Abstract
This article introduces the conceptual and analytical framework for this special issue on hate speech and atrocity prevention in Asia. It defines hate speech and incitement, and explains the process and context through which hate speech and incitement operates as a risk factor for atrocities. It also provides an explanation of the international legal framework regulating hate speech and incitement that informs the approach of the articles in this issue.
1 Introduction
The Asia region is home to multi-ethnic societies with rich and diverse civilisations, political culture, and history. While many states have achieved some degree of political stability and economic development, some states in this part of the world are still in the process of nation-building. Indeed, quite a number of them are also facing identity-based armed rebellion as well as ethnic and communal conflicts that remain unresolved because of deep-seated prejudices, lack of social trust, and persistent poverty and economic inequalities. With the growing use and influence of social media, intolerance and discrimination against minority groups have been exacerbated by the use of hate speech and fake news that contribute to incitement and violent attacks against vulnerable populations, including women.
The purpose of this special issue is to enhance our understanding of the relationship between hate speech, incitement to violence and the commission of atrocities, with specific reference to the Asia region. We aim to shed light on the wider social context, actors, and dynamics of lower threshold, and often more routine, cases of targeted violence through which mass atrocities materialise. By better understanding these dynamics during periods of routine politics, as opposed to the emergency politics of high-threshold mass atrocities, we also hope to contribute to knowledge on how to mitigate hate speech and therefore support wider atrocity prevention strategies.
This issue traces and analyses the efforts of state and non-state actors in the region in dealing with the issue of hate speech and intolerance at home. It does this by presenting multiple case studies from across the region in which the authors identify specific factors that foster hate speech and incitement within societies that have at times fuelled serious violations of human rights, including the direct targeting of minority groups based on identity. The issue includes in its analysis institutional, political, legal, and social mechanisms that foster resilience and mitigate the potentially violent consequences of hate speech to demonstrate where actors can invest in preventive measures in this specific area.
This introduction explains the concept of hate speech and its relationship to atrocity violence, contextualising efforts to combat hate speech, incitement, and discrimination within broader atrocity prevention strategies. It then provides an overview of the articles and central conclusions of the overall issue.
2 Hate Speech as an Indicator of Mass Violence
… any kind of communication in speech, writing or behaviour, that attacks or uses pejorative or discriminatory language with reference to a person or a group on the basis of who they are, in other words, based on their religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, colour, descent, gender or other identity factor.1
Research has shown that there is not a direct causal pathway between instances of hate speech and the commission of atrocities. Other mediating factors are needed to determine whether hate speech increases the risk of violence.2 In societies with robust democratic mechanisms that both protect freedom of expression and religion, and have appropriate legal and institutional frameworks in place, hate speech is likely to be identified and countered through appropriate channels of redress. Where such mechanisms for resolving conflict and fostering tolerance are absent, where there is a history of social tension and impunity for historical injustices, hate speech can exacerbate discriminatory attitudes and polarisation in societies that can lead to an escalation in violence.
