Agenda Item 9: Racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related forms of intolerance, follow-up to and implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action 

Statement by: International-Lawyers.Org and Geneva International Centre for Justice (GICJ)

9 July 2019

Madame Vice-President,

We express deep concern over the pervasiveness of racist hate speech in today’s society, especially on social media.  

This phenomenon is extremely prevalent in Europe and the Americas. For instance, in the Netherlands, racism and xenophobia find their way into politicians’ public addresses, particularly targeting immigrants, refugees, and Muslims. In the United States, xenophobia is an unfortunate part of the rhetoric surrounding issues such as immigration, border control, and gun violence. Here too, politicians condone and employ the practice in their verbal comments as well as social media posts.

Israel is another example where, everyday, a huge number of inciting posts targeting Palestinians are published on social media, especially Facebook, by political leaders and state officials. Their content includes racist slurs, insults, and calls for violent actions. These are frequently addressed to Arab political representatives in the Knesset or to Palestinian personalities, such as the activist Ahed Tamimi. Madame Vice-President,

International-Lawyers.org and the Geneva International Centre for Justice believe the exercise of one’s freedom of expression should never come at the cost of the respect and equality of another. We advocate for this Council to take strong action to prevent impunity for perpetrators of hate speech, racism, xenophobia, and intolerance, and call for the effective implementation of the DDPA.

Thank you.

Justice, Human rights, Geneva, geneva4justice, GICJ, Geneva International Centre For Justice