Is not like you, So What?

Is not like you, So What?

Respecting the boundaries of others before knowing your own personal boundaries.

Tania Kurd Mirza master’s in law LL.M, Specialist in Criminology and Constitutional

Law, Trainer in Combating Violence Against Women and Children

Violating a person’s personal boundaries describes violence, violence is a crime, and

crimes are punishable. Thus, a boundary violator commits violence, and the person whose

boundaries are violated is the victim. You cannot firmly protect your own personal boundaries

unless you first begin to respect the personal boundaries of others, especially those boundaries of

people you do not know. Other people, like you, have lives with boundaries and you and others

must respect those boundaries. You should never intrude upon someone else's boundaries or

cross their boundaries. Once you learn how to respect boundaries; defend boundaries; and even

fight for boundaries, then you can rest assured that your own personal boundaries and the

personal boundaries of the people around you will also be respected.

It seems, when it comes to Kurds, when it comes to their lives, privacy, and rights being

threatened/violated by others, people tend to defend their own lives, and fight for their rights and

for the rights of family members. This attitude is perfectly natural, and has worked out nicely up

to this point, and this is indeed the way it ought to be. But what is odd, is that when it comes to

other people’s privacy, and people not crossing boundaries in their personal lives, the same

people that are so protective of their own privacy do indeed cross the boundaries by entering into

others’ private lives and even rationalize their crossings; that is really odd!

So, first, one must start from another’s perspective, a person most, and ought, to start by

respecting another person’s privacy, not invading their privacy, and defending their privacy if

they know it’s being invaded or exposed. What this implies: “I respect your privacy, which

means that I am protecting my own privacy.” Defending oneself, protecting our secrets, and

respecting them is not the beginning but rather the result—the result of being respectful of the

other person’s privacy.

From a moral and philosophical viewpoint, the concept of privacy takes on a variety of

definitions. For individuals, the definition may be flexible by adding or subtracting from their

definition of privacy. While from the perspective of law, privacy is established by clear legal

definitions and clear legal protection. The way in which privacy is protected differs from one

country to another, along with how it is protected how it is punishable, because laws are

different, as are cultures and the histories of each country.

Iraq's Penal code also has laws about personal boundaries, which includes definitions of

personal boundaries and punishments for violation of personal boundaries. This does not mean

that the law is perfect, but there is a law that prohibits violation of personal boundaries, and the

law does make it punishable. (this is important: If someone violates your personal boundaries,

take them to court. Don't let them get off or ask for the reason they shared your photo, your name

or your phone number with others.)

Before delving into what constitutes privacy and what does not, it is important to note

that everyone is a person who has privacy, and no one is not a person who has privacy. It follows

that each individual’s privacy requires protection regardless of gender, age, or position in society.

Those people that hold government positions, politicians, or other individuals who are

famous in their field also have privacy that requires protection as well. It is not acceptable to

infringe upon their privacy by simply suggesting that someone is a “public figure.” Certainly,

public life and government involvement in public life means there are aspects of the lives of

politicians and government officials that are not considered private. Since they represent the

public and serve the public with public funds, items pertaining to the following list are not

regarded as private matters:

• Items related to their position: their salary, how they spend public funds, their

means of transport, their wealth, how many properties they own, their hours of operation, if their

spending exceeds their salary, if they have a job where they are compensated different than other

colleagues, if they treat their colleagues and employees poorly, if they have a good ethical

behaving with coworkers, if they use their position for personal gain (for example, for sexual

favors, marriage, enrichment, or tax evasion), how they attained a position, and what criteria

were used to attain said position.

Individuals in the groups below are not considered to have privacy, and the individuals in

those groups must disclose the information to the public, the press, researchers, and

investigators.

Who Has Privacy That Must Be Observed?

Privacy starts with the fetus in the womb of the mother (although different countries’

laws determine the point in pregnancy when that protection begins). For example, in the U.S., it

differs from state to state: New York, 24–28 weeks; Washington, the same; Kansas, after 22

weeks; Texas, after the sixth week; Norway, 12 weeks and currently being led to 18 weeks;

Germany, after 12 weeks; Iraq, upon heartbeat (week 5 to 6); Turkey, after the 10-week point.

