Taking on the bullies

Chinmayi Sripada, noted singer and voice artiste, known for her bold and straightforward opinions on many issues, has begun a campaign — #RapeThreatsNotOK. Chinmayi, on many occasions has stood her ground on opinions, and has faced dire threats — from acid attacks to rape, and much more — ever since 2012, when she commented on the Sri Lankan civil war. She was then targetted online by users claiming to be an actor’s fans for making an innocent joke on Twitter in 2015. Despite her complaint, Twitter refused to take action against such users.

Even last week, she was embroiled in controversial statements allegedly made by another personality from the film fraternity. Such hate and judgment has not deterred Chinmayi in any manner, but has made her stronger. Ahead of Women’s day, the singer has started an online campaign on Change.org, asking people to sign  sign a petition asking Twitter to do a mass shutdown of accounts that have tweeted rape threats against women.

“Rape threats can never be OK. Rape is one of the worst forms of violence. Threats of rape are weapons used to subjugate women and silence them. If Twitter does a large scale shutdown of accounts that threaten to rape women, it will send a strong message that the platform cannot be used for such vicious attacks” Chinmayi says.

The national award-winning singer has requested people to sign the petition, and wishes to show Twitter at least 50,000 signatures, to make them take appropriate action on these offenders.