Talk:Incitement to genocide

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:36, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's call for Israel to be "wiped off the map" has been described as incitement to genocide? Source: Several, including

• Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/NASA Astronaut Group 6

Created by Buidhe (talk). Self-nominated at 14:40, 9 May 2020 (UTC).

• Wow. This is quite an article. 5x expansion verified. New enough, long enough, neutrally written, well referenced, no close paraphrasing seen in online sources. QPQ done. Hook is interesting; offline hook ref AGF and cited inline. Good to go. Yoninah (talk) 22:16, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Synonyms, original research, and BLP implications

With this article it is important to avoid original research and classifying speech as incitement to genocide if reliable sources do not. To that end, I am starting a list of the terms can be considered synonymous because their definition is equivalent to "incitement to genocide", and which cannot. buidhe 17:44, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Synonyms

• "call to genocide", "call for genocide", "fatwa for genocide", etc.
• "advocating genocide", etc.

Gray area

• "call to murder", "call to violence", etc. in the context of ongoing genocide
• referring to a speech or document as "genocidal" or having "genocidal intent"

Probably not

• In pro-Israel media many things are described as "incitement", but it's not clear whether it refers to incitement to genocide, to terrorism, or to violence more generally.
• Hate propaganda, not incitement to genocide

BLP implications

• We cannot describe a living person as having committed incitement to genocide, even if RS describe them as such, unless they have been convicted for that offense specifically (for example, Vojislav Šešelj was convicted of "war propaganda and incitement of hatred towards non-Serb people", but not incitement to genocide). Instead, attribute or (preferably) use a construction as follows, "This statement was described as incitement to genocide" rather than referring to the person directly.

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Incitement to genocide/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Pi (talk · contribs) 00:04, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it well written?

   A. The prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct:

   No issues with prose, spelling and grammar

   B. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:

   No MOS issues

2. Is it verifiable with no original research?

   A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline:

   All sources are presented well

   B. All in-line citations are from reliable sources, including those for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines:

   The article is comprehensively cited to reliable sources. I couldn't check all of the offline sources, however none of the statements dependent on offline sources were particularly controversial, and the citation was specific enough about the source content.

   C. It contains no original research:

   No original research, all scholarly opinions are appropriately attributed to their sources

   D. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism:

   No identifiable copyright issues. Quotes from sources are appropriately cited

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic:

   The topic is covered thoroughly

   B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):

   Article is focused on the topic

4. Is it neutral?

   It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:

   No undue weight to any particular viewpoints.

5. Is it stable?

   It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute:

   The article is stable, no evidence of edit warring.

6. Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   All of the images are either public domain or suitable license.

   B. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

   All images are relevant and appropriate to the topic

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

   Passed after further improvement

Some issues with sources

I've been trying to acquire some of the offline sources from a library but I've had no luck due to Covid-19 and the libraries being closed, so I'm going to do the best I can with what I can get online. If there's anything that I think really needs checking in the source I will make further attempts to get them. There's a couple of issues which I think might be a bit problematic. I'm not saying they're blockers necessarily, I'm just listing my thoughts for now. Feel free to make some comments

• "incitement to genocide is considered an inchoate offense and is theoretically subject to prosecution even if genocide does not occur" and "However, it may occur in the absense of genocide."- I don't have access to May 2010, however I have read Gordon 2017 and the judgement in Nahimana et al. (Media case) (ICTR-99-52), which is referenced by Gordon "The Chamber notes that this causal relationship is not requisite to a finding of incitement. It is the potential of the communication to cause genocide that makes it incitement". There seems to be enough in these sources to broadly support the sentence, but I wonder if slightly revising 'is considered' to clarify by whom might be more verifiable. Pi (Talk to me!) 03:10, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Added additional sources and dropped "considered", since most just say it is an inchoate crime.
• "Nazi propagandist Julius Streicher was the first person to be held responsible for incitement to genocide, at the International Military Tribunal in 1946" - The source (USHMM) says that Streicher was convicted of Crimes Against Humanity, and while his conviction seems factually equivalent to incitement to genocide, I'm not sure that this credits him with being the first person convicted of incitement to genocide Pi (Talk to me!) 03:10, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Good point. I checked Gordon and he thinks that the case was more complicated than straightforward incitement and included other elements, so I've removed. buidhe 22:41, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
• "If genocide was committed, incitement could also be prosecuted as complicity in genocide, prohibited in Article 3(e), without the requirement to be direct or public" - Again, I don't have access to Schabas 2018, and so I can't verify your source, however this does seem to be contradicted by p493 of Benesch. (So the treaty law instructs only that to commit incitement to genocide: 1. one must have specific intent39 to cause genocide, and 2. the incitement must be direct and public. ) Pi (Talk to me!) 03:10, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
  • That's what Schabas says, and I consider him to be more authoritative than Benesch. Also, I don't think that Benesch contradicts it. buidhe 22:41, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
• This quote from Gordon 2017 - "glossary of incitement techniques should be woven into judicial pronouncements" - I have the paper online but I can't see this quote (or indeed a page 399, although maybe that's because you're referring to the page in a journal, not the page of the paper itself) Pi (Talk to me!) 03:10, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
  • I am using the Oxford University Press book, and I double checked that it appears on the page. I think the online paper is just a summary of the book. buidhe 22:41, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
• @Pi: Thanks so much for your review, I have access to pdfs of most or all of the sources and can send them to you if you like. I will reply to the issues above. buidhe 04:49, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Sorry I've been distracted and it's taken me so long to get back to your very helpful review. buidhe 22:41, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

