in the form of sexist \ncomments, insults and threats, leading to self-censorship. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The lawsuit itself is another affront to women who fight for equal rights. <strong>Its\n intent is to silence resistance, limit public debate through the \nrequest for censorship and prevent that other women speak up against \nviolence.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Violence against women, in any form, \ncannot be subject to legal protection. What ought to be protected are \nhuman rights, such as the right to life, &nbsp;freedom and security of all, \nsomething that we hope that authorities will guarantee in this case. <\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We want to warn of efforts to censor a post that we published recently, where we brought up cases of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12059,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[633],"tags":[887,884,881],"class_list":["post-12058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-genero","tag-gender-en","tag-gender-it","tag-gender-violence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tedic.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tedic.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tedic.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tedic.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tedic.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12058"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.tedic.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12058\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12064,"href":"https:\/\/www.tedic.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12058\/revisions\/12064"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tedic.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tedic.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tedic.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tedic.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}