“Kenya launches text service to stop hate speech” reports the BBC – utterly uncritically. The report assumes that this move is intended solely to reduce violence. No mention is made of the threat to free speech in Kenya, indeed no mention is made of any criticism of the hotline at all. It’s against “hate speech”, what more do you need to know? The National Cohesion and Integration Commission is quoted as having told the BBC “If hate speech is reported, we will be able to respond within 12 hours,” – but apparently the BBC did not see fit to ask him what that response would be. The BBC does not ask who defines “hate speech” or bring up the potential for abuse of this system by political leaders wishing to crush rivals or members of the public with a grudge against their neighbours.
Contrast this with how the BBC covers schemes in Britain in which the public are encouraged to report potential terrorism. In this story, University heads tackle extremism, the entire focus is on the clash between security and academic freedom. In this one, Anti-terror police seek help from internet cafes, a spokesman is quoted as fearing that an initiative “potentially criminalises people for accessing material that is legal but which expresses religious and political opinions that police officers find unacceptable.” That fear, it seems, is worth covering in Britain, but not in Kenya.
I have also posted about this over at Samizdata.
Spot on observation.
To the BBC “hate speech” is “hate speech” – no need to look any further.
“Meanwhile the ‘YES’ campaign is busy wielding ‘hate speech’ laws against those who dare speak out against the dangers they believe are posed by the draft constitution. The National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) is investigating complaints made against the Higher Education Minister William Ruto, who is spearheading the ‘NO’ campaign, and five other Members of Parliament. The NCIC wants them prosecuted for ‘hate speech’ since they opined that elements of the draft constitution could trigger bloodshed and evictions (as power is devolved from the centre to 47 self-governing ethnic counties) and ‘religious warfare’ (due to advancing Islamisation).”
http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/2010/s10060092.htm
You lot want to see hate speech from the bBC;
India Facebook users urged to ‘appear whiter’
Facebook users in India are being urged to make themselves appear whiter online, as part of a marketing campaign by a skincare company…………….
“Earlier it was only the ladies who were interested, but now many young boys and men also want to have a fairer complexion Maybe it is because of the impact of the Indian film industry because traditionally the heroes and heroines have been shown as white-skinned people.”
“Or maybe it is a legacy we inherited from the Britishers when they left India?”.
The strange thing about this story which the bBC isn’t bothering to look into is that skin whitening kits are endemic throughout Africa, including countries which never had the UK as their colonial masters or that in western countries white people see getting darker as a thing of beauty.
Pounce,
Good point. In Gambia it is a sackable offence for all government employees.
But according to Mark Dimwhit of the bBC. It’s a british legacy. Yup Mark take it from me, somebody with Indian blood inside him that Asians have seen lighter skin as a sign of beauty, well before your bBC ancestors bent over in the Khyber pass and uttered ‘Allah Ackba’ as the bBC mullah unloaded his Friday semen.
It’s wet behind the ears liberals like you that cause racial problems in the West.
You know like Abu Bowen, John Simpson and the rest. To you tossers whitey can only be wrong. Thing is Allah’s little helpers read your bloody reports and think well if the bBC says it’s true, it must be true and all white people are racist.