{"id":13136,"date":"2021-09-03T17:57:57","date_gmt":"2021-09-03T17:57:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/?p=13136"},"modified":"2021-09-03T17:57:57","modified_gmt":"2021-09-03T17:57:57","slug":"south-sudan-south-sudanese-bishop-condemns-fueling-hate-speech-via-media-platforms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/2021\/09\/03\/south-sudan-south-sudanese-bishop-condemns-fueling-hate-speech-via-media-platforms\/","title":{"rendered":"SOUTH SUDAN: South Sudanese Bishop Condemns \u201cFueling Hate Speech\u201d via Media Platforms"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sr. Anne Henriette Owino, FSSA<\/em><\/p>\n

A Catholic Bishop in South Sudan has denounced the use of social media as means of fueling hate speech in the country, calling on citizens to advocate for peace and be \u201cextremely cautious in what they say, write or forward others.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, in our nation, social media is full of hate emotional expressions\u2026 We read a lot of hate speeches, South Sudanese insulting one another in the media while the world is looking at us as bunches of enemies inhabiting South Sudan,\u201d Bishop Barani Eduardo Hiiboro Kussala laments the misuse of media platforms in a statement shared with AMECEA online<\/em> Thursday, August 26, stressing that \u201cThis mentality is against our unity and mutual co-existence, hence the need to \u201cstop instantly!\u201d<\/p>\n

The appeal to stop the spread of hate speech \u201cwhich has been yielding so nasty deadly results with extremely huge loss of innocent lives, displacement, destructions of all types, hate, disunity, hunger and suffering of every kind,\u201d comes following the violence taking place in Western Equatoria State which Bishop Hiibro of Tombura-Yambio Diocese says \u201cis breaking up the long admired peace traditions.\u201d<\/p>\n

He referenced the letter of Apostle Paul to the Ephesians advocating the importance of peace saying, \u201cDo not use abusive language. Let everything you say be good and helpful so that your words will be an encouragement or grace to those who hear you.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Bishop Hiiboro, \u201cHate speech poisons the mind, heart and only helps the “merchants of death, ” and that \u201cSouth Sudanese have suffered for years since time memorial.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHatred must give way to dreams, hate speech and writings frighten our national and personal friends, tourist, investors and even our friends who supported us all through these years. We need them in our journey,\u201d he narrated and further ordered \u201call Church owned media channels (FM Radios, forums, pages,) of Tombura-Yambio never to communicate any piece of information which can incite ill-feeling or lead to abuse. All messages must be by and large for peace in all totality!\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the Prelate, there is \u201cInadequate national leadership\u201d which influences in all spheres including, \u201c failure of the justice\u00a0system, unemployment, corruption and lack of internal cohesion in political parties and various institutions as causes of community and national violence in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe inadequate security, poverty, lack of a peaceful culture and lack of integrity by us all are also fertile grounds for community and national violence,\u201d the Bishop disclosed reminding all citizens that they have \u201cthe power to promote and support public policy and the wellbeing of members such as re-echoing to the authorities the voices of the poor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Addressing Religious leaders in his Thursday statement, Bishop Hiiboro asked them to encourage citizens\u2019 \u201cto see their opponents as fellow human beings as it is evident in the teachings of the Holy Bible and also in the Holy Quran.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI call on us as Religious leaders from all divides in the country to continue raising awareness and influence attitudes, behavior and practices in order to curtail community and national violence,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He further urged citizens to encourage and support the government \u201cto a very challenging process of implementing the Revitalized Peace Agreement in the Country,\u201d reminding them of the encouraging dialogue between the \u201cnational unity government and hold out functions by the Vatican and the desire for repatriating refugees.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sr. Anne Henriette Owino, FSSA A Catholic Bishop in South Sudan has denounced the use…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13137,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-amecea-news","category-sudansouth-sudan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13136"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13138,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13136\/revisions\/13138"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}