Genocide denial and revisionism are fast becoming a growing threat to peace and security globally and the 145th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) gathering in Kigali cannot ignore the such threats.

Genocide ideology is not only being perpetuated in the country and often times not limited to the period of commemoration of the Genocide against the Tutsi, and certainly not restricted to the boundaries of the country.

Deniers and revisionists of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi roam all over the world. They use all possible means at their disposal including social media and authoring toxic books with impunity. Among these are people convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, a UN court established to try masterminds of the Genocide against the Tutsi.

Even more worrying is the fact that younger people getting involved in these acts, some of whom were either not yet born or were very young when the Genocide took place 28 years ago.

As President Paul Kagame stated in his opening address for the IPU Assembly on Monday, hate speech and misinformation have existed for a long time.

Deniers and revisionists do it openly and sustainably advance their toxic narrative.

They hide under the cover of freedom of speech, weak systems in the countries the live in and exploit the lack legal instruments on genocide ideology.

It is therefore imperative that consciousness is raised among global legislators to understand the danger of genocide ideology and to come up with globally-binding laws that counter such toxic information.

If the Nazis who executed the Holocaust and the Interahamwe who executed the Genocide against the Tutsi all aimed at total wipe out of a section of the population. They then should be dealt with equal force.

If one can’t walk away with denying the Holocaust, then no one should walk away with denying the Genocide against the Tutsi. There should be laws punished both acts.