The following populations also have privacy that must be protected: children;

adolescents; any adult (women, men, transgender, nonbinary and etc.); elderly; homeless;

mentally and/or physically disabled; Down syndrome or other disabilities; special needs; patient

(in hospital, prepping for surgery, etc); childbirth or miscarriage women; criminal; prisoner; and

positioned before and/or after burial.

These groups—wealthy or poor, healthy or ill, residing at home or on the streets,

educated or uneducated, politician or not, urban or rural—are groups of people that deserve

privacy protection. Their privacy must not be violated and if it is, the violator must be taken to

court and punished.

What Are Some Elements of Privacy, and What Constitutes a Violation of Privacy?

Privacy encompasses: age, residence, address, phone number, email address, photos of

the individual and family (spouse, children, parents, siblings), audio or video recordings,

monthly income, lifestyle, friendships, family relationships, romantic relationships, personal

background and current situation, medical conditions and doctor visits, and information about an

individual's spouse, children, or family (names, phone numbers, photographs, addresses, schools,

or kindergartens).

All of these are personal privacy, and no one has the right to interfere with, share, or post

on social media or elsewhere, for any reason or excuse, not even a parent may share a photo,

address, or personal information about their child under 18, even if the child consents to do so.

In addition, a person’s lifestyle typically falls under personal privacy and cannot be

interfered with. Also, if a person entrusts you with private information too keep private, that also

would be privacy irrespectively to those private disclosures as well. If a person shares their

secrets or lifestyle with you, you have no right to disclose or tell other people this information at

any time, even when the disclosure has been made because you trust/know them or they are your

friend or family member, etc. If they want to tell their secrets or share their lifestyle themselves,

they will and they do not need your endorsement.

It is worth mentioning that for politicians, some information in their work - for example,

office phone number, work address, or work email - must be accessible. They need to also

comply with restrictions of personal gain, such as personal relationships or obtaining resources.

However, information about their family member’s names, home address, spouse's place of

employment, children's school/kindergarten, or any personal details (e.g., photos) are private and

cannot be violated.

Public figures have privacy that must also be considered. Their public figure status is not

a justification for making their private life public. Just because someone is famous does not mean

that their privacy is up for sale; nor does it imply that public figures must sacrifice their personal

lives because they have public status. Fame is not the same as influence; a person can be famous

without influence, or have influence without being famous, but in either case they have a right to

privacy. Even if someone is identified as a negative influence in society their privacy should not

be violated simply because of the negative influence.

If you disapprove of someone’s behavior, speech or way of life, or think it has a

detrimental effect on your children, you are always welcome to call the police to your nearest

precinct. But you do not have a right to violate their privacy in the name of protecting your

privacy.

Approaches to Breaching Personal Boundaries

There are many ways that different people violate personal boundaries and continue to

violate personal boundaries. However, it is important to acknowledge that the ways boundaries

are violated today are different than the ways that boundaries were violated in the past. In the

past, people were able to justify breaching boundaries regardless of the excuse offered. All of the

excuses offered were false. These are transgressions that could break a person, destroy their

reputation, exile them, or imprison them.

In times of illiteracy or times when reading was not the primary mode of communication,

boundary violators would send their time gossiping about people in the evenings - instead they

spread everything they knew or made up a story about someone. Thus, it was gossiping, or

mocking someone, or even an accusatory story that violated monitors. But we often do not object

and accept the gossip accused of in some cases, we even concur (which is called a collective

transgression of talking).

The boundary violators were neighbors, blue-collar workers, youth, seniors and educated

people.

As literacy broadened in our world, the ability to write made boundary violations more

convenient, allowing such events to be written down with minimal effort. The famous authors of

the day would blatantly violate boundaries (not just ordinary literate people). They would gossip

about each other (the other authors), often using sexist or racist narratives, usually through letter

writing. (Those actions were not being considered them in the legal context, and the NDVS was

not even a term at the time, as people were not literally thinking that these were (violent)

incidents. They knew that it possibly was wrong in the context of their society, but it was not

being considered violent. Of course, the fact that they were all acts of violence against other

authors or colleagues was never erased). Back then, they were not short of defining and

processing (or charging) violent incidents the same way we do today.

Then, as the internet was developed, the desired violation of boundaries would became

even more simple to engage in (but the bird left the wire early, or that condition was simply more

normalized, and so invited to the violation, especially in the early forms (in Kurdistan)). The

violation could now be facilitated in the comfort of our homes, through one of the fake accounts

(often told to do so by someone), which gave us the misconception it was ok (or less volatile).