@Buidhe, No worries, can you ping me when you've finished going over it and then I'll take another look Pi (Talk to me!) 01:28, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Other Issues

• I think that this text in brackets "(Private incitement to genocide may not be punishable under the Genocide Convention.)" needs to be improved to clarify why this is the case. The source (USHMM) states that private incitement may constitute Complicity in Genocide, and I think it's important to further explain this rather than just include this statement in brackets Pi (Talk to me!) 19:51, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Removed as unimportant.
• but the Canadian Supreme Court found him guilty of incitement to genocide - This implies that he was convicted of Incitement to Genocide in Canada, which wasn't the case. The source (Benesch 2008) says But in 2005, the Supreme Court of Canada found that Mugesera had indeed committed incitement to genocide, and the footnote of that paper cites Mugesera v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) which ruled that reasonable grounds exist to believe that Mr. Mugesera committed a crime against humanity, in a non-criminal immigation case Pi (Talk to me!) 23:18, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
  • fixed and cited the judgement directly
• By invoking collective self-defense, genocide is justified, just as self-defense is a defense for individual homicide - Can that be worded better? It sort of reads like a statement of fact.

Alt1: By invoking collective self-defense, a propagandist justifies genocide, just as self-defense is a defense for individual homicide

Alt2: Susan Benesch remarked that by invoking collective self-defense, genocide is justified, just as self-defense is a defense for individual homicide, and that while dehumanization "makes genocide seem acceptable", accusation in a mirror makes it seem necessary

Pi (Talk to me!) 23:33, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

• • Done (edited version of ALT1)
• A German at the time could not have missed encountering the message repeatedly. I think this needs further explaining, I know it's a quote from the source, but the article doesn't say where the quote is from. In fact when I first read it I thought it meant that it was a quote from Germany Must Perish!. I think it would probably be better to remove this quote, since the article already says that the book was "repeatedly emphasized in Nazi propaganda". Pi (Talk to me!)
  • Removed
• Amin al-Husseini also incited genocide I'm inclined to think that this should be reduced to 'is said to have incited genocide' or similar. The sources for this are scholarly rather than legal, and given the context of the article, where other people mentioned have been convicted, the difference is more important Pi (Talk to me!) 01:46, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Done
• However, many countries signed these treaties to maintain a façade of respect for human rights while violating their provisions - This seems too much of an opinion. While it's factual and can be supported to say that certain countries haven't acted in accordance with the treaty, the sentence as it stands seems to me to be an academic opinion, rather than something verifiable Pi (Talk to me!) 02:02, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Attributed
• The paragraph in International Treaties that begins The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia came to different conclusions - I don't think this belongs in this section. Neither the ICTY or ICTR defined incitement to genocide by a new treaty, and the different conclusions were established by case law. I think this section should be incorporated into the Definintion or Case Law section.
  • Moved to "Direct" section.
• This means that it is no longer an inchoate offense, as it was held to be in previous case law - I don't think it's merely a case of no longer, it's simply that it won't be an inchoate offense before that court. Previously established precedent will still be binding on other courts. (Talking of upcoming Incitement to Genocide trials before other courts, did you see that Felicien Kabuga was arrested the other week?)Pi (Talk to me!) 02:16, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Reworded, and I did not.
• In 2016, Léon Mugesera was convicted of incitement to genocide and inciting ethnic hatred based on a 1992 speech - This is put in the ICTR case law section, however Mugesera wasn't convicted by the ICTR, he was convicted in domestic Rwandan court. Perhaps move this to the History section? Pi (Talk to me!) 02:16, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
  • National case law is still relevant so I opened a new section for that.
• The picture captioned with Israeli woman in Beersheva injured by a Hamas rocket - I think this image goes beyond the scope of the article and perhaps starts to become WP:UNDUE. While the paragraph about Hamas is reasonable since it is focused on incitement, and reliable scholarly sources describe this as incitement to genocide, illustrating this with the aftermath of a rocket attack implies that what Hamas carry out with rockets is genocide, which isn't claimed in the article or supported by the sources. Pi (Talk to me!) 02:41, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Removed. buidhe 11:35, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Sections and Prose

