Official country information

Civil society information

No information is available.

IGO information

Racism and xenophobia

• The OSCE Mission in Kosovo (OMiK) continued to work with the Kosovo Police to improve the recording and investigation of hate crimes through a series of eight one-day training events, one in each police region, making use of training materials that are to be integrated into the Kosovo Police training curriculum. OMiK also conducted a series of educational visits to local schools with the Kosovo Police, informing students about the issue and the impact of hate crimes. In co-operation with ODIHR, OMiK organized a workshop for government officials responsible for the recording of hate crimes in Kosovo, aimed at improving current policies.

• The Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, in his annual activity report, stressed the need to adopt legal provisions to address gender-based hate crimes.

• The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), in its "Fundamental Rights Report 2016", called on all EU Member States to ensure that hate crimes are effectively investigated and prosecuted, and that victims are given adequate support. FRA also underlined the need to collect detailed hate crime data, in order to develop effective legal and policy responses.

  FRA, in its report "Ensuring justice for hate crime victims: professional perspectives", recommended that appropriate victim support services be available to all victims of hate crime, to avoid secondary victimization. Outreach activities to encourage reporting, training for police, prosecutors and judges, and the role of civil society were all identified as necessary components. 

• The eighth session of the United Nations Forum on Minority Issues, focusing on minorities and the criminal justice system, produced a number of detailed recommendations that states can follow to counter hate crimes. These included recommendations relating to issues such as data collection, victimization surveys, training for law enforcement actors and reporting, recording and investigating hate crimes.

• The United Nations Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, in a report on the implementation of General Assembly resolution 69/160, called on states to introduce aggravating-circumstance provisions in their criminal legislation and to ensure that all hate crimes are effectively investigated, prosecuted and sanctioned. He also recommended that victims be provided with adequate support and access to effective remedies, the introduction of disaggregated hate crime statistics collected in co-operation with civil society, and that law enforcement personnel and the judiciary receive hate crime training.

• The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), in its report "Combating violence against migrants: criminal justice measures to prevent, investigate, prosecute and punish violence against migrants, migrant workers and their families and to protect victims", identified ten key measures relating to, among other things, ensuring data is collected on violence against migrants, strengthening criminal legislation, effectively investigating and prosecuting hate crimes against migrants, providing victim support, and imposing appropriate sentences for perpetrators.

• The United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice adopted the "Doha Declaration on integrating crime prevention and criminal justice into the wider United Nations agenda to address social and economic challenges and to promote the rule of law at the national and international levels, and public participation", which calls on states to conduct research and gather data on hate crime victimization, to exchange experiences on effective law and policy responses, to bring perpetrators to justice, to support victims and to train criminal justice professionals on hate crime.

Racism and xenophobia, Bias against Roma and Sinti, Anti-Semitism, Bias against Muslims, Bias against Christians and members of other religions, Bias based on sexual orientation and gender identity, Bias against people with disabilities and other groups

• The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) passed a number of resolutions on hate crime issues, including Resolution 2069 on recognizing and preventing neo-racism, which recommends that hate crime legislation include the protected characteristics of race, colour, ethnicity, language, religion, disability, migrant status, sex, sexual orientation and gender identity. PACE also recognized the issue of under-reporting by calling for more systematic reporting of hate crimes.

Bias against Roma and Sinti

• In her "Comprehensive study of the human rights situation of Roma worldwide", the United Nations Special Rapporteur on minority issues called for the effective and prompt investigation of hate crimes against Roma individuals and communities, covering cases of unlawful use of force by law enforcement personnel. The Special Rapporteur also recommended that detailed data on hate crimes against Roma be collected and published.

Anti-Semitism, Bias against Muslims

• The report of the European Commission’s first annual colloquium on fundamental rights, "Tolerance and respect: preventing and combating anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim hatred in Europe", recognized the need, in the context of anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim hate crimes, to ensure the implementation of hate crime laws, the protection of victims, and to improve the collection and recording of data on hate crimes. 

Anti-Semitism

• In its report “Antisemitism: overview of data available in the European Union 2005-2015,” the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) presented the numbers of anti-Semitic hate crimes reported by states, civil society groups and Jewish communities in 2015.

Bias against Christians and members of other religions

• The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) passed a number of resolutions dealing with hate crime issues, including Resolution 2036, on tackling intolerance and discrimination in Europe with a special focus on Christians, which highlights the importance of removing impunity by carrying out effective investigations into all cases of bias-motivated violence.

Bias based on sexual orientation and gender identity

• The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) published an update of their analysis of homophobia, transphobia and discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity. Recommendations included the need to overcome the widespread problem of under-reporting, by engaging with LGBT communities; improving data collection on hate crimes against LGBT people, including victimization surveys; and training police, prosecutors and judges on hate crimes motivated by bias against the victim’s sexual orientation and/or gender identity.

• At the IDAHO 2015 Forum on ending hate crime and violence, the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe called for the bias motivation of hate crimes targeting individuals or groups of people because of their sexual orientation, gender identity or sex characteristics to be explicitly reflected in criminal legislation as aggravating circumstances. He also identified the low level of reporting, lack of victim support services and the specific situation of intersex people as areas of concern that need to be addressed.

• The office of the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe published a report, "Human rights and intersex people", highlighting the human rights challenges that intersex people face. The report recommends that national hate crime legislation cover sex characteristics as a protected characteristic.

• The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) passed a number of resolutions dealing with hate crime issues, including Resolution 2048, on discrimination against transgender people in Europe, which calls for the collection and analysis of data on hate crimes against transgender people, legislation to specifically protect transgender people against hate crimes, and the training of law enforcement officials and the judiciary on the issue.

• The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, in a report on "Discriminatory laws and practices and acts of violence against individuals based on their sexual orientation and gender identity", recommended that hate crimes laws include homophobia and transphobia as aggravating factors; that all hate crimes against LGBT people be promptly and thoroughly investigated, holding perpetrators to account; and that data on hate crimes against LGBT people be collected and published.

Bias against people with disabilities and other groups

• The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights' (FRA) report, "Equal protection for all victims of hate crime: the case of people with disabilities", calls for the introduction of enhanced penalties for disability hate crimes; a statutory duty on national authorities to collect and publish disaggregated hate crime data, supplemented by victimization surveys; the effective investigation and prosecution of hate crimes against people with disabilities; and the provision of accessible victim support services.

Key observation