The number of prosecuted cases refers to all hate crime cases for which article 82A of the Penal Code or Law 927/1979 were implemented by the Public Prosecutor. The same applies to the number of sentenced cases. Furthermore, the numbers of prosecuted and sentenced cases also include hate crimes committed in years other than 2023 due to the timeframe of police investigations.
Data provided by the Courts and Public Prosecutors' Offices for 2023 indicate that:
A. 115 new cases were opened by the Public Prosecutors' Offices;
B. 26 cases were prosecuted and submitted to Courts;
C. 68 cases were pending (for example, due to preliminary investigation);
D. 23 cases were closed by the prosecutor; and
E. Six acquittals decisions were issued by the Courts.
Incidents presented in this section may involve more than one crime. Hate speech offences are excluded from the breakdown below.
The "Unspecified" category includes five incidents of exercising illegal violence, three incidents of torture, and two incidents of kidnapping. A further 28 cases of hate speech and three cases of discrimination were reported but are not presented here.
Two cases of hate speech were reported but are not included here.
This number consists of 24 homophobic and 12 transphobic crimes. A further 27 cases of hate speech and two cases of discrimination were reported but are not presented here.
The "Unspecified" category includes one incident of exercising illegal violence and one incident of trafficking of persons. A further three cases of hate speech were reported but are not presented here.
The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) published relevant recommendations in its "Concluding observations on the combined 23rd and 24th periodic reports of Greece: Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination".
ODIHR recognizes Greece's efforts to report hate crime statistics to ODIHR. However, based on the available information, it observes that Greece has not made hate crime data public. In addition, ODIHR observes that Greece would benefit from raising awareness among and building the capacity of prosecutors and judges to address hate crime.
ODIHR recalls that in Ministerial Council Decision 9/09, OSCE participating States committed to making reliable and detailed data and statistics on hate crimes public. Participating States also committed to introducing or further developing professional training and capacity-building activities for law enforcement, prosecution and judicial officials dealing with hate crimes. ODIHR stands ready to support Greece in meeting its relevant commitments through the provision of comprehensive resources and tailored assistance, as well as further resources and capacity-building assistance for the prosecution and judiciary.
🛈 Please note that the total number of incidents may be lower than the sum of incidents presented in the breakdown chart above, as some incidents involve multiple bias motivations.
🛈 ODIHR no longer presents descriptions of property attacks in the incident tables below. Data on property attacks are presented in the breakdown charts above. One property attack may target multiple properties or involve multiple types of attack.