The presence of hate speech serves as an indicator of increasing social tension and polarisation when employed in an orchestrated and strategic manner, and under certain conditions. In many cases of genocide and mass atrocity, hate speech has been present just before onset, leading researchers to conclude that there is a close correlation between political or religious campaigns of hate speech aimed at minority groups and the likelihood of violence escalation.3 Hate speech voiced through leaders with a sympathetic audience, such as government, religious, or other influential elites, contributes to the dynamics of atrocity crimes by identifying and labelling a homogenous group (ethnic, religious, etc.) as the ‘enemy-other’.4
By defining a minority group as a threat to the preservation and/or purity of the targeting group, elites justify extreme strategies, including violence or extermination, to a given majority or targeting audience. References to Jews as ‘rats’ in Nazi Germany, and Tutsis in Rwanda as ‘cockroaches’ prior to genocide, are well-known examples of political leaders employing language to dehumanise minority groups and justify their extermination. Such narratives generate collective emotions and a logic of violence that is justified to the targeting group, often drawing on political reconstructions of historical narratives. The provocation of discriminatory attitudes through hate speech, therefore, provides fertile ground for incitement to violence, whereby a targeting group calls for, or condones, the routine discrimination and violence against a targeted group,5 and can be mobilised to participate in collective violence, particularly where pre-existing criminal or militia networks exist.6
Furthermore, systematic and orchestrated campaigns of hate speech signal intent to target a group. Hate speech feeds directly into three early warning signs before mass atrocities that need to be monitored and analysed in the context of atrocity prevention. These include 1) Tension and polarisation between groups where the ‘situation is charged with emotion, anxiety, and fear’; 2) Apocalyptic public rhetoric where ‘leaders claim they face a great danger and in doing so justify violence’; and 3) Labelling civilian groups as the enemy, whereby they are described as ‘dangerous, homogenous or worthless’.7
The key findings from the existing research on the relationship between hate speech and atrocities are, first, that hate speech is often used to create narratives and justify the use of violence against a target group based on a perceived homogenous identity and extenuated historical grievances. Monitoring hate speech is, therefore, crucial as part of early warning and atrocity prevention strategies. Second, when linking hate speech to atrocity risk it is important to note that increased hate speech and incitement are common but not universal in patterns of genocide and atrocities. The presence of hate speech and incitement are among other early warning signs that a community or state may be facing heightened risk of genocide and atrocities occuring. Hate speech does not guarantee that atrocities will occur; atrocities may occur in the absence of hate speech, and not all instances of intensified hate speech and incitement lead to atrocities. Finally, the implication of these findings is that early warning analyses need to examine the presence of hate speech and incitement alongside other risk factors that would increase the likelihood of widespread violence if a ‘trigger’ event occurs (e.g. assassinations, elections, coups, changes in conflict dynamic, crackdowns on protestors, riots).8
3 Countering Hate Speech
Approaches to combatting deep-rooted hate speech and discrimination fall into the category of ‘structural’ or ‘downstream’ prevention where actions are taken to mitigate risk of atrocities in societies.9 Long-term efforts to combat hate speech include: ensuring sufficient legal protections for minority populations (such as a constitution, and specific laws to counter discriminatory behaviours); the fostering of tolerant and diverse societies, ensuring appropriate redress and protection mechanisms are in place (such as through the justice system and police); and addressing past legacies of violence through restorative and retributive justice mechanisms.10 Research demonstrates the importance of investing in local capacity and resilience at the domestic level to ensure that communities and states cultivate both institutions and a culture that mitigate the effect of risk factors.11 This includes strengthening democratic mechanisms to mediate the impact of internal ‘shocks’ such as assassinations, coups, divisive elections, or mass protests that may catalyse atrocity events.12
Where hate speech is employed in emergency scenarios to instigate popular participation in violence, prevention strategies fall into the category of ‘direct’ or ‘targeted’ prevention.13 Interventions such as cutting radio frequencies and broadcasts that incite violence have been recognised as tools to disrupt popular mobilisation.14 In light of the strategic use of Facebook posts by military and religious leaders to incite violence against minority Rohingya populations in Myanmar (see Morada, this issue), Facebook has also started to block posts and delete the accounts of military personnel to counter the spread of hate speech through social media.15 The potential for social media to be employed to spread hate speech widely in a rapid time frame is only recently starting to be realised in the field of atrocity prevention, but one that is likely to have significant bearing on the spread and dynamics of intergroup grievances in this hyper-digital age.
