Prosecution figures consist of one case of violence where the indictment was filed. The sentencing figure refers to the decision in the same case.
In February 2024, Slovenia's Constitutional Court passed a decision to prohibit certain expressions, including Nazi salutes and the display of Nazi symbols (Article 297, Paragraph 2, Decision No. U-I-352/20 of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia, 24 February 2024).
At the end of 2024, in response to recommendations from international organizations, the Supreme State Prosecutor's Office's Working Group on Hate Crimes adopted a decision to submit an initiative to the State Prosecutor General to issue a new order on the labelling of hate crimes with the 'SOV' ('hate') label.
On the basis of the hate crime definition drawn up by the Working Group, the 'SOV' label is currently applied both to cases in which the state prosecutor perceives that a hate crime may have been committed and to cases in which a criminal charge has been brought for the offence of public incitement to hatred, violence, or intolerance under Article 297 of the Criminal Code.
On 12 December 2024, the State Prosecutor General adopted a new Enforcement Policy, prioritizing the prosecution of crimes involving hostility, violence, or intolerance, with emphasis on timely action, monitoring, analysis, and prosecutor training.
In 2024, two Slovenian trainee prosecutors took part in an EJTN webinar on 'Online hate speech: links with violence and criminal aspects to contribute to hate crime'. The Annual Prosecutorial Conference 2024 included a lecture on the 'Contextual understanding of hate speech and its prosecution'.
The 'Unspecified' bias motivation category includes the following bias motives, as applicable to the 'SOV' (hatred) flag in the internal recording system: 'Racial and ethnic intolerance', 'Hatred', and 'Religious intolerance'.
The United Nations Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) published relevant recommendations in its "Report of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review: Slovenia".
ODIHR recognizes Slovenia's efforts to introduce policies to ensure that hate crimes are given prosecutorial priority. However, based on the available information, ODIHR observes that Slovenia's hate crime recording and statistics do not sufficiently distinguish hate crimes from other crimes and do not record the bias motivations of hate crimes. In addition, ODIHR observes that Slovenia would benefit from building the capacity of criminal justice officials to address hate crime.
ODIHR recalls that in Ministerial Council Decision 9/09, OSCE participating States agreed to a definition of hate crime shared by all OSCE participating States and to collect reliable data and statistics on hate crimes. To that end, hate crimes need to be distinguished throughout the recording and data collection process from other types of crimes. Further, law enforcement must, as a first step, record the bias motivation of hate crimes. 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 Slovenia in meeting its relevant commitments through the provision of comprehensive resources and tailored assistance in the area of hate crime recording and data collection, as well as through its resources and tailored capacity-building assistance for police, prosecution, and judiciary.
For 2024, ODIHR received reports of hate incidents in Slovenia from the following civil society organizations:
- Advocacy for LGBTI Rights ‘Legebitra’
- International Institute for Religious Freedom (IIRF)
- The Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe (OIDAC)
To learn more about these organizations, visit the Contributors page.
All incidents submitted by the above organizations have been analysed by ODIHR. Those that were broadly considered to be hate crimes within the OSCE definition (criminal offence committed with a bias motive) are listed in the tables below according to the bias motivation category. Some incidents have multiple biases and may be listed in multiple categories.
ODIHR’s insightsFor 2024, ODIHR received reports of seven hate incidents that took place in Slovenia in the following bias motivation categories: anti-Christian, anti-LGBTI, and both gender-based and anti-LGBTI. ODIHR observes that most of the reported incidents targeted the LGBTI community, including repeated removal and vandalism of rainbow flags at public and private locations, as well as physical assaults accompanied by threats. It should be noted that ODIHR did not receive any reporting on Slovenia related to anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, other religion or belief, or disability hate incidents. This indicates potential gaps in the information reported here. |
Please note that incidents reported here are based on voluntary civil society submissions and as such might not reflect the actual number of incidents or the most targeted communities in Slovenia.
To address under-reporting, ODIHR encourages any civil society organizations or groups that monitor hate incidents in Slovenia to report these to ODIHR at hatecrimereport@odihr.pl.
To export an Excel sheet with summaries of all incidents from Slovenia click here and search by year and country.