Rwandan President Paul Kagame calls for stringent measures to curb cybercrimes

President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame has addressed the country's citizens by saying that the rise of online hate speech, disinformation and spread of harmful content among other cybercrimes should not deter progress in Broadband rollout.

Rwanda's Head of State, Paul Kagame was talking at the Annual United Nations Broadband Commission meeting hosted by Facebook at their Headquarters. He was accompanied by other renowned speakers like Kevin Martin, Vice-President for Mobile and Global Access Policy at Facebook and Houlin Zhao, Vice Co-chair and International Telecommunication Union Secretary General at the meet.

The meeting, among other subjects, deliberated on tackling harmful internet content which is a growing concern driven by increased access to the internet at reduced costs. According to Paul Kagame, the concerns should not deter access to broadband or lead to the constraining of basic freedom as it would only serve to slow development and deepen inequalities. He doesn't believe that simply controlling the Internet and limiting access to broadband could just be a solution to cybercrimes.

Instead, he called for the upholding of laws and holding individuals accountable for what they do online. "We do not need special rules for the virtual world, nor is there any valid reason to constrain basic freedoms or limit access to broadband, that would only slow development and further deepen inequalities. We simply need the means to uphold our laws and hold individuals accountable for what they do online just as we do offline," Paul Kagame said, as reported by The New Times.

Paul Kagame also picked up the issue of 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. According to him, this is one of the most vital reasons why Rwanda is highly set to ensure that ideologies of hatred and division have no place in the public domain. "Large-scale violence is always preceded by a process of dehumanisation, through the spread of ideas that justify killing. We had a situation like this in my country 25 years ago," he added.

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