gisw13_chapters

has to fit into categories of good and bad, and whatis not good must be bad.” Allowed speech becomesfenced in to that which is “politically correct”.The recently vetoed cyber bullying proposal fromthe State of Nuevo Leon is an excellent example ofsuch emerging legislation regarding the internet, asits vague wording not only advocated censorship, butalso criminalised speech and made internet serviceproviders responsible parties, as well as suggestingjail sentences for those participating in “offensive”activities via electronic media – activities which thebill never clearly defined, making interpretation andapplication of the law entirely subjective. “It meanthaving less speech in order to guarantee a vague andsubjective understanding of what might offend an individual,”Velázquez points out. He has raised similarconcerns regarding the Supreme Court decision tooutlaw words like “maricón” and “puñal” (both ofwhich are derogatory terms in Mexico for homosexualmen) as hate speech. 11In fact, Luzma is a journalist in one of the mostdangerous countries in the world to practice her profession:more than 75 journalists have been killed inMexico from 2000 to August 2013. 12 CIMAC, the Women’sCommunication and Information Agency, hasdocumented 115 cases of specific aggressions againstwomen journalists, noting an alarming increase in thelast three years, and analysing the different forms ofviolence that women journalists face – beginning withdefamation and sexualised violence and including 13cases of femicide. Similar tactics are used againstwomen human rights defenders, as Luzma and Louisawell know. The Special Rapporteur on human rightsdefenders noted in her 2011 report that human rightsdefenders and activists dedicated to women’s rightsor gender issues in the Americas are those that appearto be the most exposed to murder and attemptedmurder, particularly in Colombia, Mexico, Guatemalaand Honduras. 13 Despite international recommendations,Mexico still does not have an official databasedisaggregated by sex, nor one that takes into accountthese specific threats faced by women human rightsdefenders and women journalists. 14In a general climate of increasing violence inMexico and the urgency of addressing organisedcrime, there is pressure to dismiss and further nor-11 www.animalpolitico.com/blogueros-altoparlante/2013/04/24/lospunales-de-la-suprema-corte/#axzz2Y6nLSCXU12 Article 19 map of journalists murdered in Mexico: secure.flickr.com/photos/77679119@N02/9352532083/sizes/k/in/photostream13 consorciooaxaca.org.mx/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/PronunciamientoDefensorasMesoCSW-FINAL-2.pdf14 132.247.1.49/PAPIME306511/pdfs/Anex2_ObservcsfinalesCocedaw.pdfmalise violence against women – even more so incases of tech-related violence. Similarly, limitationson citizens’ mobility, privacy and freedom of expressionare put in a counterbalance with militarisationand surveillance to ensure public safety. The necessaryexercise of putting legislation to the test and dueprocess are at risk of being forgotten.Interestingly, although Luzma’s and Louisa’s experiencewas a bit of a trial by fire, important practiceemerges from it:• They documented and made back-up copies ofthreats, at least the email ones.• They reported the problem to authorities – to police,to human rights entities and also to the serviceproviders that the threats were posted on, appealingfor action based on the providers’ termsof service.• When one authority did not respond, they wentto another authority. They insisted on making thesystem work, despite its weaknesses.• When no authority responded, in the secondcase, they went on public record in the media withthe problem, and on the internet.• They also followed one of the basic tenets of freedomof expression: fight offensive words not withcensorship but with more words – and in at leastone case, they convinced religious conservativesto change their views about lesbianism.Finally, they try to learn as much as they can aboutonline safety, and share what they learn. We met ina workshop about tech-related violence, which iswhere they discovered their situation was not an isolatedcase.“We learned a lot from that first experience. Ibecame more aware about online safety andI began to look at online ‘advertising’ differently.But especially I learned you should neverstop knocking on doors. If one authority won’tdo anything, then you have to make a move.We wouldn’t have been able to do this withoutour feminist background. That’s one of thethings that feminism has taught me: that youcan change the world – it’s not just the terrain ofmen or extraordinary people. And I can changethe internet. What is on the internet? A bunch ofbull, so we put in our own ‘bull’ – I try to get myideas out everywhere, in online magazines, Facebook,blogs. I try to write as much as I can onall sorts of issues – lesbianism, diversity – tryingto get out a different vision of the world on theinternet.” ■170 / Global Information Society Watch