Tuesday, June 15, 2010

RUTO DENIAL

NAIROBI, Kenya, Jun 15 - Cabinet Minister William Ruto on Tuesday appeared before the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) in Westlands to respond to accusations of irresponsible utterances and permitting hate speech on his Facebook fan page.

Mr Ruto was grilled for about one and a half hours by the Commission over the Facebook updates attributed to him, and which contain inciteful information.

The Eldoret North MP however said he has only one Facebook account and denied knowledge of eight others bearing his name.

“They did not reveal to me any of the information that had been displayed on the internet but I told them that it is now their responsibility to find out the origin of the hate messages,” he told journalists at the NCIC offices in Westlands.

“I told them plainly that I was not involved whatsoever in writing the messages that they were alleging and it would be good if they would find the guilty people,” he added.

The Higher Education Minister now wants those claiming that he is involved in hate speech to substantiate their claims.

“Some of them are calling us names, that we are hypocrites and other false allegations. They too should have been summoned here so that they can explain what they mean by their statements,” he charged.

“But as you can see, things are not like that. Those who have been called here are those who want it to be seen that we are breaking the law,” he observed.

Mr Ruto also reiterated that the proposed Constitution should address deep-seated religious issues before it is accepted by Kenyans.

“If you live in Kenya, you would understand that there is already a disagreement on the basis of religion; that is not something for anybody to explain since it is a reality in our country,” he said.

He added that everyone’s opinions should be respected at all times.

No comments:

Post a Comment