By Abdi Ali
Published December 20, 2019
Parliament should revise Ethiopia’s draft law on hate speech and disinformation to protect freedom of expression.
A human rights watch dog, Human Rights Watch, cautions that if the Hate Speech and Disinformation Prevention and Suppression Proclamation that is currently before Parliament is approved in its current form, could curtail people’s freedom of expression.
“The Ethiopian government is under increasing pressure to respond to rising communal violence that has at times been exacerbated by speeches and statements shared online,” says Laetitia Bader, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “But an ill-construed law that opens the door for law enforcement officials to violate rights to free expression is no solution.”
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The government should instead adopt a comprehensive strategy–regular public messaging from the prime minister and other public figures about the dangers of hate speech, programs to improve digital literacy, and efforts to encourage self-regulation within and between communities–to address incitement to violence, discrimination, and hostility, and invoke non-punitive measures to address hate speech, says HRW.
HRW points out that the “draft proclamation’s definition of hate speech is not narrowly restricted to speech that is likely to incite imminent violence, discrimination, or hostility, as is required under international law”, but that “it broadly allows punishment for ‘speech that promotes hatred, discrimination or attack against a person or an identifiable group, based on ethnicity, religion, race, gender or disability’.”
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The draft, HRW ploughs on, “includes new, vaguely worded online, broadcast, and print activities subject to criminal penalty” besides making ‘[dissemination of disinformation’ that is ‘defined as speech that is knowingly ‘false’,” a criminal offense without defining this concept.”
HRW faults the draft law for what it describes as ‘its lack of clear definitions’ and ‘vague and overly broad provisions’.
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Saying “Ethiopian authorities have over the past decade repeatedly used ill-conceived laws to clamp down on free speech and peaceful dissent,” HRW calls on Parliament to “work with the Advisory Council for Legal and Justice Affairs within the Attorney General’s office, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, Ethiopian nongovernmental groups, and other groups with expertise in freedom of expression before proceeding further with the draft law on hate speech and disinformation.”
“Ethiopia should be removing legal provisions that restrict free expression, not adding more vague provisions that risk stifling critical public debate on important issues,” Bader says. “Parliament can play a key role in ensuring the proposed new hate speech law doesn’t become another tool for repression.”