13
Dec
2021
Watch
Combating gender-based violence: cyberviolence (debate)
Mr President, thank you very much. Commissioner, I'm sorry. Ladies and Gentlemen, Now that the world is moving online, especially during the pandemic, it is being followed by various forms of violence: hate speech, trolling, stalking or blackmailing using pornographic content. Cyberbullying can start online, but often ends offline with devastating consequences for victims and their families. Anything that is banned offline should also be banned online. Once again, I stress that I am firmly opposed to violence, but in accordance with the competences conferred by the Treaties and in an ideologically neutral manner. First of all, the report does not talk about violence against women and girls, but uses the non-Treaty concept of gender. For this reason, there may be many inaccuracies in the application of criminal law, which requires far-reaching guarantees from all sides. One of them is the principle of legal certainty. It cannot be achieved by introducing new, blurred concepts. Since Article 83 of the Treaty already mentions computer crime in the catalogue of eurocrimes, the mention of gender-based cyberviolence in the report should be considered as an example of a broad interpretation that constitutes manifest abuse and must be treated only in terms of instrumentalisation of EU criminal law for strictly political purposes. For me personally, it is sad that once again such an important topic as violence against women and girls has been spoiled by unnecessary ideological intrusions.