The international community does need to ensure that it does not place too much onus on domestic level strategies for prevention, however, and should not assume that societies are ‘prone’ to mass violence due to the presence of certain risk factors.16 Recent scholarship has demonstrated the limitations of local resilience for risk mitigation when international systemic pressures impose and reinforce structural conditions that exacerbate inequalities and grievances within societies.17 Inequalities such as those produced and/or reinforced through intervention, global financial and trade systems, or inadvertent consequences of aid are examples of international practices that compound structural drivers of conflict and other mass violence within states. Exogenous shocks such as a financial crisis or international conflict can trigger internal conflicts.18 The global covid-19 pandemic is an exogenous shock that has placed major stress on societies and has prompted new waves of hate speech and intergroup tensions across the globe.19
In sum, research in the area of early prevention points towards the importance of building complementary strategies at domestic, regional, and international levels to counter the broader contextual conditions in which hate speech may have a direct causal relationship with the outbreak of atrocity violence.
4 International Legal Framework on Hate Speech and Incitement
Most countries in Asia have legal provisions for proscribing hate speech and discrimination through their constitution or criminal and civil laws. However, there is a great diversity of definitions, legal provisions, and degree of implementation across the region.20 For this reason, the standards for the provision and protection of populations from hate speech and discrimination employed in this study are those found in international law.
Whereas domestic and international laws prohibiting hate speech are not always consistent (e.g. in the interpretation of freedom of speech), incitement to hatred and discrimination is prohibited in international law. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights21 is pertinent to all countries, including those in Asia. Articles 18 and 19 guarantee the rights to freedom of religion and expression. The only limitations placed on these are those found in Article 29(2) in the case where the rights of others to exercise their freedoms are impeded, or where ‘just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society’ is threatened.
Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights22 (iccpr) also guarantees the right of individuals to freedom of expression, with a commensurate limitation on this freedom found in Article 20 that states: ‘any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law’. Article iii(c) of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide23 considers ‘direct and public incitement to commit genocide’ a crime in recognition of the instrumental role that hate speech plays in inciting violence against a defined population group.
States Parties condemn all propaganda and all organizations which are based on ideas or theories of superiority of one race or group of persons of one colour or ethnic origin, or which attempt to justify or promote racial hatred and discrimination in any form, and undertake to adopt immediate and positive measures designed to eradicate all incitement to, or acts of such discrimination and, to this end, with due regard to the principles embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the rights expressly set forth in Article 5 of the Convention, inter alia:
- a)Shall declare an offence punishable by 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, and also the provision of any assistance to racist activities, including the financing thereof;
- b)Shall declare illegal and prohibit organizations, and also organized and all other propaganda activities, which promote and incite racial discrimination, and shall recognize participation in such organizations or activities as an offence punishable by law;
- c)Shall not permit public authorities or public institutions, national or local, to promote or incite racial discrimination.
Given the clarity of international legal standards in this area, this issue proceeds with the assumption that the responsibility to prevent the spread of hate speech and to respond to incitement to discrimination and violence represents a core responsibility for not only states, but also civil society groups, and regional and international organisations.
5 Contribution of the Issue
As discussed earlier in this article, hate speech has been identified as a mechanism for justifying and mobilising mass atrocities against minority populations. Hate speech creates exclusionary narratives of national belonging and exclusion, represents targeted population groups (religious, racial, ethnic, political, etc.) as a threat to the survival of the dominant group, and incites acts of violence. Hate speech broadcast through wide-reaching popular media is also used to mobilise participation or support for state-sponsored mass atrocities, as seen in well-known cases of genocide in Nazi Germany, Rwanda, the former-Yugoslavia, and beyond. The literature on hate speech tends to fall into two categories. First, within the broader context of historical analyses of genocide as one of numerous contributing factors to genocide.25 It is due to this literature that we know that hate speech increases risk of atrocities and therefore mitigating hate speech is important within the broader suite of atrocity prevention strategies. Second, the literature dedicated to hate speech provides guidance around conceptual and legal definitions of hate speech, and methodologies for identifying and combating it.26
This special issue extends existing research in a number of new directions. First, it takes account of the role of new social media platforms as the key driver of hate speech today. We look at both risks and opportunities that new social media technologies provide for identifying and combating hate speech and incitement given the ability to spread (dis)information to large audiences in real time. Second, the contemporary Asia orientation of the special issue provides a corrective in the literature that is focused primarily on mass atrocity episodes in Africa, Eastern Europe, or on select cases of genocide/mass killing in Asia during the 1960s and 1970s.27 The Asia region experiences many ongoing conflicts and intercommunal (ethnic, religious, racial) tensions that have at times escalated into atrocity situations.
