Incitement to genocide

Last updated
Audience makes a Nazi salute during Adolf Hitler's speech of 30 January 1939, in which he threatened "the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!" Bundesarchiv Bild 183-2008-0922-500, Reichstag, Begrussung Adolf Hitler.jpg
Audience makes a Nazi salute during Adolf Hitler's speech of 30 January 1939, in which he threatened "the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!"

Incitement to genocide is a crime under international law which prohibits inciting (encouraging) the commission of genocide. An extreme form of hate speech, incitement to genocide is an inchoate offense and is theoretically subject to prosecution even if genocide does not occur, although charges have never been brought in an international court without mass violence having occurred. "Direct and public incitement to commit genocide" was forbidden by the Genocide Convention in 1948. Incitement to genocide is often cloaked in metaphor and euphemism and may take many forms beyond direct advocacy, including dehumanization and accusation in a mirror.

Contents

Definitions

"Direct and public incitement to commit genocide" is forbidden by the Genocide Convention (1948), Article 3(c). [1] If genocide were to be committed, then incitement could also be prosecuted as complicity in genocide, prohibited in Article 3(e), without the incitement necessarily being direct or public. [2]

Incitement

Incitement means encouraging someone else to commit a crime, in this case genocide. [3] The Genocide Convention is generally interpreted as requiring intent to cause genocide for incitement prosecutions. [4]

"Direct"

"Direct" means that the speech must be both intended and understood as a call to take action against the targeted group, which may be difficult to prove for prosecutors due to cultural and individual differences. [3] Wilson notes that "direct" does not inherently exclude euphemisms (see below), "if the prosecution can show that the overwhelming majority of listeners understood a euphemistic form of speech as a direct (rather than circuitous, oblique or veiled) call to commit genocide". [5] American genocide scholar Gregory Gordon, noting that most incitement does not take the form of imperative command to kill the target group (see below), recommends that a "glossary of incitement techniques should be woven into judicial pronouncements". [6]

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia came to different conclusions on the prosecution of incitement. According to ICTR, incitement did not require an explicit call for violence against the targeted group or causally connected subsequent violence. ICTY came to the opposite conclusion in Prosecutor v. Kordić , because "hate speech not directly calling for violence... did not rise to the same level of gravity" as crimes against humanity. [7]

"Public"

Incitement is considered "public" "if it is communicated to a number of individuals in a public place or to members of a population at large by such means as the mass media". [3] However, the Genocide Convention never defines the term "public" and it is unclear how the criterion would apply to new technologies, such as Internet-enabled social media. [8] Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza was convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda for speeches made at a roadblock, but on appeal it was ruled that these speeches were not considered public. [9]

Causation

Incitement to genocide is an inchoate crime as it is technically prosecutable even if genocide is never committed. [10] [11] [12] However, Gordon writes that "no international court has ever brought an incitement prosecution in the absence of a subsequent genocide or other directly-related large-scale atrocity". [13] Wilson noted that the judgement against Jean-Paul Akayesu "seemingly elevated causation to a legal requirement to prove incitement" as it stated "there must be proof of a possible causal link" between the alleged incitement and murders. [14] Tribunals asserted that the incitement led to violence, even when this was not conclusively proven by the prosecution. [15] [16]

Davies details four benefits of an inchoate and separate approach to prosecuting incitement, instead of prosecuting incitement as part of the crime of genocide:

  1. obviating the difficult task of proving a causal connection between incitement and violence,
  2. allowing people to be charged with aiding and abetting incitement,
  3. allowing incitement to genocide to be prosecuted even when the resulting violence cannot be proven to have been genocidal (e.g. rather than war crimes or crimes against humanity), and
  4. enabling the prevention of genocide by prosecuting incitement thus acting as a deterrent to genocide. [17]

Free speech issues

Defining incitement to genocide is important because it can be in tension with the protection of freedom of expression. In the Léon Mugesera case, a Canadian federal appeals court found that his 1992 speech claiming that Hutus were about to be "exterminated by inyenzi or cockroaches" was protected free speech and that the speech's themes were "elections, courage and love". Subsequently, the Canadian Supreme Court ruled that "reasonable grounds exist to believe that Mr. Mugesera committed a crime against humanity". [18] [19] Some dictators and authoritarian leaders have used overly broad interpretations of "incitement" or speech crimes in order to jail journalists and political opponents. [20] [21]

