The language of hate in social media, inciting violence in Kosovo

When a woman was sexually violated at the end of July in the town of Gjakova, a commentator wrote in the social media: “Haj that she was not violated at all, but she wanted to herself”.

Well, he's done a hell of a lot of shit since he was made, he wrote a commentator when he became a video player for a young man kicking a Roma woman in Ferizaj. Before it was attacked, some local media reported that it was kidnapping children in several Kosovo cities, but police investigations showed it was false news that it had done nothing illegal since it returned to Kosovo from a European Union country.

The hate language is located all over the Web, ranging from the conflicts between different groups to the labeling of a certain group of people with words of contempt. This negative phenomenon in society, according to psychologists and experts, continues to be present.

Comments that promote religious, racial and gender hatred are present in Kosovo society, announces Radio Free Europe Luljeta Aliu, director of the non-governmental organisation “Law and Equality-Inject initiative. ”

Everybody can give their opinion. Among them may be people who are just midogen, who hate women who have an extremely discriminated opinion against women but not only. They find all sorts of people there, even then when one of them reacts, others are encouraged to express what they think. In general, we have not achieved enough respect for women in our society but also for other groups of society, even minorities or other ethnic groups with other ethnicities or culture or religion. We are people who are too discriminated against anything that is different”, Aliu says.

Women's Prejudice in Kosovo

Aliu also says that prejudice against women are different, so starting with clothing. All of this, according to Aliu, is because Kosovo's “mentality is quite patriarchal” which leads to different labels against women.

The woman is not accepted as a person with the same rights and prejudged on the basis of clothing, on the basis of appearance because she is supposed to be the way a man thinks she should be.

The average “Mentality in Kosovo is quite patriarchal, it's also a mizogen (a woman's hate) and so this mentality shapes the image a woman needs to respond to. It should be what they think it should be. So every time you go out of those standards, you're not normal, you're just called like in some slow cases, with all sorts of labels,” was expressed Ali.

This week we're leaving behind, police reported that a man killed his wife with 15 bullets. Social media were flooded with comments blaming the late woman. “Maybe she betrayed her husband, played tail” and another wrote: “No one would give 15 bullets unless you burst his heart hard”

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Mira Gashi Azazi, a psychologist, told Radio Free Europe, that hate speech is present on social networks in Kosovo, and the key factor affecting those who comment on social networks, using hate language is distrust of themselves and not psychological treatment.

I can say that it's already very expressive on social networks, knowing that they don't sanction and they don't be punished by law each one expresses hatred more freely by targeting women, or certain social groups. Hate language can also incite violence”, says the psychologist.

According to her, the number one factor according to all the tests that have been done is often confused by free expression and hate speech.

Civil society has criticised authorities that the threatening language in social media is not treated the same when it is directed at politicians and citizens.

In January of this year, one person made a threatening comment against Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj, saying: “will come to an end o Albanian tag Bi @dhjjetlah”. So the suspects, the prosecution initiated a procedure on the “preparation of terrorist acts” and was sent to 30 days' maintenance.

Mentor Hoxhaj, social networking expert in the non-governmental Community for Cyber Security and Private Security organisation, said social networking policies are strict.

“Social Networks have no control over comments, they are part of either the site administrator or even the account of anyone using it directly is the duty of anyone who posts and then allows words that should not be used in everyday language or hate language or any other type is in the responsibility of the person who has made the post whether it is on a dollar or in his account,” Hoxhaj said.

He also mentioned that in promoting hate language, false profiles are available everywhere.