Second, we employ a lower-threshold lens of atrocities as opposed to genocide to expand case studies given that while atrocities are common occurrences, genocides are extremely rare and limit the scope of case studies for analysis. The study of lower threshold atrocity cases provides a much richer universe of cases to study the dynamics of atrocity risk, escalation, and mitigation.28 By drawing attention to low scale protracted and systematic cases of discrimination, targeting, and communal violence, the issue provides an approach to capture the everyday, routine, and entrenched patterns of discrimination, hate speech, and incitement at the local level. The abundant cases of communal violence and atrocities in which systematic human rights violations are committed inform a wider base of empirically grounded studies on strategies for atrocity prevention. Persistent discriminatory and exclusionary narratives circulated in peacetime establish stereotypes and anxieties that are rapidly exploited during periods of heightened tension or crisis. It is important to investigate this ‘everyday’ context of routine and systemic hate rhetoric to better understand how hate speech can mobilise widespread empathy and support for targeted violence during periods of crisis.
6 Methodology
The articles in this issue trace and analyse the current efforts of state and non-state actors in the region in dealing with the issue of hate speech and intolerance at home. It employs a case-study methodology, with articles on five countries – Myanmar, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, and Pakistan. The objectives of the case studies are to identify state and civil society preventive action and/or responses to hate speech and incitement by certain individuals or groups against vulnerable populations. They examine the strengths and weaknesses of the identified preventive actions in containing the influence of hate speech, and explain the implications of their findings for the broader field of atrocity prevention.
The articles provide relevant historical, political, legal, and social context for each country. They then present case studies, which are specific events, incidents, or cases of hate speech and incitement over the last five to ten years to provide an analysis of the context, instigators/perpetrators, triggering factors, target groups, and dynamics in the case study.
Where relevant, the case studies examine the following strategies for countering hate speech: legal frameworks including constitutions, and civil and penal codes that provide protection for minorities and proscribe hate speech and discrimination;29 political leadership;30 improved institutional and policy environment;31 role of civil society and faith-based actors;32 transitional justice and efforts to deal with legacies of impunity that foster divisions between groups;33 diplomatic and multilateral support at regional and/or international levels, supporting legal, governance, and security sector reform, resourcing government and civil society to combat hate speech.34
The case studies examine the specific responses and/or actions taken by the government to prevent or halt hate speech and incitement, the strengths and weaknesses of these responses/actions, and whether there are existing laws or mechanisms already in place to combat hate speech/incitement. The case studies also examine the role of traditional and social media in the spread of hate speech or incitement and what actions have been taken by relevant actors (including the government) to strengthen efforts in containing hate speech.
Where relevant, the case studies provide an analysis of the role of non-state actors (e.g. religious leaders, civil society groups, human rights defenders, community leaders) in combatting hate speech/incitement and their effectiveness in promoting tolerance and respect for diversity. The case studies also include analysis of the role of regional and international actors/organisations in responding to hate speech/incitement in the country and the extent to which responses/actions have been effective in containing hate speech/incitement as part of averting violence or atrocities.
7 Overview of Special Issue
The first article by Noel Morada provides a case study on hate speech and incitement in Myanmar since the outbreak of the communal violence in Rakhine in 2012. It examines the domestic context, dynamics, and responses to the problem of prejudice against religious and ethnic minorities in Myanmar. It also analyses the implications of the 1 February 2021 coup for ethnic minorities that are at heightened risk of atrocities. The article shows that the main vehicle for the spread of hate speech and incitement, including fake or false information, is social media. The main perpetrators are Buddhist extremists, nationalist politicians, and members of the Tatmadaw (military).
