By Adia Jildo
Budding hate speech and hostile propaganda on social media allegedly by political elites is bound to fuel violence despite calmness in the security situation in Magwi County.
The Executive Director Community of Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO) Edmund Yakani warned authorities that are inciting hate speech among communities using social media plat forms.
“There is sharp increase in hate speech on social media, the political elites should not take advantage of the tension among communities to promote hate speech and hostile propaganda,” Yakani said.
Yakani further said there has been loss of lives and displacement where cattle herders had left and moving towards the areas between Lokiliri and Aruu junction.
“I ask the communities of the herders to really disengage from committing atrocities because they are moving towards Central Equatoria, on their way lives are lost either due to the misunderstanding by the herders and the farmers,” he said.
“Elites are engaged on social media, post photos of incidences that send wrong information to the community,” he added.
“There are various platforms, Facebook, Whatsapp groups. People are posting wrong pictures to mitigate more anger on people. People are writing various messages blaming,” he cited.
Yakani stated that despite the struggle by state government to calm the situation, the national government has still remained mute.
“It is time for the different levels to put attention and to make sure that they provide an opportunity of laying down a very concrete and more effective intervention to calm down the situation for immediate intervention to be taken by the government to prevent atrocities swiftly”.
“The Ministry of Interior and the Office of the President should intervene to ensure that some of these wrong doings are corrected and those involved in it are either prevented from committing it further or they are held accountable” Edmund Yakani said.
He called on the media outlets and ‘Defyhate’ to engage people to prevent hate speech. “It is time to start naming and shaming those who are promoting hate speech and hostile propaganda,” he stated.