By Onogwu Muhammed.
Kogi State Governor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello has added his voice to the international call for the media to combat the threat that fake news and hate speech bring to the society.
Bello made the call on Sunday in a paper he presented in Lokoja at the 2018 Tafsir lecture organized by the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA).
The Governor was represented at the occasion by his Special Adviser on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Arc. Abdulmumeen Okara.
Governor Bello, in the paper which was titled; False News & Hate Speech – the Islamic Perspective, described fake news as the precursor to hate speech, and defined it as a malicious information that is fabricated by liars and sold to an audience in the form of news in order to provoke generalised loathing or hatred for their victim
“Hate speech is a threat to all peaceful co-existence. It violates other people’s basic rights, and poses a threat to international security and peace. Many types of hostile behaviors are traceable to the phenomenon of hate speech.”
He said while the Qur’an does not expressly mention hate speech, there was a need for people to study the interaction between the freedoms and restrictions to infer the dividing line between freedom of speech and hate speech.
“Hate speech frequently tries to camouflage itself as defence of the rights of a group or individual, but its true form and objective is brutal and barbaric, and tends to play pivotal roles in inciting violence and promoting ethnic or religious discrimination.”
The Governor noted that while the concept of freedom of expression has received systematic attention in international human rights law and in many national legislations, its practical application and recognition is not fully respected by all countries worldwide.
He said the global media and other stakeholders have the responsibility of ensuring that due diligence was applied in ensuring those responsible for spreading outright falsehood to incite one group or individuals against each other were made to face some consequences and to deter would be offenders.
Bello stressed the need for international human rights standards on the prohibition of incitement to national, racial or religious hatred to be integrated into domestic legislation and policies in many parts of the world in a manner that respects the freedom of expression.
He called on Muslims to form the vanguard of new topics to form new topics and interrogate the phenomenon of false news and hate speech, despite the fact that the Qur’an expressly discourages false assertions.
This discourse, he said, must be in such a way that closely studied and analysed every angle so that the outcomes would have value and coherence to everyone, including non – Muslims.
Credit: InsideStory
