KRYSS NETWORK

4. Women’s Political Expression

Nini shared her disappointment on Facebook after witnessing a politician breaking the law under the Movement Control Order (MCO). Nini’s post went viral and she was severely attacked online. Not only were people harassing her directly, the harassment and abuse was also extended to her family members. Photos of her family members including her child were circulated online. Her husband’s business profile was flooded with hate comments. Both her and her husband’s phone numbers were leaked and they would receive messages and calls from unknown numbers harassing them. Nini has expressed that she wished she could rewind time because although it was her right to voice out as a citizen the arbitrary application of the law, the violence that escalated was not worth it to her.

Nini is not alone in her experiences; an environmental activist was also subjected to attacks after expressing her political views online. The attacks were not limited to online spaces but also took place physically when she received gory materials accompanied by threats. The violence did not only impact her but also her family, leaving her in fear for their safety. These cases show us that OGBV can effectively deny women’s public participation in calling out injustices, in Nini’s case, an injustice that took place under the enforcement of the MCOs on ordinary rakyat vis-a-vis the special allowances given to people in power or linked to power.

6. Queer Women

In a separate incident, a victim who is part of the LGBTIQ+ community received harassment online following her decision to publicly crowdfund for her livelihood, a difficult decision she made as she was struggling to stay afloat after losing employment and had no support from her family members during the lockdown.This happened at a time when it was not unusual for individuals and communities to crowdfund for each other under the idea of rakyat bantu rakyat. Her pleas were met with hostile and violent reactions. It quickly turned into a mob attack and her gender identity as well as sexuality were weaponised against her. The victim, emotionally and mentally impacted by the abuse, took down the original post. In this case, we drew the conclusion that the public’s understanding of kindness and the right to public participation are unjustly organised around gender norms and anyone who does not conform to the gender binary risks being excluded and pushed to the edge of society, prevented from being visible and worse, denied the help that they need.

In another case, a lesbian woman was attacked on social media when her wedding photos were shared on Twitter without her consent. The woman, a Malaysian, relocated to another country and got married to a foreign woman. The tweet accused the woman of “promoting” an LGBT lifestyle to Malaysians and the user tagged the religious affairs ministry, urging “actions” to be taken. No further action is known to have taken place by the State, however, the attacking tweet received support by other Twitter users and insults were hurled at the woman.

Resulting Impacts of Online Gender-Based Violence

The monitoring and documentation of OGBV cases show that OGBV in many ways is a weapon of censorship. OGBV effectively denies women, girls and LGBTIQ+ person’s ability to access their freedom of opinion and expression, which hinders their ability to participate equally in public and political spaces. In Nini’s case, the overwhelming hate directed to her had made her think that she has to modify or censor herself to be free from violence or simply to exist safely in digital spaces. While the queer woman had to remove her plea for support and aid because she had absolutely no means of livelihood during the pandemic. 

The harms experienced by victims continue to be misunderstood by the justice system and the wider public because of the mistaken assumption that online violence is not as harmful as physical violence. 

Other than the severe psychological harms that victims had to go through, given how digitally integrated our lives are now, violence in the digital spaces can also manifest into physical, sexual as well as economic harm, and in some cases, the harms are also extended to their family members. In one case, a young woman activist who was vocal about environmental issues faced not only online abuse, but also received gory blackmail materials delivered to her home with the intention to intimidate her into silence. She was extremely fearful, not just of her own safety, but also of her family members who lived with her in the same house. In Nini’s case, her income was affected when she had to withdraw from digital spaces after her business pages were flooded with hate messages and their phone numbers were leaked. 

Failure of the Institutions to Address Online Gender-Based Violence

Redress efforts by victims and KRYSS Network to take down contents of harassment and violence are often met with mixed responses. Out of 22 cases documented, only four victims made police reports. However, there have been no responses, updates or actions taken by the police. 

9 of the 22 had reported the incidence of violence to social media platforms. However, many reported that the time taken by the social media platforms to respond to their complaints was too long. While waiting, they were forced to retreat from social media or remove their original posts to stop the ongoing harassment and violence.

One victim in particular shared that she did not make a report to neither the social media platforms nor authorities because she did not feel her complaints would have been taken seriously. In some other cases, the inability to trace the perpetrators, i.e. accounts deleted or change of usernames, had hindered evidence collection.