I know this is quite a general point, but some of the sections in the Definitions and Types section are very small, some only one sentence. Could some of the paragraphs be merged together? Alternatively, since some of these sections, such as 'Asking questions only contain a specific example of something that was held to be incitement to genocide, perhaps they could be moved to the case law sections.

• MOS:PARA states that "Short paragraphs and single sentences generally do not warrant their own subheading; in such circumstances, it may be preferable to use bullet points instead." The problem is that we have uneven lengths and the "Accusation in a mirror" section, for instance, would not fit in a bullet point. I would rather not demote or remove any sections because that would give a misleading impression of what Gordon wrote. The current layout imo is the least bad option. buidhe 11:48, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Further Review

I have looked over the changes that you have made and I am now happy to pass the article as GA Pi (Talk to me!) 02:57, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Further reading...

Was getting too long and I am not sure that all of these meet the MOS criteria, so removed to Talk:Incitement to genocide/Further reading. Please feel free to draw on these sources for expanding the article. buidhe 08:25, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

Comment on sourcing

Some of the citations in this article may not be appropriate for a law article. I am very concerned that this article is developing novel legal arguments that are not discussed by any law books or treatises. I hope this is not the case, but some of the non-legal discussion may be better incorporated into other articles. JudgeJells (talk) 13:08, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

• @JudgeJells: I disagree, somewhat similar to the main article on genocide, the term/concept is discussed both by historical and legal sources and the article should include both historical and legal perspectives. Additionally, although we do have Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (law), an essay for US law sources, there is no policy or guideline which states which sources are reliable for international law. Anyway, perhaps you could give some examples of what you mean. (t · c) buidhe 13:21, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Absolutely, perhaps my first impressions are unfounded. Please allow me some time to read all the cited sources and case law. JudgeJells (talk) 13:47, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Heavy POV

Examples are extremely limited, POV and one-sided, e.g.:

During a 2014 children's broadcast on Al-Aqsa TV, one of the participants says that she wants to "shoot Jews", all of them.[107]

So was this child guilty of calls to genocide? Shall we arrest and try her?

Let us mention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meir_Kahane

where a direct link to massacres and terrorism was repeatedly established by ... the Israeli and US governments:

In 1994, following the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre of Palestinian Muslim worshippers in Hebron by Kach supporter Baruch Goldstein, in which 29 Muslim worshipers were killed, the Israeli government declared both parties to be terrorist organizations.[82][83] The US State Department also added Kach and Kahane Chai to its list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

(and their previous US bombings).

What about Iraqis:

The Simele massacre inspired Raphael Lemkin to create the concept of genocide.[269]

with

the persistent anti-Christian propaganda and rumours insisted that the Christians were planning to blow bridges up and to poison drinking water in major Iraqi cities....

and many other examples from here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history

Does this sound like call for genocide? :

The Germans are not humans. […]  We shall kill. If during a day you have not killed a single German, you have wasted the day. […] If you do not kill the German, he will kill you. […] If it is quiet at your section of the front and you are waiting for the battle, kill a German before the battle. [...] If you have killed a German, kill another one too. 

This illustrious gentleman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilya_Ehrenburg whose words lead to genocidal and planned par excellence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_crimes.

