Czech Republic
The Czech Republic regularly reports hate crime data to ODIHR. The Czech Republic's hate crime laws consist of a combination of general and specific penalty-enhancement provisions and substantive offences. The data reported to ODIHR combine hate crime and hate speech. Hate crime data are collected by the Informatics and Analytical Centre of the Criminal Police and the Investigation Service of the Police Presidium, the Analytical and Legislative Department of the Supreme Public Prosecutor's Office and the Informatics Department of the Ministry of Justice. Hate crime data are published annually by the government in a Report on extremism.
How hate crime data is collected
The Czech police register crimes with extremist backgrounds. These crimes are registered by police using two forms – incident forms and a form on known perpetrators. Police officers note on the forms whether the crime had a bias motivation. The recorded data are checked, partially manually and partially automatically, and provided to police analysts. The data are then entered into the Crime Statistics Recording System, which is part of the broader Electronic Criminal Proceedings (ECP) information system, which is operated by the Police Presidium.
The data are shared with the Prosecutor's Office through the ECP system. This evidence allows the disaggregation of crime data according to targeted groups, including Jewish people, Roma, Muslims and Arabs. Changes to the forms and to the system will enable more precise data entry and output. Extremist crime and hate crime statistics are published on the website of the Ministry of the Interior on a regular basis, as part of the quarterly and annual reports on extremism.
Official Data
National developments
The government-run and Norwegian-funded Campaign Against Racism and Hate Violence has produced several methodological guidance documents for police on identifying and responding to hate crimes and dealing with hate crime victims. As part of the campaign, the civil society group IUSTITIA has trained 257 police officers, spokespersons and municipal police officers on hate crimes.
International reports
Racism and xenophobia, Bias against Roma and Sinti, Anti-Semitism
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The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) published relevant recommendations in its "Concluding observations on the combined twelfth and thirteenth periodic reports of Czechia."
Key observation
ODIHR observes that the Czech Republic has not reported on cases of hate crimes separately from cases of hate speech or discrimination.