The second article by Lina Alexandra and Alif Satria analyses the dynamics of hate speech in Indonesia, including the various government and civil society responses to hate. It examines the dynamics of hate speech campaigns in the three case studies: incitement against Ahmadiyya, Shi’a, and Basuki Tjahaja Purnama alias Ahok, the Governor of Jakarta in the period 2014–2017. The article also looks at government efforts to issue regulations and establish institutions to deal with hate speech, and explains the role of civil society to complement the government measures in dealing with hate speech.
The third article by Ruji Auethavornpipat examines the interplay between hate speech, covid-19, and refugee movement in Malaysia. It starts with a regional overview of public attitudes towards foreigners and refugees before narrowing down to explain how and why Rohingya refugees have become the target of hate speech and incitement in Malaysia. It shows that the pandemic is at the core of public anxieties, which exacerbated conditions that were conducive to the proliferation of hate speech and incitement to violence against foreigners that were perceived has intruders in the country.
The fourth article by Cecilia Jacob and Mujeeb Kanth examines the issue of hate speech and incitement leading to hate crimes in India. This article provides a historical background to contextualise the current situation of hate speech and violence against religious and ethnic minorities in India, followed by an analysis of the legal and policy framework in place concerning the regulation of hate speech and other forms of discrimination against minorities. In order to illustrate the dynamics and character of hate speech, incitement and violence, the article provides case studies of the 2020 Delhi riots, the targeting of the Tablighi Jamaat during the covid-19 lockdown in 2020, and a discussion of hate speech and violence towards Christian and Northeast ethnic minority groups.
The final article by Khadija Rashid examines the prevalence of hate speech in Pakistan and analyses the state policies, judicial frameworks, and lack of accountability mechanisms that have normalised nationwide incitement of hate speech on the basis of religion and/or ethnicity. The article reflects on the heightened sectarian divisions between the Shi’a and the Sunni Muslims and on the constant persecution of prominent religious minorities, particularly the Ahmadiyya community, Christians, and Hindus. Most of the cases of hate crimes in Pakistan are centred on the notorious blasphemy laws. Despite multiple efforts and appeals by civil society actors to amend these laws, hard line religious parties and organisations have continually obstructed these efforts. To demonstrate the severity and the injustices brought about by the blasphemy laws, this article focuses on two specific cases – conviction of Asia Bibi in 2010 and lynching of Mashal Khan in 2017. These cases gained considerable media attention, stirred public outrage, and provoked an international response that have generated wider debate of policy and legal reforms in Pakistan.
8 Findings and Conclusion
Through a nuanced examination of five case studies, this special issue shows that the specific drivers and dynamics of hate speech are complex and highly contingent. However, broad patterns can be identified that we draw out in this final section. First, in each of the cases we found that legacies of impunity for historical injustices perpetuate cycles of discriminatory attitudes and violence. The contours of hate speech in the case-study countries draw on national narratives of the perceived ‘other’ that are politicised to justify extreme ideological objectives. These historical narratives generate the perception of threat to justify and rationalise hate speech and language that incites violence.
Second, the institutional configuration within the country also determines whether the context is conducive to hate speech, this includes governance and legal frameworks and whether the government has the capacity to mitigate the escalation of hate speech into incitement and acts of violence. Politicians and public figures with influence can significantly fuel or restrain hate speech, the latter is crucial for promoting tolerance and respect for diversity within the given institutional and legal frameworks. At the regional level, there is also a need to strengthen the existing peace, security, and human rights architecture that does exist in Southeast Asia to provide a more coherent regional approach to countering hate speech and related violence among its members.35 A comparable regional architecture does not currently exist in South Asia.
Third, the special issue shows that non-state actors, such as ngo s and faith-based communities, can be crucial actors in mitigating and de-escalating hate speech, although their ability to manoeuvre and influence social outcomes is contingent on the broader political context. International actors have limited scope to change the internal dynamics of intergroup conflicts and discrimination; however, sustained international attention and pressure to discriminatory violence can ameliorate the situation if sufficient levers are available, including providing support for local level actors.
