Steven N.
The Streisand effect is a phenomenon that occurs when an attempt to hide, remove, or censor information has the unintended consequence of increasing awareness of that information (Wikipedia)
Judit Varga’s Facebook page has been flooded with hundreds and hundreds of comments with the name “Erika Renner” (“Renner Erika” in Hungarian) since Thursday, notes Mérce.
In a post for International Women’s Day, the Minister of Justice wrote about how much the Fidesz-led government is doing to protect women. In response, those commenting on Varga’s page began to wonder why the government has not yet ratified the Istanbul Convention on combating violence against women and domestic violence if protecting women is really so important to them.
They also brought up the case of Erika Renner, a woman abused and mutilated by her jilted lover. These comments began to get deleted one-by-one from the Minister’s Facebook page, but this just caused an avalanche of comments reminding readers of the abused woman’s name.
At this moment, regardless of the topic, virtually all of Varga’s Facebook posts have been flooded with the name “Renner Erika” and names of other women victims of domestic violence, as well as “Isztambul egyezmény” (“Istanbul Convention”).
[Source: Nem tehetsz róla, tehetsz ellene / Facebook]
Statistics show that more than 1.1 million Hungarian women have been victims of physical or sexual abuse since the age of 15. The vast majority of domestic violence and violence against an intimate partner is perpetrated by men against women, and have systemic causes.
These cases are not isolated tragedies, but the detrimental results of a system which continues to accept that women are not equal parties in a relationship or family, writes Merce.
Erika Renner’s case gained headlines in Hungary after she was tied up, drugged, and had her genitalia and lower body mutilated with lye on March 12, 2013. A few months earlier, she had broked up with Krisztián Bene, who was eventually convicted of the attack on her. The former hospital director was sentenced to 11 years in prison and banned from ever working again in the medical profession. [Telex]
