Hate Media

Thomas Kamilindi, author of Journalism in a Time of Hate Media, describes hate media as a form of violence, which helps to demonize and stigmatize people that belong to different groups. This type of media has had an influential role in the incitement of genocide, with its most infamous cases perhaps being Radio Televizija Srbije during wars in Yugoslavia, Radio Télévision Libre des Milles Collines (RTLM) during the Rwandan Genocide and Nazi Germany’s Der Stürmer.

While the hate speech promoted by these type of media can be prosecuted differently under the national laws of several countries, because of its proven ability to contribute to and incite genocide the use of hate media in order to foment the cleansing of a particular national, ethnical , racial or religious group in whole or in part can be prosecuted under international law for incitement to genocide. Incitement to Genocide was declared a crime against humanity under the Nuremberg Trials. Nevertheless under the laws of Nuremberg only hate media propaganda which calls for direct extermination is considered a crime against humanity. After the crimes committed in former Yugoslavia and Rwanda this definition was modified and a new definition was provided for the Rwandan tribunals. According to this definition hate media propaganda considered to be a crime against humanity must be involved in the direct and indirect incitement of genocide which "must be defined as directly provoking the perpetrator(s) to commit genocide, whether through speeches shouting or threats uttered in public spaces or at public gatherings or through the sale or dissemination of... written material or printed matter... or through the public display of placards or posters, or through an other means of audiovisual communication".

During the Yugoslav Wars, propaganda was widely used in the medias of all sides, including Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and, to a lesser extent, Croatia. In the ICTY, one of the indictments against late Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević, was his use of the Serbian state-run mass-media to create an atmosphere of fear and hatred among Yugoslavia's Orthodox Serbs by spreading "exaggerated and false messages of ethnically based attacks by Bosnian Muslims and Catholic Croats against the Serb people..."

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Wikipedia