De-Humanizing And Sexualizing Muslim Women: An Open Letter By 900 Activists/Lawyers Against 'Auction' Of Muslim Women On GitHub Platform

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 outrage is in response to the targeted sexualized hate and harm to Muslim women on GitHub, a free web platform. On GitHub, Twitter handles and photographs of Muslim women were uploaded. The open letter signatories condemned the repeated and systemic targeting aiming at 'de-humanizing and sexualizing Muslim women'. The letter reads,

"More than 80 women were profiled, their images were sought to be "auctioned" by soliciting users to take their pick on the "deal of the day", on the basis of their identity and for their views."

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 letter reads,

"The men on these handles (social media), channels and posts call upon majoritarian Hindutva nationalist men and mobs to abduct and rape Muslim women. These handles routinely spew pornographic abuse for both Muslim men and women and build online communities through chat boxes and posts to create violent online communities. This criminal use of social media uses openly misogynistic hate speech against minority communities and celebrates a rape culture against Muslim women targeted for their religious identity, and therefore, impacts the dignity of all women."

The letter also noted that sexualized political campaigns against women dissent the ruling dispensation is becoming mainstream political culture. The signatories demand prompt and effective legal action to deter and hold the perpetrators accountable. The signatories stood against the attempt to regulating Muslim women's political speech and political participation in democracy as full and equal citizens of this country. They noted that such targeting 'is part of the project to push Muslim women out of public spaces, offline and online, by causing them harm and censoring their speech.'

The letter's signatories belong to various fields of human rights, women's rights and transgender rights groups, minority rights, workers and farmer's rights. It is also endorsed by organizations such as Bebaak Collective, Campaign Against Hate Speech, Association for Democratic Rights (Punjab), Vidhrohi Mahila Manch, INSAF, Telangana Gig and Platform Workers Union, People's Alliance, Social Reform Council for Women, Delhi Science Forum, among other groups. In addition, this letter has also been endorsed by lawyers and advocates like Sr. Adv. Bader Sayeed, Shalini Gera, Nandita Rao, Geeta Ramaseshan, Malvika Rajkotia, Maitreyi Krishnan, Nikita Agarwal, Shalu Nigam, Sangeetha Arunachalam, and Shamina Shafiq, and Shipra Narang.

Outrage has been expressed by many academicians, activists, filmmakers and journalists like Uma Chakravarti, Ghazala Jamil, and Syeda Saiyidain Hameed, Ayesha Kidwai, Kavita Krishnan, Zoya Hassan, Nivedita Menon, among others.

Click Here To Downalod The Letter

Read The Letter