-> Let us add planned and incited cases in Equatorial Guinea, Georgia, Indonesia, Bangladesh...: these are but random examples. Zezen (talk) 02:32, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Please, feel free to add any examples which are described in reliable sources as "incitement to genocide" (not just your opinion that it is), keeping in mind WP:DUE. (t · c) buidhe 02:37, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

No. As a gadfly WikiDragon and on mobile late at night, I alert yous to these heavy POV instead. The faultsnof the article are obvious. Do the legwork on a full PC, please, especially in context of the GA review. Here a 2 secs find: a NPR RS for a case above: https://www.npr.org/2011/03/29/134956180/criminals-see-their- victims-as-less-than-human

... the Russian-Jewish poet and novelist Ilya Ehrenburg was churning out propaganda for distribution to Stalin's Red Army. These pamphlets seethed with dehumanizing rhetoric: they spoke of "the smell of Germany's animal breath," and described Germans as "two-legged animals who have mastered the technique of war" — "ersatz men" who ought to be annihilated. "The Germans are not human beings," Ehrenburg wrote,

-> Find these. Use them to restore POV. Bows Zezen (talk) 02:46, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Actually, Ehrenburg was referring to German soldiers, not civilians, in his famous 1942 pamphlet. (He opposed war crimes against German civilians). The source you cite does not describe the pamphlet or any other statement by Ehrenburg as incitement to genocide. (t · c) buidhe 02:56, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

---

Pinging (Talk to me!) in view of his GA Review imprimatur hereinabove.

"From Incitement to Indictment - Prosecuting Iran's President for Advocating Israel's Destruction and Piecing Together Incitement Law's Emerging Analytical Framework"

I wonder if I take the trouble to track this source down if it will be a reliable source for "This propaganda led directly to the murder of over a million Armenians". I have read several general books about the genocide that was one of the most complicated with so many different factors and they make no mention of this as a major contributing factor. I'm not certain if this has to do with literacy and the media was not as well developed in those years as it was in later genocides. Is the source mainly advocating for the indictment of Iran's President for genocide for not being a supporter of Israel? I'm not a supporter of authoritarian regimes (in general) but this is too ] to be cited on Wikipedia. Gwynhaas (talk) 18:14, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

If I were doing the article again today I would do it very differently. I think that this article should be covered as a legal concept and it goes astray when it tries to touch on things unrelated to the law such as causes of particular genocides. (t · c) buidhe 00:57, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

Buidhe's 10 Nov revert

@Buidhe: I'm dismayed to see this revert. Much of the deleted text is firmly referenced to Atrocity Speech Law: Foundation, Fragmentation, Fruition by Gregory S. Gordon Oxford University Press. Gordon is described as an "American scholar of international law and a former genocide prosecutor." His book, as I understand it, explicity draws the connection between instances of speech and instances of genocide. This is not OR and it's doubtful if it is FRINGE; OUP is not generally considered a purveyor of fringe. --Tagishsimon (talk) 17:22, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

He's an expert on the law; he is not an expert on the history. He did work with the ICTR but what he writes is not in line with current scholarship which does not place such an emphasis on the rtlm. What he writes about the Armenian genocide for example is dodgily sourced (the references he cites would not be acceptable on Wikipedia) and consequently just wrong when I compare it to high quality overviews of the Armenian genocide. (t · c) buidhe 17:34, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

In what sense is your opinion not, in fact, the OR? What makes you the expert in this area? If there is scholarship which is in contention with Gordon's view, surely we should be introducing that, not eradicating the properly sourced information which you happen not to esteem? --Tagishsimon (talk) 18:02, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

It's not my opinion, it's the mainstream opinion of reliable sources focused on the topic that's the issue. (t · c) buidhe 23:32, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

I think we need a large dose of citation needed at this point. Incitement is a legal concept. Here is a legal scholar who works in this field. Here is you, citing no sources, just making sweeping assertions. --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:41, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Exactly, it is a legal concept and is discussed as such in the article as it exists—with regard to actual legal cases and established/proposed definitions in law. It is not an established concept in history or political science, so there is no sections that would mislead the reader into thinking that it is. (t · c) buidhe 01:25, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

You perhaps deliberately miss the point. Here is a legal scholar, who specialises in the study of incitement to genocide, providing analysis on incitement to genocide associated with Armenia, Germany &c. And here's some person on the internet, with no obvious credentials, deciding all this is "OR and FRINGE". How on earth is using Gordon as a source OR? On what basis do you label Gordon FRINGE? --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:58, 22 November 2023 (UTC)