Gordon argued that the benefits of free speech do not apply in situations where mass violence is occurring because "the 'marketplace of ideas' has been likely shut down or is not functioning properly." Therefore, it is justified to restrict speech that would not ordinarily be punishable. [22] Susan Benesch, a free speech advocate, concedes that free speech provisions are intended to protect private speech while most or all genocide is state-sponsored. Therefore, in her opinion, prosecution of incitement to genocide should take into account the authority of the speaker and whether they are likely to persuade the audience. [23] [24] Richard Ashby Wilson observed that those prosecuted for incitement to genocide and related international crimes "have gone beyond mere insult, libel and slander to incite others to commit mass atrocities. Moreover, their utterances usually occur in a context of an armed conflict, genocide and a widespread or systematic attack on a civilian population." [25]

Alternate definitions

Alternate definitions and interpretations have been proposed by various authors. In Benesch's six-pronged "reasonably probable consequences" test, a finding of incitement to genocide would require violence as a possible consequence of the speech, [16] [26] which is compatible with existing jurisprudence. [27] Carol Pauli's "Communications Research Framework" is intended to define situations where freedom of speech can be justifiably infringed by broadcast interference and other non-judicial measures to prevent genocide. [28] Gordon has argued for "fixing the existing framework" by reinterpreting or changing incitement, direct, public, and causation elements. [29] Gordon favors removing the requirement to be public, because "[p]rivate incitement can be just as lethal, if not more, than public." [30]

Types

Susan Benesch noted that "Inciters have used strikingly similar techniques before genocide, even in times and places as different as Nazi Germany in the 1930s and Rwanda in the 1990s." [31] The following types have been classified by Gordon. [32]

Direct advocacy

Gordon notes that "direct calls for destruction are relatively rare". [33] In May 1939, Nazi propagandist Julius Streicher wrote "A punitive expedition must come against the Jews in Russia. A punitive expedition which will provide the same fate for them that every murderer and criminal must expect. Death sentence and execution. The Jews in Russia must be killed. They must be exterminated root and branch." [34] On 4 June 1994, Kantano Habimana broadcast from RTLM: "we will kill the Inkotanyi and exterminate them" based on their alleged ethnic characteristics: "Just look at his small nose and then break it". [35] [33] Gordon considers Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's 2005 comments that Israel "must be wiped off the map" an example of direct advocacy. [33]

Predictions

In the Rwandan Media Case, some broadcasts of the Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) that "foretold elimination of the inyenzi or cockroaches" were found to constitute incitement to genocide. An example is the following statement by Ananie Nkurunziza on RTLM on 5 June 1994: "I think we are fast approaching what I would call dawn ... dawn, because—for the young people who may not know— dawn is when the day breaks. Thus when day breaks, when that day comes, we will be heading for a brighter future, for the day when we will be able to say “There isn't a single Inyenzi left in the country.” The term Inyenzi will then be forever forgotten, and disappear for good." [33]

Dehumanization

Jews killed during the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, described in the Stroop Report as "bandits destroyed in battle" Stroop Report - Warsaw Ghetto Uprising 12.jpg
Jews killed during the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, described in the Stroop Report as "bandits destroyed in battle"

According to Gordon, "verminization, pathologization, demonization, and other forms of dehumanization" can be considered incitement to genocide. Verminization classifies the target as something "whose extermination would be considered normal and desirable", [36] which is why Hutu leaders frequently described Tutsis as inyenzi (cockroaches). RTLM propagandist Georges Ruggiu pled guilty to incitement to genocide, admitting that calling Tutsis "inyenzi" meant designating them "persons to be killed". [36] Gordon writes that like dehumanization, demonization is "sinister figurative speech but is more phantasmagorical and/ or anthropocentric in nature... [centering] on devils, malefactors, and other nefarious personages." [37] Pathologization means designating the target as a disease. According to genocide scholar Gregory Stanton, this "expropriates pseudo-medical terminology to justify massacre [and it] dehumanizes the victims as sources of filth and disease, [propagating] the reversed social ethics of the perpetrators". [36] [38] Stanton identified dehumanization as third in the eight stages of genocide, noting that "Dehumanization overcomes the normal human revulsion against murder." While Stanton and others have contended that dehumanization is a necessary condition for genocide, [39] Johannes Lang has argued that its role is overstated and that forms of humiliation and torture which occur during genocide occur precisely because the victims' humanity is recognized. [40]

