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{
    "id": 505988,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/505988/?format=api",
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    "content": "are held by the Government or positions which are held by other interest groups or even the views held by their own colleagues in the House. That is the essence of democracy. We must allow Members of Parliament to express their views. The issue he has raised touches me because I am one of those who are getting such messages for simply raising some objection to some of the strategies used by the Government. For instance, when Sen. Hassan and I issued a statement last week against the closure of mosques in Mombasa and argued that the Government should have arrested those people and left the mosques open or arrested them in their homes, the Deputy President made remarks over the weekend that the elected leaders making such statements are people siding with terrorists and should be quizzed by the police. We have all heard it. When you hear that kind of thing at that level, then you can imagine what goes on in the social media. Mr. Speaker, Sir, a few months ago when operations in Eastleigh were going on and Members of Parliament from northern Kenya criticized the Government, a senior advisor in State House tweeted, and I still have it; “that Sen. Kerrow is a Senator for terrorists.” I was in Malaysia with other Members of Parliament. The Nation Media House called me to get a comment on that. I just ignored because I thought those people do not know what they are doing. As Sen. Wetangula said, a Member of the National Assembly who had a case in court because of hate speech published a harsh-tag; “kill your own.” He further said that it is time to move all non-Somalis from northern Kenya so that they can kill their own. I agree with the Senator and I am glad that the courts today restrained him from using social media. In other countries, they ban such bloggers and even ban sites so that they do not expose such kind of hate speech to society. It is very common nowadays. Try to post something in the social media and you will see the kind of messages you get. The situation where somebody threatens the lives of people and action is not taken, is not acceptable. It is important that the Senate, through the Office of the Speaker, communicates to the director of public prosecutions that action should be taken over these matters. Those of us who have been threatened should forward it in writing and the Speaker to take up the matter with the relevant authorities so that people are prosecuted to avoid bloodshed in this country."
}