In 2013, the Association for Democratic Initiatives Sarajevo, with the support of the international organization for the protection of human rights, Civil Rights Defenders, started the implementation of the project entitled “Fighting against hate speech and hate crime”.
Within this project, the first training was held on the topic: “Definition of hate, what is hate speech, how to distinguish hate crime from discrimination?”. The training was held on May 27, 2013 at the Hotel „Grand“ in Sarajevo. The training was attended by 14 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. The trainer at the training was Saša Bojanić, the OSCE Legal Advisor.
By definition, “hate speech” is an oral or written speech that publicly provokes or causes hatred against a particular group (or individual) because of his/her specific characteristic, for the purpose of creating intolerance, discrimination, and violence and/or inciting pre-existing hatred by developing, strengthening, and deepening it through public hate speech.[1]
“Hate crime” is a crime motivated by intolerance towards a person or persons who are different on some basis: skin color, nationality, religious belief, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, etc.[2]
Civil society organizations in BiH still only partially address the problem of hate crime and hate speech, and the reason for this is the lack of capacity. Additionally, the public knows very little about when the crime was motivated by hate, and how distinguish them from other types of crime. This training allowed participants to become familiar with the concept of hate crimes and hate speech, laws that regulate it, to understand the nature of hate crimes and prejudice, and to recognize their differences and relationships. The training was also recorded by the media (Radio Mostar – Herceg-Bosna, TV Hayat, FENA, Radio Free Europe).
The agenda of the training can be downloaded here: Program-rada-za-trening-27052013-Sarajevo
[1] Source: http://hr.wikipedia.org
[2] Source: http://hr.wikipedia.org
