'I am her': U of M students rally in support of 'revenge porn' victim

Students rallied togetherat the University of Moncton on Thursday night,in support of ayoung woman who becamethevictim of a maliciousemail campaign, that's sexual in nature.

Since last weekend, the universityconfirmed as many as eight malicious emailswere sent to a large portion of the student body by the same attacker, against one of its female students.

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About50 students attended the rally, whichstartedat Le Coude,the campus bar. Studentsmarched towards the administration building, where a fewof them addressed the crowd.

They chanted "let's stop the emails" and "I am her," in French.

Students spoke out about sexual violence, but also against the administration's handling of the crisis.

Emails on lockdown?

Many people on campus believe the school needs to shut down its email system until the attacker is found, but administration quickly disagreed.

"As a university, as a place of freedom of expression, we have to make sure we can keep communicating," said Raymond Thberge, president and vicechancellor of the University of Moncton. "That students can keep talking with each other, that we can keep working."

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Thberge said if the school shutdown its email system, it would be sending the message theattacker is winning.

FEECUM president, RoxannGuerrette, strongly disagreeswith thestatement.

"The student is not winning right now," said Guerrette. "There's still private information that's being leaked, and I think he needs to think about our students first."

"There's other ways around not communicating via email," said Sam Puchala, a law student at the university.

"We have phones, we have alternate emails. It's not worth the risk of someone's life. There are people who commit suicide over things like this."

Lack of support for sexual violence

Puchalaand her friend decided to organize theprotest after receiving a seventh and an eighth email onWednesday night.

"The fact that we're at the eighthemail, how many is it going to take?" she said.

She came with a poster that read "je suis elle," or "I am her" in English, with printed naked pictures of herself, to send the message this type of attack could have happened toanyone.

But for other students, it's time we stop focusing on theincident, andrather on what the university could do better going forward.

"I don't want to victimize her anymore," said Genevive Latour, another student. "Many people are touched by this incident."

A University ofMonctoncommittee is working on putting together a policy onsexual violence by the fall semester.

In the meantime,the university has a counsellor to assistvictims.

"We need a policy in place, we need more campaigns, we need more training,"said Latour.