UN against death penalty for hate speech – Official

The United Nations on Tuesday condemned the introduction of the death penalty in the Hate Speech Bill currently before the National Assembly.

The UN has also commended President Muhammadu Buhari for condemning the barbaric murder of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Women leader in Kogi State and the directive to security agents to flush out the perpetrators of the heinous act.

The Deputy Secretary-General of the UN, Amina Mohammed, who stated these while fielding questions from the State House correspondents at the end of a meeting with President Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, said the President’s condemnation of the gruesome killing of the PDP Woman leader was an indication that he has zero tolerance for criminality.

She said: “I was here to commend the President for condemning the death of the politician in Kogi State. We did not go into a discussion around it but the fact that he has shown zero tolerance for it and insisted on an investigation. For us, it’s important especially as we start this week on gender-based violence in all its ramifications. ”

On the proposed social media censorship, Mohammed said the issue of hate speech has become a global and worrisome issue that has to be tackled.

• READ ALSO: Hate Speech, Social media bills an attempt by Buhari to maim Nigeria’s democracy – NANS

According to her, the abuse of social media, especially for the spread of fake news and misinformation, was a global concern even to the UN.

She said: “First, we need to know that globally, we are in a space that hate speech has reached an all-time high and so many checks and balances we can put into the society, into a country, into a region to bring an end to that is welcome.

“Again, the way the legislation is being followed to try to put that in place, I think is commendable. We, of course, did not support the death penalty and I am also happy to see yesterday (Monday) that portion was taken out of the legislation that was being put forward.

“The Secretary-General had also put in place a special ending on hate speech. So there is a strategy for that now and we are looking at that globally. I think this framework is important for multilateralism and we can go much further if we do these things together many of these issues are across borders through technologies.”

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