Key stakeholders from different institutions in Juba on Tuesday organized a roundtable discussion on how to encounter hate speech for the sake of peace in South Sudan.

 The conference was organized ahead of Wold Press Freedom Day on May 3.

Speaking on Tuesday at Juba Grand Hotel, Undersecretary of the National Ministry of Information, Justin Alier, said hate speech has destroyed many parts of South Sudan. “To kill is not only that you carry a gun, it starts with speech and that is hate speech,” said Alier.

“As government, we have seen how social media played a very negative role and simply because many of us do not differentiate between freedom of expression and speech that could harm others,” he added.

“As government, we take it seriously and in our campaign to kick off the national dialogue, we must start with hate speech and everybody must work very hard to ensure that hate speech doesn’t have any
place, doesn’t have any role in our community.”

For his part, Sardar Umar Alam, head of office and UNESCO representative in South Sudan, said this is the first conference to discuss how to encounter hate speech in South Sudan. He pointed out that more conferences will follow soon.

“From UNESCO we have observed that hate speech has increased. The whole idea is to create a platform and bring in international and local partners who have started some programs on hate speech and to
encounter hate speech,” said Alam.

“The dynamic of how the hate speech spread in South Sudan is very unique. It is not about social media, it is about one third majority of population is refugees, so everything which goes spread like a rumour, a lot needs to be done,” he added.