In third-world societies (Kurdistan included), boundary violation is sometimes viewed as

a mark of bravery, audacity, or professional-type behavior. A journalist may write a story about

someone's wife, publish the wife's photo, or state the couple's ages and be praised and rewarded

with plenty of attention or payment. These are all boundary violations. Boundary violations will

carry significant penalties with public information, such as newspapers, TV, radio, or social

media, than the violations coming from a private limited larger social setting, there are a couple

of people in a private room but not publicly, on a media platform.

Before I give some clear examples of boundary violations, I must first ask: Who Are

Boundary Violators, and Why? Then, I will ask why they are crossing this individual's

boundaries, or their realm of privacy, and engaging with their life.

The boundary violators of today are not the same as yesterdays. They may represent

educated, journalists, teachers or writers, they might be your fellow students, politicians, parents,

or caregivers. They may be young or old, yet they choose boundary violation over to being an

example of progress or improvement. Women violate other women's boundaries; and men violate

both men's and women's boundaries. The violators come from all walks of life; religious, liberal,

rural, urban, etc. They are all categorized as boundary violators.

Those that are violated can be from the violator’s own family, siblings, relatives or close

friends, those that the violator most likely counts on for affirmation. Those that are violated are

public figures such as writers, actors, models, YouTubers and teachers, have fun, follow the

rules. Each of the violated, men, or women, can all be boundary violators as well.

Once the boundary violator is recognized, the question becomes, who is the violated

party?

The violated party could be a member of the violator’s family—someone close, a family

member, a sister, a cousin, a sister-in-law, or a brother! There may be some violated parties who

hold some influence in the community such as influential writers, powerful actors, popular

models, YouTubers, or teachers. Possibly both women and men could be violated parties in this

context, as each could also be the boundary violators.

Why Do Violators Target Others’ Privacy, and What Is Their Goal?

The goal, whatever it may be, is harmful. It aims to break, defame, or cross the line into

others’ private lives. Even if the intent is not malicious, it is still harmful, as there is no positive

outcome from exposing someone’s private life.

In third-world societies, despite access to the internet, modern buildings, and Western

clothing, people remain stuck in their ways, circling around themselves. This requires energy,

which they draw from outside by violating the privacy of those who are happier, more

successful, or more influential. Yes, violators breach boundaries to keep themselves going.

Another motive is envy or jealousy of the success or influence of the person whose boundaries

they violate.

Violators aim to achieve two goals with one act:

1. They believe they can lower the social status of the person, tarnish their

reputation and reducing their influence or success.

2. They seek to elevate their own social status, gaining attention and

portraying themselves as better or different by exposing others’ flaws.

The problem with boundary violators is their lack of being factual. An individual who

possesses factual skills in critiquing someone's work (critique is a college skill; it is not

learned by reading books) has the aspects of being able to consider critique as a to means of

critique, and later has the ability to consider aspects of the work and critiques, without

reference to the writer's family fights or personal relationships. The critic is able to critique

the work, based on the methods taught, and submissions suggested the reader with a factual

basis. The fact remains the violator cannot keep matters factual; they mix everything up

together, considering the critique and now details of their personal life as an excuse to

examine a personal detail - such as discussion of a subject in the person's bedroom, or if the

individual eats takeout.

Envy of people for their successes, wealth, beauty, happiness, or lifestyle becomes a

motivator for boundary violators. Violators simply pick on people who have more material

successes, wealth, beauty, happiness, or lifestyle, and fail to address their shortcomings,

targeting those whom had more success, and portray in a negative light.

Instances of Boundary Violation in Kurdistan

Another clear case of boundary violation in Kurdistan is the way that instead of

community discussions during evening gatherings, topics are taken to social media, where

they are converted into clips and news stories, and paid!

Boundary violations take place publicly now, often on social media, through video, or

news item, and people even capitalize monetarily from them.

