Pandemic leads to surge in hate speech
SINCE the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, the spread of the virus has led to a rise in misinformation, stigmatisation, discrimination, and hate speech, according to the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
UN Secretary General António Guterres has stated that “the pandemic continues to unleash a tsunami of hate and xenophobia, scapegoating, and scare-mongering”.
In various countries across the globe, individuals have been targeted on the basis of their ethnic identity. In the US, which has the largest Covid-19 death toll in the world, individuals perceived as ethnically Chinese have been vilified and falsely accused of spreading the virus, sometimes resulting in physical assault.
Similar dynamics exist in other countries, but with the focus on other marginalised minorities, including the Roma in some parts of Europe, internally displaced people in the Central African Republic (CAR), and members of the LGBTQIA+ community in Iraq and Israel, the OCHA says.
According to a recently released report by the Asia Centre – an NPO research institution based in Bangkok, Thailand and Johor Bahru in Malaysia focusing on how hate speech has proliferated throughout south-east Asia due to Covid-19 – in Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand migrant workers have experienced increased stigmatisation.
Some have been socially ostracised as potential “threats” to health and security.
And according to the UN special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, hate speech is often amplified through social media. During April, messages targeting the ethnic Rohingya community proliferated on social media in Malaysia.
Many posts included dehumanising language and images, accused the Rohingya of posing a threat to community health, and called for refugees to be forcibly returned to Myanmar. That same month, Malaysian authorities also denied entry to hundreds of Rohingya asylum seekers who were stranded in boats off the coast.
Hate speech can serve as an important indicator of potential human rights violations and abuses, and can provide early warning regarding the developing threat of mass atrocity crimes, the OCHA says.
In Myanmar, the proliferation of hate speech, when combined with discriminatory laws and policies, helped create an environment that led to the military’s so-called “clearance operations” during 2017, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths and the forced displacement of over 700 000 Rohingya.
Those atrocities, and the hate speech that preceded them, led to Myanmar being accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice.
In these times of an unprecedented global pandemic, it is essential that all states actively counter hate speech, including through legislation that outlaws the vilification of people on the basis of their ethnic, religious, or group identity, the UN says.
Such regulations should be targeted in a way that minimises the potential misuse to silence legitimate dissent or stifle genuine public debate. All UN member states should also adopt and implement the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination, according to the UN. |