KAMPALA, Uganda
The German Embassy in Uganda has deleted a Facebook post with a message from Chancellor Angela Merkel to Museveni, congratulating him upon his January 14, election win.
The embassy deleted the post after an overwhelming
number of comments they described as laden with hate speech.
The
post in question was shared last night by the Embassy on their verified
Facebook account.
In
the message, Merkel congratulated Museveni for his resounding victory in the
January 2021 elections which he won by 58.38%.
“I
would like to congratulate you on your reelection as President of the Republic
of Uganda,” read part of Merkel’s message.
She
also said president Museveni’s new term in office was an opportunity to
continue advancing the democratic and economic development of the country and
strengthening the rule of law in the interests of all Ugandans.
Before deletion, the Embassy had warned social media users who had hurled an avalanche of insults and criticism in the comments section of the post, against using hate speech.
Responding
to comments, the German embassy tried to rein in abuse
Some
section of Ugandans on Facebook reacted angrily to the post with many
questioning the integrity of Museveni’s win in the January presidential
elections.
“Hello
followers, we are getting a lot of criticism for this post. That’s ok, we
respect and tolerate freedom of speech to iin Germany. but we don’t tolerate
hate speech. Hate is not an opinion. We expect our users to use common courtesy
in their comments. If you use offensive or threatening language, we will delete
your comment and or block you from our page” German Embassy warned before
deleting the post.
However,
the efforts to stop users from using offensive comments yielded little and the
post was later deleted in the late at night.
This
comes a day before Museveni’s swearing-in scheduled for Wednesday, at Kololo
Ceremonial Grounds.
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