An organiser of an online vigil for Ashling Murphy says a man exposing himself at the event proves women are not safe anywhere.
The online vigil was taking place on Sunday in memory of the murdered school teacher, when a man hijacked the all-woman panel and exposed himself on-screen.
Evie Nevin is one of the organisers, and told Lunchtime Live she put this together as she is considered high-risk because of COVID.
"This was done and organised with keeping diversity in mind; it was an all-women's panel, we had a member of the Travelling community, we had women of colour.
"And it was really, really beautiful - and it was a lovely tribute to Ashling, and all the other women who have died at the hands of men over the last number of years."
But she says a man hacked one of the panelists' links.
.@Evie_Nevin, an organiser of an online vigil for Ashling Murphy says a man exposing himself at the event proves women are not safe anywhere. @LunchtimeLiveNT @AndreaGilligan pic.twitter.com/cci10ePc0l
— NewstalkFM (@NewstalkFM) January 17, 2022
"It was all going very well and then somebody used one of the panelists' links and joined on, and exposed himself on-camera in front of the 80/90 people that were in attendance.
"There are no words to describe how disgusted and violated we all felt.
"I think it proved our point that women are not safe anywhere - and also that we have no specific cyber-flashing laws in this country.
"That's something that we need to have rectified.
"Whatever this man's intention was, what ended up happening is that every woman on that call has now decided that we're going to take action and make sure that cyber-flashing and this kind of attitude towards women - it can't go on."
She says this has 'put a fire' under the participants.
"They've lit a fire under us now more than anything, rather than making us feel powerless - altogether we feel powerful."
While they intend to report it to the Gardaí.
"All the panelists and the organisers, and I'm sure the attendees, we're going to go to our local Garda stations today to report this.
"There is no specific cyber-flashing law - which is incredible in this day and age - but he could be prosecuted under a different Sexual Offences Act and under Harmful Communications as well.
"One way or the other, we're determined to make sure that someone is held [accountable].
And she says she never thought somebody would do this during an event to remember a dead woman.
"It felt like forever, to be honest, but we got him off fairly quickly.
"These are the kind of reasons why we organised to have a webinar, rather than a full participation event.
"I was expecting some sort of trolling, but never in a million years did I think somebody would come on and expose themselves during a vigil for a dead woman.
"He got kicked out and then he kept trying to log back in - and every time he logged back in, then our moderators would have to kick him back out again."
