In May 2019 Tadias Magazine argued that diaspora talking heads who lecture about hate speech while insulting opponents are part of the problem, and it pointed readers to a Human Rights Watch briefing on Ethiopia’s then-planned hate-speech law.
HRW said dangerous speech online and offline had helped fuel ethnic conflict that displaced more than a million people in early 2018, and that any criminal ban had to be narrowly drawn because Ethiopian governments had long abused vague speech and anti-terror rules to silence dissent.
The briefing called for public education, digital literacy, community self-regulation, clearer leadership against dangerous rhetoric, and stronger independent media spaces, instead of relying on one new criminal statute.
As media and governance archive, the file remains useful whenever Abiy Ahmed’s regime or later governments sell speech bans as the main answer to ethnic violence.
Sources: Tadias Magazine, Human Rights Watch