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| - Serbian police arrested a young man suspected of running online chat groups with thousands of members that shared explicit images of women and underage girls without their knowledge, the interior ministry said Thursday. Earlier this week social media users started exposing multiple private chat groups on the app Telegram, including one with some 35,000 members from across the region, where users had been circulating photos and videos, including revenge porn, and private information about women and minors. The revelations shocked the public and have received heavy media attention. The 25-year-old male suspect from the southern city of Nis is accused of "showing, obtaining and owning pornographic material" and "abusing minors for pornography", according to a police statement. Police said they are still working on the case while the prosecutor's office asked Telegram for additional information on these groups. Stasa Ivkovic, a Twitter user that was the first to expose the groups, told regional TV channel N1 that the group contained videos that included rape and photographs of women on the street taken without their knowledge. She added that she received threats after publicly sharing information about the groups. "I didn't take them seriously in the beginning, but they are getting more and more explicit", Ivkovic said. In late January, human rights organisations in neighbouring North Macedonia protested over a similar case, demanding tougher laws for online harassment. mbs/ssm/lc
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