Accusation in a mirror

Accusation in a mirror is a false claim that accuses the target of something that the perpetrator is doing or intends to do. [37] [41] The name was used by an anonymous Rwandan propagandist in Note Relative à la Propagande d’Expansion et de Recrutement. Drawing on the ideas of Joseph Goebbels, he instructed colleagues to "impute to enemies exactly what they and their own party are planning to do". [41] [42] [43] By invoking collective self-defense, propaganda is used to justify genocide, just as self-defense is a defense for individual homicide. [41] Susan Benesch remarked that while dehumanization "makes genocide seem acceptable", accusation in a mirror makes it seem necessary. [44]

The tactic is similar to a "false anticipatory tu quoque " (a logical fallacy which charges the opponent with hypocrisy). It does not rely on what misdeeds the enemy could plausibly be charged with, based on actual culpability or stereotypes, and does not involve any exaggeration, but instead is an exact mirror of the perpetrator's own intentions. The weakness of the strategy is that it reveals the perpetrator's intentions, perhaps before it can be carried out. This could enable intervention to prevent genocide, or alternatively aid in prosecuting incitement to genocide. [45] Kenneth L. Marcus wrote that despite its weaknesses, the tactic is frequently used by genocide perpetrators (including Nazis, Serbs, and Hutus) because it is effective. He recommends that courts should consider a false accusation of genocide by an opposing group to satisfy the "direct" requirement, because it is an "almost invariable harbinger of genocide". [46]

Euphemism and metaphor

Perpetrators often rely on euphemisms or metaphors to conceal their actions. [47] During the Rwandan genocide, calls to "go to work" referred to the murder of Tutsis. [47] [44] In Prosecutor v. Nyiramasuhuko, et al. (2015), two defendants had asked others to "sweep the dirt outside". [37] The Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) held that this was incitement to genocide, because listeners "understood the words ... 'sweeping dirt', to mean they needed to kill Tutsis". [37] Similarly, in Nazi Germany euphemisms such as Final Solution, special treatment, and "resettlement to the East" were used to refer to mass murder. [48] According to William Schabas, "The history of genocide shows that those who incite the crime speak in euphemisms." [47]

Justification

Justifying ongoing atrocities may be considered incitement to genocide. For example, Nazi propagandists repeatedly emphasized to potential perpetrators that "massacres, torture, death marches, slavery, and other atrocities" were carried out in a "humane" way. According to W. Michael Reisman, "in many of the most hideous international crimes, many of the individuals who are directly responsible operate within a cultural universe that inverts our morality and elevates their actions to the highest form of group, tribe, or national defense". [47] [44]

Praising past violence

Praising the perpetrators of completed atrocities can be a form of incitement. RTLM announcer Georges Ruggiu thanked the "valiant combatants" supposedly fighting a "battle" against Tutsi civilians. Eliézer Niyitegeka, transport minister, thanked militias for their "good work". [49]

Asking questions

In the Rwandan genocide, Simon Bikindi's loudspeaker broadcasts to militia asking "have you killed the Tutsis here?" were held to contribute to a finding of incitement to genocide. [49]

Conditional advocacy

In January 1994, Hassan Ngeze wrote an article stating that if Tutsi militias attacked, there would be "none of them left in Rwanda, not even a single accomplice. All the Hutu are united". The ICTR found that this was incitement to genocide, even though it was conditional. [49]

Target–sympathizer conflation

During genocide, members of the majority group who help or sympathize with the targeted group are also persecuted. For example, during the Holocaust, non-Jews who hid Jews or simply opposed the genocide were murdered. In Rwanda, Hutus who opposed the genocide were labeled "traitors" and murdered. [50] [44] Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also threatened sympathizers with Israel, stating "Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury". [50]

