“730 comments calling for hanging and firing squads!” – MP Iris Luarasi speaks about the verbal assault video: “I was chased by a group of them”

Socialist Party MP Iris Luarasi, during her speech in Parliament today, addressed the verbal assault she suffered a few days ago in a shopping mall while on her way to a session, at the hands of a group of protesters.

She said that within 5 days the video had been widely shared and that most of the comments had been insulting and denigrating, or hate speech and violence directed at her, raising the concern of online violence.

“You have all seen that a week ago, while I was heading to the plenary session, coming up to the podium, I was chased by a group who looked to me like Enver’s pioneers, shouting insults that I believe I do not deserve.

This is a video that was seen by millions of people, and I am not here to retell it, but to retell what happened after the video.

What followed was independently monitored, publication by publication: over 5 days, the name was mentioned in 708 articles, in 64 online media outlets, in 134 named accounts. Total reach 14.9 million. Views 4.8 million. And 80% of all this happened within 48 hours. Of these, 730 comments were punitive, or potentially violent — prison, disappearance, hanging, burning, execution.

Not every insult is hate speech in the legal sense, but 730 comments talking about hanging, for a woman walking through a shopping mall to go to work, is not political debate — it is what the Convention calls, in Article 5, a ‘risk to direct and equal access to public debate.’ Today I speak not as a victim, but as the rapporteur who has the data,” the MP said.