OneVOICE tackles Hate Speech Bill
A coalition of civil societies and human right organisations, OneVOICE, has condemned the Bill which criminalises hate speech, at a recently held media parley in Ikeja, Lagos.
The Group held the view, that there are many legislations in Nigeria, that make the Hate Speech Bill unnecessary, such as Cybercrime Prohibition Act, Libel, Defamation and Slander.
In his keynote address, the Chairman, Media Committee for OneVOICE, Adedeji Adeleye, observed that hate speech itself, is very hard to define and is fraught with relativities. Instead of combating hate speech with the death penalty as prescribed in the Bill, Adeleye advocated for a “a moral suasion and a self-regulatory system against hate speech”.
He remarked that hate speech is prohibited by laws in several jurisdictions, such as Canada, France, United Kingdom and South Africa. However, none of these countries has attached a death penalty to the crime. From these legal precedents, he argued that, hate laws are either designed for public order or to protect human dignity.
The Executive Director, International Press Centre, Lanre Arogundade, who was represented by Olayinka Adegbile, observed that even in Rwanda where hate speech led to a most dreadful genocide in 1994, there is no law prohibiting criminalising hate speech. We need to strengthen our laws,
where they are weak”, he said.
In his presentation titled “Hate Speech Bill, Nigerian Constitution and Legal Laws: Implications for Civil Society’’, Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR), Malachy Ugwummadu, noted that there are more legislations that require urgent consideration by the Lawmakers, other than the Hate Speech Bill.
“State actors have continually shown that, they are not sensitive to the needs of the people. A lot of bills and legislative proposals, show that the welfare of the people takes a backseat. At the moment, the Appropriation Bill is pending, yet we are dealing with a frivolous Hate Speech Bill”, he noted.
The Group also observed that, hate speech is determined by the accuser, which is a serious threat to the fundamental right to free speech.