Causing genocide

According to Susan Benesch, the strongest evidence for a causal connection between incitement and genocide is found in cases where there is widespread civilian participation in killings (as in Rwanda or the Nazi Holocaust) and where the target group lives alongside a majority group, requiring the acquiescence of that group for genocide to occur. [51] Frank Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn wrote that "in order to perform a genocide the perpetrator has always had to first organize a campaign that redefined the victim group as worthless, outside the web of mutual obligations, a threat to the people, immoral sinners, and/or subhuman." [52]

Larry May argues that incitement to genocide is proof of genocidal intent, [53] and that inciters (along with planners) are more responsible for the resulting genocide than mere participants in the killing. [54] He believes that incitement should be prosecuted more harshly than non-leadership participation for this reason, and because "the crime in question is not merely the individual act of killing or harming, but rather the mass crime of intending to destroy a protected group." [55]

International treaties

Based on the precedent of Nazi propagandist Julius Streicher, who was convicted of crimes against humanity by the International Military Tribunal in 1946, "[d]irect and public incitement to commit genocide" was forbidden by the Genocide Convention (1948), Article 3. [3] During the debate on the convention, the Soviet delegate argued that "[i]t was impossible that hundreds of thousands of people should commit so many crimes unless they had been incited to do so" and that inciters, "the ones really responsible for the atrocities committed", ought to face justice. [56] Several delegates supported a provision that would criminalize hate propaganda even if it did not directly call for violence. The Secretariat Draft called for the criminalization of "[a]ll forms of public propaganda tending by their systematic and hateful character to provoke genocide, or tending to make it appear as a necessary, legitimate or excusable act". [57] However, the United States was reluctant to criminalize genocide incitement due to concerns over freedom of the press, [58] and opposed any provisions that were seen as overly broad and likely to infringe on freedom of speech. [59]

The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (1965) prohibits "all dissemination of ideas based on racial superiority or hatred, incitement to racial discrimination, as well as all acts of violence or incitement to such acts against any race or group of persons of another colour or ethnic origin". [58] One of the most widely ratified treaties, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) also prohibits "propaganda for war" and "advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence" (which arguably conflicts with a separate article calling for freedom of speech). [60] However, according to Wilson, many countries signed these treaties to maintain a façade of respect for human rights while violating their provisions and there is little effective international enforcement of human rights outside of the European Court of Human Rights. No more trials for incitement to genocide were held until nearly fifty years after the ratification of the Genocide Convention. [61]

Since 1998, incitement to genocide is also forbidden by Article 25(3)(e) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. [62] [3] According to the Rome Statute, incitement is not "a crime in its own right" and an inchoate offense, as it was considered in previous prosecutions, but simply one possible "mode of criminal participation in genocide". Thomas Davies contends that this change makes it less likely that a perpetrator will be held accountable for incitement. [63]

Case law

Nuremberg trials

Streicher at the 1938 Nuremberg rally before the destruction of Hans-Sachs-Platz synagogue Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1995-012-00A, Nurnberg, Kundgebung vor Synagoge.jpg
Streicher at the 1938 Nuremberg rally before the destruction of Hans-Sachs-Platz synagogue

Julius Streicher, the founder, editor, and publisher of Der Stürmer , was found responsible for antisemitic articles referring to Jews as "a parasite, an enemy, and an evil-doer, a disseminator of diseases" or "swarms of locusts which must be exterminated completely". [64] He continued to publish antisemitic articles even after learning of the mass murder of Jews in the occupied Soviet Union. [34] The prosecution argued that "Streicher helped to create, through his propaganda, the psychological basis necessary for carrying through a program of persecution which culminated in the murder of six million men, women, and children." [65] Because Streicher's articles "incited the German people to active persecution" and "murder and extermination", he was convicted of crimes against humanity by the IMT in 1946. [64]

