#defyhatenow Roundtable & Strategic Forum
Peace / Diaspora Roundtable & Strategic Forum on Mobilising Civic Action Against Hate Speech and Directed Social Media Incitement to Violence in South Sudan.
Date: Saturday 23rd JULY 2016
Time: 9:00am – 5:00pm
Venue: Sentrim 680 (Sixeighty) Hotel Kenyatta Avenue, Nairobi
Program: 4 sessions; breakaway workshop & focused strategic discussion.
Agenda: The main aim is to engage the South Sudanese community to develop a concrete action plan on countering the online incitement to violence.
#defyhatenow #SouthSudan #Peace4SouthSudan
INTRODUCTION
For the past few weeks leading to the current conflict happening in South Sudan, the South Sudanese online & diaspora community have been engaged in serious hate messaging.
These hate “battles” seem to have started right after the conflict in KajoKeji, Raja and Wau. When violence erupted, South Sudanese online began confronting each other along tribal lines through hate videos, hate comments and so forth. This intensified when fighting started in Juba on 7th to 11th July 2016.
It is important to note that a particular social media posting by the First Vice President’s spokesperson was cited as allegedly being the catalyst for the violence in July 2016.
This one day roundtable is aimed at bringing various actors in the Diaspora together with local peace activists to develop a strategy to combat current online activities, and mitigate the threat of further violence.
PDF PROGRAM DOWNLOAD: #DEFYHATENOW JULY23 NAIROBI PROGRAM
STRATEGIC ACTION PLAN AND DISCUSSION WORKING PAPER
Rules of Participation
- Moderators/presenters are not to engage in political opinions in regard to the current conflict
- Participants should not engage in any political debate or hail insults – please strive to remain neutral
- Time keeper and moderators have the right to stop anyone who diverges from main topic
#defyhatenow: Mobilising Civic Action Against Hate Speech and Directed Social Media Incitement to Violence in South Sudan.
#defyhatenow is an urgent community peacebuilding, training and conflict reconciliation project aiming to strengthen the voices and support the actions of peace & youth oriented civil society organisations in South Sudan.
The initiative aims to to create awareness among citizens and communities both online and those who have never touched a computer, supporting and training the growing number of South Sudanese social media users, students learning IT, civil society and free speech advocates to harness the power of social media as peacebuilding tools.
Our programs include community outreach, training students, journalists, lawyers and NGO as well as peacebuilding cultural activities and education.
We believe in & work together for a peaceful future for South Sudan.
#defyhatenow is an initiative to combat social media hate speech by r0g_agency for open culture and critical transformation, Berlin, and the Community Empowerment for Progress Organisation (CEPO), Juba.
#defyhatenow is funded by the ifa – Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (zivik)
with means of the German Federal Foreign Office (Auswärtiges Amt).
