Extremist attitudes that are represented in the public space of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) by the populistic public officials are a serious threat to the democratic society. The media that report on this in a sensationalist way and do not moderate the hateful comments on their web platforms, also contribute to spreading and popularisation of these attitudes and opinions. These are some of the conclusions of the inter-disciplinary seminar on hate speech in public space of BiH, that was held on 5 November in Sarajevo.

Participants of the inter-disciplinary seminar, representatives of the judiciary, the academia and civil society, and journalists, all agree that all segments of the society should systematically work on the prevention and reduction of hate speech in the public space.

Council of Europe expert Ara Ghazaryan presented European standards through the European Court of Human Rights case-law, while local representatives of the online media spoke about the difficulties they face. Editor of the online portal www.depo.ba Angelina Albijanić Duraković pointed out that the practice of this portal to limit the comments on topics that have previously shown to generate hateful comments, is successful in reducing hate speech, while it does not have negative influence on economic situation of this medium.

The event was organised in partnership with the Press Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina, within the joint European Union/Council of Europe programme “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey 2019-2022”, and its action on “Freedom of expression and freedom of the media in Bosnia and Herzegovina (JUFREX)”.