Fourth, across the special issue, we find that social media is one of the main drivers of hate speech as it enables widespread dissemination of false/misleading information, fosters discriminatory attitudes, and provides an avenue for new ‘influencers’ with extreme views to gain a wide audience. Given that domestic and international regulatory frameworks for mitigating hate speech are currently underdeveloped, it is important that states and other stakeholders give priority to building and strengthening regulatory frameworks to prevent the spread of hate speech and incitement on social media platforms and other mediums of public dissemination. Finally, several of the case studies investigate the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on hate speech, identifying instances where increased social tension has exacerbated hate speech. The special issue shows that in the current era of globalised interconnectivity, it is important to anticipate the wider social implications of external shocks such as pandemics when formulating strategies to mitigate the impact of hate speech.
United Nations, ‘The UN Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech’, 2018, p. 2, https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/UN%20Strategy%20and%20Plan%20of%20Action%20on%20Hate%20Speech%2018%20June%20SYNOPSIS.pdf, accessed 27 January 2023.
Scott Straus, ‘What Is the Relationship between Hate Radio and Violence? Rethinking Rwanda’s “Radio Machete”’, Politics & Society, 35(4) 609–637 (2007).
United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect, ‘Plan of Action for Religious Leaders and Actors’, United Nations, 2017.
Jeffrey Stevenson Murer, ‘Constructing the Enemy-Other: Anxiety, Trauma, and Mourning in the Narratives of Political Conflict’, Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society, 14(2) 109–130 (2009).
Stefan Klusemann, ‘Massacres as Process: A Microsociological Theory of Internal Patterns of Mass Atrocities’, European Journal of Criminology, 9(5) 468–480 (2012).
Ward Berenschot, Riot Politics: Hindu–Muslim Violence and the Indian State (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011); Paul Brass, The Production of Hindu-Muslim Violence in Contemporary India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003).
Scott Straus, Fundamentals of Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention (Washington, DC: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2016), p. 76.
Straus, Fundamentals of Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention, 83–87; Scott Straus, ‘Triggers of Mass Atrocities’, Politics and Governance 3(3) 5‒15 (2015).
Serena K. Sharma and Jennifer M. Welsh, ‘Conclusion: An Integrated Framework for Atrocity Crime Prevention’ in Serena K. Sharma and Jennifer M. Welsh (eds.), The Responsibility to Prevent: Overcoming the Challenges of Atrocity Prevention, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 368‒92.
See also United Nations, ‘The UN Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech’.
United National Secretary-General, Responsibility to Protect: State Responsibility and Prevention, General Assembly and Security Council, A/67/929–S/2013/399, 9 July 2013.
Straus, ‘Triggers’.
Sharma and Welsh, ‘Conclusion’.
Gareth Evans, The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and For All (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2008).
Camilla Buzzi, ‘Mass Atrocities in Myanmar and the Responsibility to Protect in a Digital Age’, Global Responsibility to Protect, 13(2–3) 272–296 (2021).
Susanne Karstedt, ‘Contextualizing Mass Atrocity Crimes: Moving Toward a Relational Approach’, Annual Review of Law and Social Science, 9, 383‒404 (2013).
Alexandra Bohm and Garrett Wallace Brown, ‘R2P and Prevention: The International Community and Its Role in the Determinants of Mass Atrocity’, Global Responsibility to Protect, 13(1) 60–95 (2020).
Straus, Fundamentals of Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention, 75.
Human Rights Watch, ‘Covid-19 Fuelling Anti-Asian Racism and Xenophobia Worldwide: National Action Plans Needed to Counter Intolerance’, 12 May 2020, https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/05/12/covid-19-fueling-anti-asian-racism-and-xenophobia-worldwide, accessed 27 January 2023; Imran Awan and Roxana Khan-Williams, ‘Research Briefing Report 2020: Coronavirus, Fear and How Islamophobia Spreads on Social Media’, Cross Government Working Group on Anti-Muslim Hatred, United Kingdom, April 2020, https://antimuslimhatredworkinggrouphome.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/research-briefing-report-7-1.pdf, accessed 27 January 2023; António Guterres, ‘UN chief Global Appeal to Address and Counter covid-19 Related Hate Speech’, United Nations, 8 May 2020, https://www.un.org/sg/en/node/251827, accessed 27 January 2023.
