Gabooye Minority Organisation for Europe and North America
Thank you Madame Chair and good morning everyone.
My name is Gabrielle, a researcher of Gabooye Minority Organisation in Europe and North
America.
Freedom of speech, a privilege with responsibility.
With a global transmission increasing access information, communication is yielding in the face
of word line. The beauty is, people of all background can share their journey, through conflict or
consensus. We can learn from each other and view the world through the eyes of someone else’s
reality, someone else’s true. It is [?] when it overpowers one another, when power and hate
collaborate, when individuals are weaponized and demonized against themselves. Speech should
open the door for minority groups, those already under the thumb of domination. These imbalances
in power relations have a deeply rooted history. They restrict, constrict and restrain minority voices
and their stories. In the age of information, you think our world of increasing freedom would finally
tip the scales. Yet hate speech is on the rise. People are kind hearted, but when they’re set false
information on one side of the coin, the worst side of human history can arise, victimizing and
ostracizing the unheard. [?] rhetoric spreads like a wildfire. Influencing [?] of liberty to impede
from others and minorities are frequently at the forefront. Free speech has a power for getting evil,
exacerbated by elected representative, the next generations’ role model. The recent response to the
tragic beheading of French school teacher Samuel Paty, has sadly further [?] hate speech towards
Islamic communities.
Global outreach means global impact, and communities as far as the [?] people in Somalia having
protesting. The symbols of Christian faith are publicly disgraced and defamed, they’re also being
actual. The call to end hate speech is not to set their regulate or control expression, but to redefine
free speech today, in a highly digitalized and interconnected world. We have a duty with our words
and actions, so I invite you to remember compassion and respect, to rebalance the scales that have
been set. Let us empower minorities, let their voices be more than an echo.
Thank you!