NAIROBI, Kenya, Apr 11 – Two city lawyers have filed a petition in the high court seeking orders to stop the implementation of a decision made by National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) banning the use of ‘Hatupangwingi’ and ‘Watajua Hawajui’ words during political rallies.
According to Felix Kiprono and Vincent Yegon who are representing the Chama Cha Mawakili, the two words do not amount to hate speech.
They stated that the Samuel Kobia-led Commission had overstepped its mandate and should from Interfering with politics.
“The respondents in purporting to classify and ban the said words without any lawful justification has acted ultravires, taken sides and descended into the arena of politics,” read the petition.
In the petition certified as urgent, the lawyers argued that the implementation of the ban by NCIC amounts to infringement of freedom of expression.
“Unless the court intervenes by restraining the respondent from implementing the decision aforesaid to the extent of including Hatupangwingwi” and “ watajua hawajui”,there is a real likehood that the Rights of Kenyans to freedom of expression and human dignity will be curtailed without a just cause,” the petitioners stated.
According to the petitioner, the NCIC has no power within the National Cohesion and Integration Act of 2008 to come up with a lexicon of hate speech terms.
“The respondent thus exceeded the authority conferred to it by law in making the impugned decision,”read the petition.
Hatupangwingwi is one of the Lexicon words the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) has released that it terms as hate speech.
On April 8th, the Commission’s chairman Samuel Kobia stated that politicians should also avoid the use of words like Madodadoa, Operation Linda Kura and Fumigation.
“It is crystal clear that we chose to create a list of words that we know are problematic in how they are used in the 2022 campaigns,” he stated.
“These are not words we have chosen because we feel like but rather, they are words we have listed because we followed conversations and how those conversations have been framed towards violence.”
The lexicon which the NCIC has dubbed ‘Hatelex’ includes words and terms from English, Kiswahili, Sheng, Kikuyu, Meru, and Kalenjin.
“Words in the English language include fumigation and uncircumcised. Those in Swahili include chunga kura, Madoadoa, watajua hawajui and Mende while in Sheng we have terms such as hatupangwingwi and kama mbaya mbaya,” stated Kobia.
Other words include eliminate, kwekwe, chinja kafir, watu wa kurusha mawe and kill.
Further, he insisted that there was no political motivation while choosing the lexicon.
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