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In The Gambia, UNESCO celebrates the International Day for Countering Hate Speech
The Gambia's Minister of Information, Lamin Queen Jammeh, was represented by his Deputy Permanent Secretary, Ebrima Jobe, at the national forum on hate speech organised by UNESCO through partnership with the Open Media Centre (OMC), to mark the celebration of the International Day for Countering Hate Speech.
The forum, which took place on Thursday 22 June 2023, brought together participants from political parties, civil societies, the media, the diplomatic community, youth organisations and students. In line with UNESCO's strategic objectives, the initiative aimed at raising awareness among the various stakeholders of the root causes and consequences of hate speech, in order to foster stakeholders engagement all forms of hate speech offline and online.
For Dr Ismaila Ceesay, leader of the Citizens' Alliance party, "hate speech is a threat to national security. Given that our country is very unstable, we must take strong measures to combat it".
Drawing from their monitoring report on the categories of hate speech, Mr. Kebba Jeffang, head of fact-checking and media monitoring at Malagen (the editorial arm of the OMC), pointed that "hate speech based on ethnicity is the most common form of hate speech reported and countered for 62.5%. Ethnicity is followed by migrants (18.8%), religion (12.5%) and others (6.3%)".
Hate speech monitoring provide important insights into the understanding of the phenomenon and supporting data-informed advocacy.
We are very proud that a media organization is doing this work, because the impact of hate speech on society is damaging
Speaking at the panel on the root causes and origins of hate speech in The Gambia, the Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Mr. Emmanuel Joof, pointed out that such speech mainly targets political opponents, particularly women, in order to prevent them from coming forward, especially in the run-up to elections.
Condoning the NHRC view on the impact of gender-based violence, Marie Sock, first woman nominee for presidential candidate in the history of Gambia, shared her own experience: "I was insulted and mistreated when I announced my intention to run for president. My experience was very hurtful and embarrassing because my children are very present on social media, even though I keep them out of my political life”.
At the forum held in Banjul, the IEC was represented by its Director of Communication and Training, Pa Makkan Khan, who maintained that the Commission "regulates political parties with regard to hate speech and advocates peaceful and fair elections in accordance with the law".
The celebration of International Day for Countering Hate Speech in The Gambia provided an opportunity for the OMC to present the findings of its report, which gathers and analyses evidence on the origin and prevalence of hate speech in the country. The report is based on their monitoring of public space, particularly during the recently concluded 2021-2023 election cycle.
The various exchanges during the forum enabled participants to gain a better understanding of the root causes, origins and prevalence of hate speech in The Gambia, and to be sensitized to these issues. Participants devised context-specific mechanisms and approaches to combat online and offline hate speech in the country. To this end, Mr. Emmanuel Joof ensured that the monitoring of hate speech activities would be extended. The participants agreed to contribute to this by committing themselves to systematically reporting cases of hate speech to the relevant bodies from now on. Malagen's media monitoring confirmed that hate speech, bullying and other discriminatory remarks against women will now be better addressed as a priority.
On the issue of possible national and legal regulation in relation to the criminalization or otherwise of hate speech, which has been the subject of debate, Mrs. Bintou Jaiteh, Article 19's Legal and Policy Officer, advocated civil sanctions rather than criminalization in order to guarantee freedom of expression. "Excessive criminalization could be problematic", she stressed.
The initiative was carried out as part of the UNPBF-funded project "Strengthening the National Infrastructure for Peace to Promote Social Cohesion in The Gambia", which aims to train and empower young Gambians to become responsible, critical and ethical citizens in their online engagement. The project is part of UNESCO's MIL CLICKS initiative , which aims to promote the daily use of MIL skills by young people and citizens in their engagement with social media.
