schema:articleBody
| - Human rights organisations in North Macedonia on Friday called for a crackdown on online harassment after thousands of photos of women and underage girls, some of them explicit, were shared without their consent in an online chat group. The Telegram chat group called "Public lounge" was shut down on Thursday, and four of its members arrested after testimony from one of the victims went viral. Media reports first emerged about the group around a year ago, but the authorities failed to take any action until a young woman went public about the harassment she suffered after the group published her Instagram photos, along with her phone number. Police are trying to identify other people involved in the case, an interior ministry spokesman told AFP. "Once the investigation has been completed, appropriate charges will be filed", police spokesman Toni Angelovski told AFP. Human rights watchdogs such as the Helsinki Committee are planning a demonstration in the capital Skopje on February 3, saying there should be tougher laws on online harassment. "We are asking the public prosecutor's office to immediately and thoroughly solve... a criminal case where a lot of women have been the victim of gender-based violence," the NGOs wrote in an open letter. According to the local media, the group had some 7,000 members, who shared more than 10,000 photos without the women's consent, often accompanied by personal data. dd/mbs/spm
|