[progchat_action] HATE ALERT
Michael Givel
the massacre of a million people. But how can media safeguards be
strengthened to prevent further atrocities, asks Damian Tambini
Damian Tambini Monday December 8, 2003 The Guardian
The notorious Rwanda radio station RTLM began to broadcast racism
in 1991, and by 1994 was airing instructions to "kill and exterminate"
the Tutsi minority.
In the same year, a national newspaper, Kangura, printed a large
cover picture of a machete with the slogan "What Weapons Shall We
Use To Conquer The Inyenzi Once And For All?"
Accusatory fingers were quickly pointed at the media for their role
in the ethnic flashpoints of the early 1990s, but the legal response
of the international community was flat-footed. While diplomats
fumed and fiddled, and the bravest citizens protested against the
media, the UN was unable to intervene. A coherent international
approach to the role of the media in ethnic conflict and genocide
is yet to emerge.
Or is it? For the first time since the Nuremberg Trials, international
criminal justice last week turned to the role of the media. In the
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, three journalists were
found guilty of direct incitement to cause genocide, and now face
life sentences.
While such international justice will be welcomed with a shiver of
relief by many, it may worry those who aim to protect freedom of
expression in developing countries. According to Helen Darbishire
of the Open Society Institute: "We generally fear that advocating
application of hate speech regulations will create an impetus to
act without ensuring that any steps taken are in conformity with
international standards." We might expect that sufficient safeguards
are in place if it is the UN tribunal that judges on hate speech,
but a more general clampdown on hate speech could constitute an
unacceptable curtailment of freedom of expression.
She continues:"In Rwanda, in 1995, the Ministry of Information,
failing to distinguish between criticism and incitement - and perhaps
erring on the side of caution - launched an attack on the entire
media sector and impounded several papers."
Uneasiness about hate speech restrictions apart, given that the
Rwandan case was so clear, many ask why justice took so long, and
why the killing was allowed to continue. A million people were
killed during the genocide, most of them by machete. Reasons why
the international community was unable to act in Rwanda to prevent
broadcasts include the lack of systematic evidence gathered, and a
failure to engage diplomatic pressure with a solid foundation in
international law.
This is why the judgment will give heart to those attempting to
prevent another Rwanda. The international policy community is
beginning to develop technologies for preventive detection of hate
speech - effectively an alerts system for detecting such instances
- and the recent judgments will give them a clear precedent to use
as a deterrent when hate speech is detected.
Since 2001, in a move that owes a good deal of its inspiration to
the frustrating experience of fiddling as Rwanda burned in 1994,
the UK Foreign Office and other government agencies have been working
with the BBC's foreign media monitors to try to detect instances
of hate speech in broadcasts around the world. The Foreign Office
has called on figures in the NGO world, such as Ursula Owen, and
on academics including myself and human rights expert David Goldberg
to advise on hate speech. BBC Monitoring, the government/BBC-funded
body that listens to and summarises foreign broadcasts, is attempting
to shake off a reputation for spookery and consolidate a post-cold
war role. Its dynamic new director, Chris Westcott, sees projects
such as the monitoring of hate speech as fundamental to its new
remit.
Thinktanks close to the US president and international organisations
have also launched projects on hate speech this year and clearly
in a more transparent, more media-focused world, the monitoring of
incitement is more than a passing fad. "We have high hopes for hate
speech monitoring, but it is crucial that at an early stage we
isolate the key principles that are really at stake," says Westcott.
Monitoring for hate speech can surely help to prevent violent
conflict but it also presents fundamental dilemmas: just how do we
recognise hate speech, and how can we ascertain if it is likely to
lead to violence? If speech that constitutes genuine incitement is
detected, what would be the appropriate international legal channels
to pursue? If national authorities are not to be trusted to be fair
in separating hate speech from valid criticism, how can international
monitoring appear legitimate? And - following the closure of an
Iraqi newspaper for criticism of US occupiers - at what point could
a legitimate anti-colonial discourse be classified as hate speech?
Fundamentally, where unequal societies cleave politically and
economically along ethnic grounds - as was the case in Rwanda -
antagonism and debate across ethnic lines is a necessary safety
valve. The job of determining what constitutes legitimate political
debate and what constitutes incitement is clearly ultimately for
courts. What monitoring can do is provide reliable evidence and
engage diplomatic pressure: a role surely strengthened after the
decisions last week.
7 Damian Tambini is senior fellow at Oxford University's programme
in comparative media law and policy
MediaGuardian.co.uk ) Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003