Calling on the authorities to react urgently and protect their safety, the initiative "Don't watch. React!" she reminded that the members of the "Osanžene" group last week published the results of the three-month research "Telegram behind the shadows: incest, child and revenge pornography", after which they received numerous threats of violence.
"For the umpteenth time, we repeat the appeal for urgent changes to the Criminal Code, which would enable revenge pornography to be prosecuted ex officio. And this time we are raising our voice, because revenge pornography must not go unpunished," announced the initiative "Don't watch. React!"
The threats are endless.
A member of this group, Staša Ivković, tells "Vreme" that the association has contacted a team of lawyers who will represent them in the fight against digital violence, and that there is still no end in sight to the threats.
"We had to initiate something for our physical safety. The threats continued, they arrived even today, and now they were addressed directly to one of the members. We contacted a lawyer, as well as a team of lawyers", says Ivković.
Our interlocutor explains that after conducting research, they contacted the Prosecutor's Office for High-Tech Crime, to which they will forward all necessary evidence, screenshots of messages and IP addresses of users of the respective Telegram group.
The activists obtained the collected material by infiltrating one of the groups on the Telegram social network, where over 10.000 messages were exchanged daily. Some of them, in addition to revenge pornography, contained depictions of incest, as well as child pornography.
She explains that she herself found herself in a similar group back in 2021, when she also contacted the competent institutions, but there was no reaction.
"It seems as if the institutions have always had bigger problems than women", she states and adds that she does not expect the competent authorities to react adequately this time either.
Institutions are squinting, the bill is waiting
Legal regulation in the area of revenge pornography is also quite poor.
Ivković reminds that the Autonomous Women's Center sent a proposal for the Law on Revenge Pornography last year. The proposal was not even considered, although over 20.000 citizens signed a petition for the initiation of this law.
Initiative "Don't watch. Reaguj" also expressed her belief that the authorities, and above all the deputies in the National Assembly, will, in the shortest possible time, using the materials collected by colleagues from the Autonomous Women's Center, the Association "Osažene", BIRN and all others who have dealt with this topic , initiate procedures for changes to the Criminal Code.
"The fact, which was stated in the research, that for 370 persons for whom criminal charges were filed, there is no record of punishment for the committed criminal offense under Article 185 of the CC 'Displaying, obtaining and possessing pornographic material and exploiting a minor for pornography' is worrying. We expect the competent institutions to determine what happened with these criminal reports," the statement said.
If the Criminal Code had been amended by now, as it was assessed, those responsible for distributing the photos in the aforementioned Telegram groups would have been at the center of a criminal investigation and would have been prosecuted.
