Association for Democratic Initiatives Sarajevo, within the project “Fighting against hate speech and hate crime”, which is sponsored by the international organization for the protection of human rights Civil Rights Defenders, successfully held the third training entitled “Advocacy for punishment of hate crimes, goals and advocacy activities.”
The third training was held on October 1st, 2013 at the Grand Hotel in Sarajevo, starting at 10am. The training was attended by 15 participants representatives of organizations/institutions providing support to persons with disabilities, returnees/displaced persons, as well as activists active in the field of human rights protection, and representatives of the Association for Democratic Initiatives. The trainers were Snježana Ivandić, representative of the Association for Democratic Initiatives and Aleksandar Živanović, representative of the Human Rights Center of the University of Sarajevo. Mrs. Ivandić and Mr. Živanović outlined the concept and goals of advocacy, and highlighted the role of NGOs in advocacy for punishing hate crimes. Based on the presentations presented, the participants concluded during the discussion that the training and knowledge they acquired will contribute to their more effective future action in their local communities, in terms of promoting or exercising existing human rights.
There have been three training sessions on the topics so far:
– “Introduction to the concepts of hate speech and hate crime”,
– “Monitoring and Reporting on Hate Crimes”,
– “Advocacy for punishing hate crimes, goals and activities of advocacy”.
The Association for Democratic Initiatives has met its main objective, which is to increase the capacity of CSOs to monitor and report cases of hate crime, which can contribute to increased public awareness and understanding of the importance of punishing hate crimes properly, a way of facilitating the adoption of the necessary amendments to the Criminal Code in the FBiH and RS, in accordance with the comments coming from civil society organizations.
The agenda of the training can be downloaded here: Program-rada-za-trening-01102013
