Each of the 114 police-recorded 'discriminatory' cases may feature none to several ‘secondary offences’, such as insults, violence or threats.
As a breakdown by bias motivation is not available, the chart below presents a breakdown of these secondary offences by offence types. Due to the mechanism explained above, their number does not correspond to the overall number of recorded discriminatory cases.
In 2024, Luxembourg's Ministry of Justice co-operated with the civil society organization 'respect.lu' to set up the "Dialogue instead of hate" programme for perpetrators of hate incidents. This 30-hour course focuses on understanding the offence, reflecting on its causes, and exploring more respectful forms of communication. It raises participants' awareness of the law, the importance of freedom of expression and its limits, while addressing the societal harm caused by hate speech and hate crime.
If the offender successfully completes the "Dialogue Instead of Hate" programme, the prosecutor may decide not to refer the case to court. In some cases, the court may order participation in the programme as part of a suspended sentence.
ODIHR recognizes Luxembourg's efforts to report hate crimes to ODIHR. However, based on the available information, it observes that Luxembourg's hate crime recording systems do not record bias motivations of hate crime and do not sufficiently distinguish hate crimes from other crimes, while prosecutors and courts do not record hate crimes. ODIHR further observes that Luxembourg would benefit from raising awareness among and 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 committed to collecting reliable data and statistics on hate crimes. Participating States also committed to promptly investigating hate crimes and ensuring that the motives of those convicted of such crimes are acknowledged. To that end, law enforcement must, as a first step, record the bias motivation of hate crimes. Participating States have further 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 Luxembourg in meeting the relevant commitments through its 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 the police, prosecution, and judiciary.
For 2024, ODIHR did not receive any reports of hate incidents in Luxembourg from civil society organizations. This is not an indication that hate crimes are not taking place, only that they have not been reported to civil society or to ODIHR.
To address under-reporting, ODIHR encourages any civil society organizations or groups that monitor hate incidents to report these to ODIHR at hatecrimereport@odihr.pl.