Hans Fritzsche was the Chief of the German Press Division of Joseph Goebbels' Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda from 1938; in this position he issued instructions to German newspapers telling them what to report. [66] According to the IMT prosecution, he "incited and encouraged the commission of War Crimes by deliberately falsifying news to arouse in the German People those passions which led them to the commission of atrocities". Fritzsche was acquitted because the court was "not prepared to hold that [his broadcasts] were intended to incite the German people to commit atrocities on conquered peoples". [67] Nuremberg prosecutor Alexander Hardy later said that evidence not available to the prosecution at the time proved Fritzsche not only knew of the extermination of European Jews but also "played an important part in bringing [Nazi crimes] about", and would have resulted in his conviction. [68] Fritzsche was later classified as Group I (Major Offenders) by a denazification court which gave him the maximum penalty, eight years' imprisonment. [68] [69]

Otto Dietrich was not tried at the main Nuremberg trial, but was convicted of crimes against humanity at the Ministries Trial, one of the subsequent Nuremberg trials. [70] According to Hardy, Dietrich "more than anyone else, was responsible for presenting to the German people the justification for liquidating the Jews". [71] Hardy noted that Dietrich not only controlled Der Stürmer but another 3,000 newspapers and 4,000 periodicals with a combined circulation over 30 million. [71] The judgement against him noted that he conducted "a well thought-out, oft-repeated, persistent campaign to arouse the hatred of the German people against Jews" despite the lack of direct calls for violence made by him. [72]

International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

The ICTR indicted three people for incitement to genocide in the so-called Rwanda Media Case: Hassan Ngeze, Ferdinand Nahimana, and Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza. All were convicted. The judges asserted that "The power of the media to create and destroy fundamental human values comes with great responsibility. Those who control such media are accountable for its consequences". They noted that "Without a firearm, machete or any physical weapon, you caused the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians". Prosecutors were able to prove that "direct" calls to genocide were made despite the use of euphemisms such as "go to work" for murdering Tutsi. After an appeal, the conviction of Barayagwiza was vacated because he had not been in control of the media while the genocide was occurring. However, Barayagwiza was still guilty of "instigating the perpetration of acts of genocide" and crimes against humanity. [3] [25]

International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia

The ICTY has focused on prosecuting crimes other than genocide, because it is believed that the hate speech that occurred during the Bosnian genocide did not meet the legal standard of incitement to genocide. [3] Serb politician Vojislav Šešelj was indicted for crimes against humanity, including "war propaganda and incitement of hatred towards non-Serb people". [73] Serbian politician Radovan Karadžić was convicted of "participating in a joint criminal enterprise to commit crimes against humanity on the basis of his public speeches and broadcasts". [74] Dario Kordić and Radoslav Brđanin were also convicted of crimes based on instigating violence in public speeches. [74]

National case law

In 2016, Léon Mugesera was convicted of incitement to genocide and inciting ethnic hatred by a Rwandan court based on his 1992 speech. [75]

Countering incitement

Inclusion of incitement in the Genocide Convention was intended to prevent genocide. [76] As the judgement of Prosecutor v. Kalimanzira stated, "The inchoate nature of the crime allows intervention at an earlier stage, with the goal of preventing the occurrence of genocidal acts." [77] Irwin Cotler stated that efforts to enforce the Genocide Convention in inchoate incitement cases "have proven manifestly inadequate". [78] Alternately, prosecution for incitement after the genocide had concluded could have deterrent effect on those planning to commit the crime, but the effectiveness of international criminal trials as a deterrent is disputed. [79] However, deterrence is less effective when the definition of the crime is contested and undefined. [20]

Besides prosecutions, non-judicial interventions (called "information intervention") is possible against incitement, such as jamming broadcasting frequencies used to disseminate incitement or broadcasting counterspeech advocating against genocide. [80] Genocide-inciting social media accounts and websites (such as those used by Islamic State to spread propaganda) can be shut down and taken offline. However, propagandists can circumvent these methods by creating new accounts or moving to a different hosting service. [81] As an alternative to outright censorship, Google developed a "Redirect Method" which identifies individuals searching for IS-related material and redirects them to content which challenges IS narratives. [82]

See also

Notes

    Related Research Articles

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda</span> 1994 court of the United Nations Security Council