First: reporting manner-span, where you report on the marriage of two adults 18 years

of age and over, and you then the family photos, videos, webcams, or recordings, and mock

what the supposed age span is, is in violation of privacy. Even if someone chooses to share

the photos themselves with the account owner, one in the audience has no rights to copy,

share or spread. In violation will say, “They themselves posted it for the public, so I can post

it! If I use my own photo, it’s my photo.” Unfortunately, that is an incorrect response as it is

in violation, and you would not have shared or copied the wedding photo your brother live

streamed off his TV for social media, so why is it okay now?

Secondly, having a second, third, or fourth wife is used as an excuse - a ruse - to

disobey the boundaries of polygamy and disrupt society! Polygamy may be legally talked

about, studied, or even argued in a bachelor's thesis and master thesis. Ask your

representatives to change that law through parliament to accommodate your preference,

instead of fighting on social media. But to violate the boundaries of marriage of a

polygamous wife is an offense. From a moral and character-structure point of view, it shows

weaknesses, and there are many questions to raise about you too!

There's a law that allows polygamy, but you don't have the power to address it or

change it. You comment that the polygamous man is many years older than his third or fourth

wife!

Thirdly, ‘Macron's wife is old; you would say she is like his grandmother!’

This is again an example of a boundary violation that is not local; the boundary

violator not only crossed the personal borders of people in their own village or town, but they

now have the ability to violate the borders of an entire nation, all the way to France! That

France, where if you may get as far as becoming a refugee there, you definitely would never

get there by swimming or even on foot (albeit this is mostly because in taking the second

option, as they cannot literally get there, they would try to be violators of personal lives,

instead - as in violation of the borders to that country). Yet they are somehow able to vomit

into the ears of the president and the first lady of that nation who laughably criticize Brigitte

Macron for her age! They ridicule Macron, saying that unlike them and the men around

them, he didn't marry an eighteen-year-old girl or become a pedophile!

What are the options for the violated?

What should the victim of boundary violation do? Simply that they must do something!

Before discussing the next steps suited for the person experiencing boundary violation, I

need to talk about another group of people who must act before the individual in question and

not become supporters of the boundary violator. This group of people can play a crucial, and

even functional and lifesaving, role in disrupting boundary violators. They can turn into

supporters and collaborators of boundary violators or work against the violation. Since I have

already stated, at the outset, that boundary violation is violence and is a crime, there exists a

group of people, apart from the violator (the boundary violator) and the victim (the person whose

boundaries are being violated), that I am concerned with and discussing. This is the group of

people who listen distractedly and carelessly listen to the boundary violator, and then proceed to

nod in agreement, affirm the boundary violator, or say nothing. This group, upon nodding or

affirming the boundary violator, is becoming an indirect violator themselves, and then directly,

they are becoming an encourager of violence, of boundary violation, and of other people's

personal lives being violated. This group of people is the people who have to do something,

intervene, disrupt the boundary violator, and hold the abuser accountable even before the victim.

This group must unequivocally communicate to the boundary violator, "Stop. We don't

care about a person's private life, stop talking about them, stop showing us their pictures; we are

not interested in someone's video." In this manner, they can avoid participation in the boundary

violating and possibly cause the boundary violator to stop as well and reflect on their actions.

What should the victim of boundary violation do?

The victim must first communicate: "Do not tell me who the boundary violator is; tell me

why it was so easy for them to do this to you?" Then, irrespective of who the violator is, what

they are, and no matter how or what they did or said, the victim must swiftly take the boundary

violator to court and seek their own justice. Boundary violation is neither normal nor acceptable,

and it is legally punishable. The victim must gather evidence of the boundary violation, launder

it, and proceed to a policing organization. The boundary violator has committed the boundary

violation while attempting to correct their own inadequacies, to draw societal attention to

themselves or show themselves as better than the person being referenced, or to humiliate and

undermine the victim. As such, a boundary violator does not deserve forgiveness or chance for a

second chance (if they are forgiven, then it should be spiritual, and the criminal punishment

should still play out). The victim cannot confront the boundary violator or ask them to explain or

show reason as to why they did or said what they did. They must simply take it to the court, and

work through it there.

Sources

 Iraqi Penal Code No. 111 of 1969

 Sebastian Laoutoumai, Gereon Grob, Privacy Litigation, Yearbook of

Private International Law Vol. XIX-2017/2018

 R. Hasty, Data Protection Law in the USA, 2013

 David Wicki-Birchler, Privacy Law in the US: Federal Statutes in a

Nutshell and Commented Case Law, 22 Sept. 2022