On 1 January 2022, Quratulain Rehbar, a journalist from Indian-administered Kashmir, woke up to a different reality. She was among a list of 102 women published on an online site called “Bulli Bai”, a pejorative term along with “Sulli” for Muslim women in India with hypersexual and misogynistic connotations. The site claimed to host “auctions” of the women as “deals of the day”.
It wasn’t real, but the site’s objective was clear: to degrade and humiliate the women, with impunity. The women – mostly outspoken journalists and human rights defenders – had one thing in common; they were all Muslim, and vocal about human rights violations under the current government of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Rehbar has been reporting on human rights issues for many years. That day, she was shocked to be attacked, but was not entirely unfamiliar with the format of hate. Just a few months back, she had covered a similar hate site called “Sulli Deals” that targeted Indian Muslim women.
Continue reading at GenderIT.org.
Also on GenderIT.org: Challenging gendered disinformation from India’s manosphere requires systemic change