    The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda was an international court established in November 1994 by the United Nations Security Council in Resolution 955 in order to adjudicate people charged for the Rwandan genocide and other serious violations of international law in Rwanda, or by Rwandan citizens in nearby states, between 1 January and 31 December 1994. The court eventually convicted 61 individuals and acquitted 14.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Rwandan genocide</span> 1994 genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda

    The Rwandan genocide, also known as the genocide against the Tutsi, occurred from 7 April to 19 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War. Over a span of around 100 days, members of the Tutsi ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and Twa, were systematically killed by Hutu militias. While the Rwandan Constitution states that over 1 million people were killed, most scholarly estimates suggest between 500,000 and 662,000 Tutsi died. The genocide was marked by extreme violence, with victims often murdered by neighbors, and widespread sexual violence, with between 250,000 and 500,000 women raped.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines</span> Radio station in the 1994 Rwandan genocide

    Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM), nicknamed "Radio Genocide" or "Hutu Power Radio", was a Rwandan radio station which broadcast from July 8, 1993, to July 31, 1994. It played a significant role in inciting the Rwandan genocide that took place from April to July 1994, and has been described by some scholars as having been a de facto arm of the Hutu government.

    Simon Bikindi was a Rwandan musician and singer who was formerly very popular in Rwanda. His patriotic and nationalist songs were playlist staples on the national radio station Radio Rwanda during the Rwandan Civil War. For his actions during the Rwandan genocide, he was tried and convicted for incitement to genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in 2008. He died of diabetes at a Beninese hospital in December 2018.

    Georges Henri Yvon Joseph Ruggiu is a Belgian radio presenter who worked for Rwandan radio station Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines, which played a significant role in promoting the genocide against the Tutsi. Like the station's other broadcasters, Ruggiu incited violence against Tutsi and moderate Hutu over the air. He had become involved in Rwandan politics just two years before the genocide.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">International criminal law</span> Public international law

    International criminal law (ICL) is a body of public international law designed to prohibit certain categories of conduct commonly viewed as serious atrocities and to make perpetrators of such conduct criminally accountable for their perpetration. The core crimes under international law are genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression.

    Félicien Kabuga is a Rwandan businessman and genocide suspect who played a major role in the run-up to the Rwandan genocide. A multimillionaire, he was closely connected to dictator Juvénal Habyarimana's Hutu nationalist MRND party and the Akazu, an informal group of Hutu extremists who helped lead the Rwandan genocide.

    <i>Kangura</i> Magazine in Rwanda that served to stoke ethnic hatred in the run-up to the Rwandan Genocide

    Kangura was a Kinyarwanda and French-language magazine in Rwanda that served to stoke ethnic hatred in the run-up to the Rwandan genocide. The magazine was established in 1990, following the invasion of the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), and continued publishing up to the genocide. Edited by Hassan Ngeze, the magazine was a response to the RPF-sponsored Kanguka, adopting a similar informal style. "Kangura" was a Rwandan word meaning "wake others up", as opposed to "Kanguka", which meant "wake up". The journal was based in Gisenyi.

    Ferdinand Nahimana is a Rwandan historian, who was convicted of incitement to genocide for his role in the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi in Rwanda.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephen Rapp</span> American politician

    Stephen J. Rapp is an American lawyer and the former United States ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues in the Office of Global Criminal Justice.

    An atrocity crime is a violation of international criminal law that falls under the historically three legally defined international crimes of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Ethnic cleansing is widely regarded as a fourth mass atrocity crime by legal scholars and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working in the field, despite not yet being recognized as an independent crime under international law.

    Hate media is media that contributes to the demonization and stigmatization of people who belong to different groups. It has played an influential role in the incitement to genocide, with notable examples of it being Radio Televizija Srbije during the wars in Yugoslavia, Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) during the Rwandan genocide, and Nazi Germany's Der Stürmer newspaper.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Kantano Habimana</span> Rwandan journalist

    Kantano Habimana, commonly referred to as Kantano, was a presenter (animateur) on the Rwandan radio station RTLM, which played a significant role in promoting the genocide against the Tutsi. Like the station's other broadcasters, Habimana incited violence against Tutsi and moderate Hutu on the air.

