An updated version of the Council of Europe HELP courses on Hate crime and Hate Speech are now available on the HELP online platform.

Hate crime and Hate Speech are growing problems across Europe. They are manifestations of intolerance toward certain groups in society. Although these two phenomena are very much interconnected, they require their own specific responses.

The Council of Europe (CoE) HELP online courses on Hate crime and Hate Speech aim to enhance the necessary knowledge and skills of legal (and other) professionals in understanding the impact of hate crime and hate speech on victims, communities and society and identifying effective responses.

Both online courses were developed by  the CoE Programme for Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals (HELP; www.coe.int/help) with the contribution of the CoE Media and Internet Governance Division and the No Hate Speech and Co-operation Unit.

Furthermore, the course on Hate crime was developed jointly by the CoE HELP Programme and the OSCE Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODHIR) with the contribution of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA).

The courses were updated under the Project “Fighting Discrimination, Hate Crime and Hate Speech in Georgia”.

Courses structure

The courses are composed of substantive modules as follows:

HELP/OSCE course on Hate Crime

• Introduction to hate crime and hate speech
• The concept of hate crime
• International legal framework
• Investigating, prosecuting and sentencing hate crime

HELP course on Hate Speech

• Concepts of hate speech and freedom of expression
• Effective responses to hate speech
• Legal standards on hate speech

The overall length of each of the courses module is approximatively one hour. The updated courses are now available in English and they will soon be available in other languages at http://help.elearning.ext.coe.int/