Nine hundred individuals and groups, including lawyers, journalists, academicians, activists and students, have endorsed an open letter demanding action against the online targeting of Muslim women.
The signatories criticized the ‘openly misogynistic hate speech against minority communities, which ‘celebrates a rape culture against Muslim women’ being ‘targeted for their religious identity.
The outrage is in response to the targeted sexualized hate and harm to Muslim women on GitHub, a free web platform. A website called ‘Sulli Deals’ was created on GitHub, a free web platform, where Twitter handles and photos of Muslim women were put out without consent, allowing users to take their pick on the ‘deal of the day.’ Sulli is a derogatory term used to refer to Muslim women, by Hindu extremists.
The letter demanded immediate action be taken against the culprits, that the internet be a safe space for women to express dissent and difference, that commercial portals develop policies to prevent their users from treating women as objects and de-humanizing them and that the cyber cell, social media platforms such as GitHub, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook and the National Commissions for Women and National Human Rights Commission must at once take prompt action against the individuals who are responsible for such acts of terror and intimidation.
The signatories demanded prompt and effective legal action to deter and hold the perpetrators accountable.
The letter was also endorsed by organizations such as Bebaak Collective, Campaign Against Hate Speech, Association for Democratic Rights (Punjab) and prominent individuals from the Campus Front of India (CFI), Indian American Muslim Council, Led By Foundation and All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawrat.