    During the Rwandan genocide of 1994, over the course of 100 days, up to half a million women and children were raped, sexually mutilated, or murdered. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) handed down the first conviction for the use of rape as a weapon of war during the civil conflict, and, because the intent of the mass violence against Rwandan women and children was to destroy, in whole or in part, a particular ethnic group, it was the first time that mass rape during wartime was found to be an act of genocidal rape.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Genocide prevention</span> Any act or actions that works toward averting future genocides

    Prevention of genocide is any action that works toward averting future genocides. Genocides take a lot of planning, resources, and involved parties to carry out, they do not just happen instantaneously. Scholars in the field of genocide studies have identified a set of widely agreed upon risk factors that make a country or social group more at risk of carrying out a genocide, which include a wide range of political and cultural factors that create a context in which genocide is more likely, such as political upheaval or regime change, as well as psychological phenomena that can be manipulated and taken advantage of in large groups of people, like conformity and cognitive dissonance. Genocide prevention depends heavily on the knowledge and surveillance of these risk factors, as well as the identification of early warning signs of genocide beginning to occur.

    Gregory S. Gordon is an American professor and scholar of international law and former Legal Officer for the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICTR. Gordon is known for his academic work calling for the criminalization under international law of a broader category of speech likely to cause and/or fuel mass atrocities, and his book Atrocity Speech Law: Foundation, Fragmentation, Fruition in which he advances this argument.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Susan Benesch</span> American journalist and scholar of speech

    Susan Benesch is an American journalist and scholar of speech who is known for founding the Dangerous Speech Project. Benesch is a free speech advocate, recommending the use of counterspeech rather than censorship to delegitimize harmful speech.

    International speech crimes are acts of speech which are criminalized under international law. Incitement to genocide is one example, but the Nuremberg trials and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia convicted some defendants of crimes against humanity based on speech acts. For example, Serb politician Vojislav Šešelj was indicted for crimes against humanity, including "war propaganda and incitement of hatred towards non-Serb people". Serbian politician Radovan Karadžić was convicted of "participating in a joint criminal enterprise to commit crimes against humanity on the basis of his public speeches and broadcasts". Dario Kordić and Radoslav Brđanin were also convicted of crimes based on instigating violence in public speeches.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Genocide justification</span> Attempts to claim genocide is a moral action

    Genocide justification is the claim that a genocide is morally excusable/defensible, necessary, and/or sanctioned by law. Genocide justification differs from genocide denial, which is an attempt to reject the occurrence of genocide. Perpetrators often claim that genocide victims presented a serious threat, justifying their actions by stating it was legitimate self-defense of a nation or state. According to modern international criminal law, there is no excuse for genocide in any circumstances. Genocide is often camouflaged as military activity against combatants, and the distinction between denial and justification is often blurred.

    Accusation in a mirror (AiM) is a technique often used in the context of hate speech incitement, where one falsely attributes one's own motives and/or intentions to one's adversaries. It has been cited, along with dehumanization, as one of the indirect or cloaked forms of incitement to genocide, which has contributed to the commission of genocide, for example in the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, and the Armenian genocide. By invoking collective self-defense, accusation in a mirror is used to justify genocide, similar to self-defense as a defense for individual homicide.

