Abbott’s temporary reprieve for hate speech prohibition

08 August 2014

We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families.

That is the title of a book of stories from Rwanda written by New Yorker staff writer Philip Gourevitch.

The quote comes from a letter written by seven Tutsi pastors to their leader, Pastor Ntakirutimana, on 15 April 1994. They asked him to intervene and save their lives, ‘The same way as the Jews were saved by Esther.’

He didn’t.

Gourevitch paints a detailed background to the 1994 Rwandan genocide: the slow build of hate speech; the ubiquitous anti-Tutsi ‘discussions’ by Hutu spokesmen, including the 1990 publication by charismatic Hutu extremist, Hassan Ngezea of the ‘Hutu Ten Commandments’. These were premised on a fabulous and deadly doctrine of Hutu ‘racial’ purity, their 1959 revolution, and the necessity of solidarity against ‘our common Tutsi enemy.’ The most often cited commandment was, ‘Hutus must stop having mercy on the Tutsis’.

This immensely popular and widely spread work was championed by then-President Habyarimany as proof of Rwanda’s freedom of the press.

The radio broadcasts did the rest, in April 1994.

Fresh from the war-crime trials about the effect of anti-Semitic ‘racial purity’ propaganda on humanity after WWII, the UN and most countries have made laws prohibiting stirring up racial discrimination.

Australia’s Racial Discrimination Act 1975 has from the beginning, read:

It is unlawful for a person to do any act involving a distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of any human right or fundamental freedom in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life. (Section 6)

There was no explicit ground of ‘racial harassment’ in the Act. It is just a form of discrimination. There is a sexual harassment remedy in the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 and a harassment provision under Disability Discrimination act 1992.

The RDA Act was later amended to include a new Section 18C prohibiting:

‘Offensive behaviour because of race, colour or national or ethnic origin

(1) It is unlawful for a person to do an act, otherwise than in private, if: (a) the act is reasonably likely, in all the circumstances, to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people; and (b) the act is done because of the race, colour or national or ethnic origin of the other person or of some

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Abbott’s temporary reprieve for hate speech prohibition

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