KINSHASA, Democratic Republic of Congo, January 8, 2024 -/African Media Agency (AMA)/-The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said he was “very concerned” on Sunday by the rise in hate speech in ethnic character and incitement to violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“I am very concerned about the rise in ethnic hate speech and incitement to violence in particular in the provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu as well as in the regions of Kasai and Katanga, after the general elections last month,” said Volker Türk in a statement issued from Geneva.
For the UN human rights chief, “hateful, dehumanizing and inciting rhetoric is abhorrent” It can only “aggravate tensions and violence in the DRC itself, while endangering regional security” .
Mr. Türk noted the efforts made by “certain authorities” to combat this behavior, affirming however that “more forceful measures are necessary”.
“I call on the authorities to conduct thorough and transparent investigations into all cases of hate speech and incitement to violence and to hold those responsible to account,” concluded the senior UN official.
To date, only the provisional result of the presidential election declaring President Felix Tchisekedi the winner with 73% of the votes has been announced by the country’s National Electoral Commission (CENI), since the holding of presidential, legislative and local elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo on December 20. This result must nevertheless be validated by the Constitutional Court. According to the press, the CENI declared on Friday the cancellation of around 82 legislative and local candidates for reasons of electoral fraud. On Saturday, eight presidential candidates and other political leaders of the DRC called for the cancellation of the combined elections, claiming that the fraud would have been spread across the national territory and not limited to legislative and local elections.
Distributed by African Media Agency (AMA) for UN Info.
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Source : African Media Agency (AMA)