    References

    1. ↑ Gordon 2017, p. 118.
    2. ↑ Schabas 2018, pp. 17–18.
    3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Incitement to Genocide in International Law". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum . Retrieved 9 May 2020.
    4. ↑ Benesch 2008, p. 493.
    5. ↑ Wilson 2017, p. 66.
    6. ↑ Gordon 2017, p. 399.
    7. ↑ Gordon 2017, pp. 307, Chapter 8 passim.
    8. ↑ Gordon 2017, p. 190.
    9. ↑ Gordon 2017, p. 191.
    10. ↑ May 2010, p. 101.
    11. ↑ Timmermann 2006, p. 823.
    12. ↑ Wilson 2017, p. 25.
    13. ↑ Gordon 2008, pp. 906–907.
    14. ↑ Wilson 2017, p. 36.
    15. ↑ Gordon 2017, pp. 398–399.
    16. 1 2 Benesch 2008, p. 497.
    17. ↑ Davies 2009, pp. 245–246.
    18. ↑ Benesch 2008, pp. 486–487.
    19. ↑ Mugesera v. Canada
    20. 1 2 Gordon 2017, p. 216.
    21. ↑ Parpart, Erich (26 March 2018). "Lese majeste law and reality". Bangkok Post. Bangkok Post Public Company Limited. Retrieved 28 January 2021. Critics and international observers have argued for years that the law in Thailand has long been abused for political purposes by those on both sides of the political spectrum
    22. ↑ Gordon 2017, pp. 320, 402.
    23. ↑ Gordon 2017, pp. 274–275.
    24. ↑ Benesch 2008, pp. 494–495.
    25. 1 2 Wilson 2017, p. 2.
    26. ↑ Gordon 2017, p. 274.
    27. ↑ Gordon 2017, p. 277.
    28. ↑ Gordon 2017, pp. 277–278.
    29. ↑ Gordon 2017, p. 281.
    30. ↑ Gordon 2017, p. 400.
    31. ↑ Benesch 2008, p. 503.
    32. ↑ Gordon 2017, p. 284.
    33. 1 2 3 4 Gordon 2017, p. 285.
    34. 1 2 Benesch 2008, p. 510.
    35. ↑ Timmermann 2006, p. 824.
    36. 1 2 3 Gordon 2017, p. 286.
    37. 1 2 3 4 Gordon 2017, p. 287.
    38. ↑ Blum et al. 2008, p. 204.
    39. ↑ Haslam 2019, pp. 119–120.
    40. ↑ Haslam 2019, p. 134.
    41. 1 2 3 Benesch 2008, p. 504.
    42. ↑ Gordon 2017, pp. 287–288.
    43. ↑ Marcus 2012, pp. 357–358.
    44. 1 2 3 4 Benesch 2008, p. 506.
    45. ↑ Marcus 2012, pp. 359–360.
    46. ↑ Marcus 2012, pp. 360–361.
    47. 1 2 3 4 Gordon 2017, p. 289.
    48. ↑ Herf 2005, p. 55.
    49. 1 2 3 Gordon 2017, p. 290.
    50. 1 2 Gordon 2017, p. 291.
    51. ↑ Benesch 2008, p. 499.
    52. ↑ Benesch 2008, p. 500.
    53. ↑ May 2010, p. 119.
    54. ↑ May 2010, p. 123.
    55. ↑ May 2010, pp. 151–152.
    56. ↑ Timmermann 2006, p. 852.
    57. ↑ Timmermann 2014, p. 154.
    58. 1 2 Wilson 2017, p. 3.
    59. ↑ Timmermann 2014, p. 155.
    60. ↑ Wilson 2017, pp. 3–4.
    61. ↑ Wilson 2017, p. 4.
    62. ↑ Davies 2009, p. 245.
    63. ↑ Davies 2009, pp. 245, 260.
    64. 1 2 Timmermann 2006, pp. 827–828.
    65. ↑ Gordon 2017, p. 328.
    66. ↑ Gordon 2014, p. 578.
    67. ↑ Timmermann 2006, p. 828.
    68. 1 2 Gordon 2014, p. 579.
    69. ↑ Timmermann 2006, p. 829.
    70. ↑ Gordon 2017, pp. 114–115.
    71. 1 2 Gordon 2017, p. 115.
    72. ↑ Gordon 2017, pp. 330–331.
    73. ↑ Benesch 2008, p. 511.
    74. 1 2 Wilson 2017, p. 5.
    75. ↑ Gordon 2017, p. 398.
    76. ↑ Schabas 2018, p. 18.
    77. ↑ Gordon 2017, p. 215.
    78. ↑ Gordon 2017, p. 217.
    79. ↑ Benesch 2008, pp. 497–498.
    80. ↑ Benesch 2008, p. 488.
    81. ↑ Richter et al. 2018, p. 15.
    82. ↑ Richter et al. 2018, p. 16.

    Sources

    This page is based on this Wikipedia article
    Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
    Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.