India was rocked this week by an Islamophobic internet campaign: people created an app where they posted photos of famous Muslim women in order, they said, to auction them off. Police arrested the first suspects but it was not a first and it reveals the growth of Islamophobia in the country.
From our correspondent in New Delhi,
The Bulli Bai application featured photos, sometimes edited and degrading, of a hundred Muslim women. And offered to auction them off. No transaction took place before it was taken off the internet, the main objective being to humiliate these well-known Muslim women; the profiles included activists, lawyers, an airline pilot as well as many journalists. One of the journalists targeted was radio journalist Sayema Rahman. ” We were targeted because we are women, we are Muslims, we have a free and independent spirit and we are successful in life, she believes. We speak for the oppressed, try to fight injustices, and this is an organized campaign to silence us. ”
Deleterious impunity
And this is not the first time that this has happened. Indeed, last July, almost the same system had been used against 80 other women, with an application called Sulli Deals. Complaints had been filed, but its inventors were not identified and no one had been arrested at the time. This while at the same time an internet user had been arrested a few days after having simply insulted the daughter of a famous cricketer. This had shown to what extent Islamophobia was little fought, even tolerated by the police and the authorities, led by the Hindu nationalists. And this impunity would have encouraged these criminals to reoffend, or others to follow in their footsteps.
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Arrests
This time, quicker action was taken. In the state of Maharashtra, where Bombay is located, a federal opposition MP pushed the police to take up the case and act on the many complaints filed since January 1. In a few days, four people have already been arrested: they are Hindus, aged between 18 and 21, some engineering students. The hardest thing to believe is that one of the people who allegedly took part in this misogynist campaign is a woman.
While waiting for the trial, another fight begins: the one that the attacked women are currently leading, with their entourage, to keep their heads held high. This is what says Sayema Rahman. “ Families and loved ones should not tell these women to be silent to avoid being targeted. We must not restrict their freedom, she insists. On the contrary, they are targeted because they have an impact on society, so we have to support them. “
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