The Chairman of the National Peace Council, Reverend Dr Ernest Adu-Gyamfi, has cautioned media owners against allowing their platforms to be used as channels for the promotion of hate speech.
According to him, Ghana, as the gateway to Africa must continue to embrace multi-ethnic co-existence, diversity of thought, eschew negative communication and rather build on positivity of our diversity for better growth and development in all sectors of the country.
“Let us contribute together to develop a robust media framework that is able to prevent hate, indecent and abusive expressions,” he stressed.
Dr Adu-Gyamfi who was speaking at a public forum on hate speech organised by the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) in Accra yesterday said the use of hate speech and other forms of indecent expressions in the media space if not checked could potentially get worse and lead to the creation of very serious disturbances.
He also bemoaned the decline in professional standards of ethical journalism, further aggravated by the partisan ownership of media houses.
He indicated that the country continued to soar high on the Global Peace Index which was a great feat that must be jealously guarded.
Explaining, he noted that peace attracts development and foreign direct investment, as no one liked to do business in a conflict-prone country hence the need to protect the nation’s peace.
Executive Director of the MFWA, Mr Sulemana Braimah, in his remarks said there was the need for deeper reflections on how to strengthen and consolidate Ghana’s democracy.
“The need for such reflections on democratic consolidation in Ghana have become even more critical given the overwhelming evidence of democratic recession around the world generally, and our region of West Africa in particular.”
“Such introspection has become necessary because as a nation, we are witnessing a number of fractures that do not only undermine democracy but point to systemic fragilities that have great potential to weaken and undermine the strength and resilience of our democracy,” he added.
He mentioned that one of the greatest threats to democracy is hate speech, which is sometimes perpetrated under the guise of robust political rhetoric.
The problem of hate speech he said was also being aided largely by unregulated, highly partisan traditional media sphere and the use of social media platforms.
Ahead of the 2020 general elections, he revealed that his outfit documented as many as 582 incidents of indecent campaign language on radio.
He said out of the number, there were 313 incidences of insulting and offensive remarks, followed by 202 incidents of unsubstantiated allegations and 28 incidents of comments inciting violence.
While these types of expressions may not necessarily pass for a typical hate speech, Mr Braimah said they certainly constituted potent precursors to hate speech.
According to him, Ghana’s democracy had endured challenges of corruption, weak public institutions and bad governance “but it may not have the capacity to endure yet another threat as serious as politics of hate speech.”
He said “the early signs are clear and we cannot afford to wait for a full blown hate speech pandemic before we act,” he stressed.
President of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), Mr Albert Dwumfour, urged media professionals and proprietors, to be wary of engaging people, “especially those whose specialty is inciting citizens through hate speech.”
BY RAISSA SAMBOU
