The Russian military operation in Ukraine has been accompanied, since the outset, by a powerful informational and cultural war on all things Russian, and on all points of view favorable to Russia. There has also been a tendency in some Western nations to censor Russian cultural and artistic output, and an increase in discriminatory incidents against Russian people themselves.
This cannot be overlooked, for such manifestations of a discourse of hate only worsen the current conflict, insofar as one of the most difficult things to achieve in any peace process is an understanding that the Other is a person whose dignity and rights are equal to our own.
Giving in to a narrative of hate that considers the Other as evil, horrible, or unworthy is one of the causes behind hate crimes and, according to the United Nations, it can be a precursor to heinous crimes, such as the genocides in Rwanda, Bosnia, and Cambodia, to mention a few.
It is understood that a hate crime is motivated by a bias or prejudice regarding the victim’s identity within a specific group determined by race, nationality, sexual orientation, gender or religious belief. The person who carries out a hate crime aims to cause harm to another merely because they belong to the rejected group.
Since it was defined in the 1980s, efforts have been made to stop hate crimes and to ensure that they are severely punished. It is understood that such actions violate the notion that every person has an unconditional dignity that cannot be debased, and that everyone should have access to fundamental rights.
Hence, it is easy to understand that all actions that deprive a person of their basic human dignity, such as slavery or discrimination, are considered contrary to law at any time or place, including during periods of war, when they can be applied to entire populations which are set apart from the indissoluble unity that is humanity.
So, can Russians be deprived of their basic human dignity, thus encouraging hate crimes against them? Obviously not. Such actions would be condemned on the basis of their well-known consequences and their explicit prohibition by charters of human rights. This would only increase the challenge for all parties involved to reach a peaceful solution.
However, it is now possible to see how Russia and the Russians are beginning to be the object of discriminatory practices on social media, as we witness a generalized campaign to erase Russia and Russian culture, and a slackening of the measures implemented to protect Russians from threats and insults.
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Some social media users have pointed out that it is not the first time that they have encountered the arbitrary nature of supposedly strict rules of conduct on the web. One previous example is Venezuela, which has suffered significant censorship of its official social media accounts, and where social media was the site of rampant hate speech and hate crime instigation, especially during the time of the guarimbas.
The joint declaration by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression and the Representative on Freedom of the Media of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), recognizes that speech that incites or encourages “racism, discrimination, xenophobia and intolerance” is harmful, and that crimes against humanity are often accompanied or preceded by such forms of expression.
Considering this, Moscow announced “a federal law that establishes fines and criminal sanctions for the spread of false information about the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.” Such measures complement previous regulations on social media usage that have been in effect for over a year. Russian courts have thus sanctioned social media platforms that have not complied with Russian legislation. This has caused an exit of such platforms from Russia.
On Monday, March 14, Russia’s media regulator Roskomnadzor blocked Instagram in response to Facebook’s decision to allow the posting of messages that incite violence against Russia and its military, in the context of the war in Ukraine. Just a week before, TikTok blocked people in Russia from uploading content on its platform.
These actions have been deemed as scandalous by a mainstream media that has reported, without much consternation, on Twitter users being fined or sentenced for insulting the Spanish monarchy or for making unauthorized comments about the president of the United States.
It could be said that this is a more active phase of a larger and older problem: that of the sovereignty of states and their legislation over companies that operate outside national regulations. Such companies allow activities and attitudes that affect individual rights as well as national interests.
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This is all in tune with the informational and cultural war carried out under the banner of US exceptionalism, and the corporate platforms and political institutions that manage its anti-Russian campaign.
It is important to acknowledge how the fundamental rights that every individual or collective possesses, in light of international legislation, have been constantly violated by the West, while it presents itself as the sole defender of a “rules-based order.” Fundamental rights are, for the US and European political and corporate operators, a sort of legal no-fly zone.
Featured image: A “cancelled” ballerina at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. Photo: Sergei Gavrilov/WorldCrunch
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
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Misión Verdad
Misión Verdad is a Venezuelan investigative journalism website with a socialist perspective in defense of the Bolivarian Revolution