A detailed study is found in Vitit Muntarbhorn, ‘Study on the Prohibition of Incitement to National, Racial or Religious Hatred: Lessons from the Asia Pacific Region’, n.d., https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Expression/ICCPR/Bangkok/StudyBangkok_en.pdf, accessed 27 January 2023.
UN General Assembly, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 10 December 1948, 217 A (iii).
UN General Assembly, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 16 December 1966, United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 999, p. 171.
UN General Assembly, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 9 December 1948, United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 78, p. 277.
UN General Assembly, International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, 21 December 1965, United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 660, p. 195.
William A. Schabas, ‘Hate Speech in Rwanda: The Road to Genocide’, McGill Law Journal, 46(1) 41–171 (2000–), p. 141; Susan Benesch, ‘Inciting Genocide, Pleading Free Speech’, World Policy Journal, 21(2) 62–69 (Summer 2004).
Shannon Fyfe, ‘Tracking Hate Speech Acts as Incitement to Genocide in International Criminal Law’, Leiden Journal of International Law, 30(2) 523–548 (2017).
Episodes of genocide and mass killings that do feature in the genocide/mass atrocity literature include the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia (1975–79), the anti-communist killings in Indonesia (1965), and the mass killings in Bangladesh during the 1971 war of liberation. These are the seminal cases studied in the primary genocide studies survey literature, for example, Adam Jones, Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction (Oxon: Routledge, 2006).
Karstedt, ‘Contextualizing Mass Atrocity Crimes’.
United Nations Human Rights Council, ‘Annual Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the Expert Workshops on the Prohibition of Incitement to National, Racial or Religious Hatred’, a/hrc/22/17/Add.4, 11 January 2013, https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Opinion/SeminarRabat/Rabat_draft_outcome.pdf, accessed 27 January 2023.
Stephen McLoughlin, ‘The Role of Political Leaders in Mitigating the Risk of Mass Atrocities: An Analysis of Khama, Kaunda and Nyerere’, International Affairs, 96(6) 1547–1564 (2020).
McLoughlin, ‘The Role of Political Leaders’.
United Nations, ‘Plan for Action for Religious Leaders and Actors to Prevent Incitement to Violence That Could Lead to Atrocity Crimes’, 2017.
United Nations, ‘Joint study on the contribution of transitional justice to the prevention of gross violations and abuses of human rights and serious violations of international humanitarian law, including genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, and their recurrence – Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Promotion of Truth, Justice, Reparation and Guarantees of Non-recurrence and the Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide’, a/hrc/37/65, 6 June 2018, https://undocs.org/en/A/HRC/37/65.
UN Secretary-General, ‘The Role of Regional and Subregional Arrangements in Implementing the Responsibility to Protect’, A/65/877-S/2011/393, 28 June 2011; UN Secretary-General, ‘Fulfilling Our Collective Responsibility: International Assistance and the Responsibility to Protect’, A/68/947-S/2014/449, 11 July 2014.
Noel M. Morada, ‘asean Regionalism and Capacity Building for Atrocities Prevention: Challenges and Prospects’ in Cecilia Jacob and Martin Mennecke (eds.), Implementing the Responsibility to Protect: A Future Agenda (Oxon: Routledge, 2020), pp. 89–108; Asia Pacific Partnership Atrocity Prevention, Working Group on Prevention of Hate Speech and Incitement in Southeast Asia meeting report, March 2019, https://appap.group.uq.edu.au/files/1065/APPAP%20WG%20Hate%20Speech%20and%20Incitment%20Workshop%20Report%20%202019.pdf, accessed 27 January 2023.
