Incitement to Ethnic Hatred in Ethiopia and Freedom of Expression
Asmelash Yohannes Teklu · 2020
Ethiopia has yet to enact legislation that deals with incitement to ethnic hatred. Different laws do incorporate provisions designed to discourage hate speech. However, these laws are defective in many aspects. Some of the problems include, inter alia, lack of definitions of essential terms such as ‘incitement’ and failure to outline the elements that could amount to ethnic hatred. The government also admitted that the absence of a law criminalising hate speech hinders efforts to implement article 29 of the Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (fdre). Accordingly, this chapter provides a comparative analysis of laws and institutions from the United Kingdom (UK) with laws and practices from the United States (US) that deal with the subject area in question. This has the objective to provide more detailed information on how Ethiopia could pass legislation that would criminalise incitement to ethnic hatred. It also seeks to ascertain the approach Ethiopia takes to the balance between freedom of expression and ethnic hatred.