Rights chief decries on- air misogynistic attacks

The chair of Quebec’s human rights commission has denounced the FHRITP phenomenon as a “call to rape” and a violent form of sexual harassment that violates the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms.

Jacques Frémont, president of the Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse, issued a statement Thursday denouncing recent examples of degrading statements targeting women in public spaces.

He mentioned specifically the trend that has spread throughout the United States and Canada, where men are accosting female television reporters as they do live hits and yelling the phrase “F--- her right in the p-----” into her microphone.

The trend, dubbed FHRITP, began early last year in the U. S. after a Cincinnati man posted several videos involving himself and another man faking news reports in which they said that phrase. After those videos went viral, dozens of real reporters, mostly women, across the U. S. found themselves accosted by young men yelling the phrase into their microphones or behind their backs during live news reports.

Canadian news reporters encountered the harassment for the first time this fall, and some have spoken out to denounce it. Frémont mentioned in particular a St. Patrick’s parade report by local CBC reporter Tanya Birkbeck, which he read about in Thursday’s Montreal Gazette, during which Birkbeck was accosted by a halfdozen men yelling the phrase repeatedly at her during a three minute live broadcast.

Frémont also mentioned graffiti found recently in a men’s bathroom at the Université de Montréal that advocated the rape of a student leader.

The graffiti said, in part, “I hope that the rich little whore who heads up the ASSÉ ( Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante) will be raped and that it hurts her. That cow!”

Frémont said news of those incidents, plus a coming anti- Islam march, prompted him to issue a statement appealing for calm and respect for human rights.

“There was simply a convergence of news reports that all touch on hate speech and discriminatory speech,” he said. “It seems as if some people feel they can say anything without worrying about consequences or the victims. But freedom of expression is not absolute. It is limited. It has to be restrained. We cannot have a free society if we allow certain groups to be subjected to violent discrimination.”

He noted that sexual harassment is a violation of the rights of the person that is forbidden not only in workplaces, but also in public spaces, according to the charter.

The commission can investigate a complaint by an individual who considers he or she has been a victim of discriminatory harassment. If there is sufficient evidence that discriminatory harassment has occurred, the commission may recommend corrective measures, such as the payment of an indemnity.

The commission defines harassment as occurring “when a person’s behaviour undermines the dignity and psychological or physical well- being of another person or persons. It can involve offensive, disparaging, hostile or unwanted remarks or behaviour directed at a person or a group of persons. A single serious incident that has a lasting harmful effect on the targeted person may also constitute harassment.”

Frémont noted that the commission has recently recommended the addition of a new provision to the charter, which would prohibit to incitement of hatred against a group because of gender, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, race or religion.

In a brief submitted to a provincial forum on bullying in December, the commission noted that hateful speech targeting certain groups is rampant on the Internet and urged the government to improve the charter’s ability to tackle hate- mongering.

“In the context of the growing use of technology and social media, which allows perpetrators of these acts to unite easily and also to increase the public’s access to hate speech, this quest is all the more pertinent,” Frémont told that forum.

Shaheen Shariff, an associate professor at McGill University whose research focuses on legal issues related to cyber bullying, said the FHRITP phenomenon is part of a pattern of escalating misogyny on the Internet, in schools and in the public domain generally.

“This stuff just sustains the pattern that we are seeing in our research with kids and undergrads ... that the more outrageous and misogynist and violent you get, the more impact” on the web and the more hits, she said.

“We are finding people are saying they aren’t thinking about victims or who they are hurting, they just want to get hits and make people laugh. ... But what this is is a slap in the face to women. The more powerful women become, and the more equal in terms of occupations and status and sexual liberation, the more violent the behaviour. It is a backlash.”

She said the legal community needs to “start taking this more seriously and stop slut shaming and victim blaming.”