Georgian stakeholders with a role in combating hate speech took part in a clarificatory workshop on the definition of hate speech. The workshop aimed at initiating discussions among stakeholders about the importance of defining hate speech and incorporating it into the relevant codes of conduct and legislation. The participants also discussed the issue of defining an “interested party” when lodging a complaint for hate speech in media to self-regulatory mechanisms.

The Council of Europe’s Recommendation on combating hate speech CM/Rec (2022)16 was used to guide the discussions on defining hate speech and applying measures that counter hate speech by various stakeholders. Further, when it comes to the legislative dimension, the recent ECRI recommendations on Georgia were presented, taking note that “ECRI recommends once more that the Criminal Code of Georgia be amended in order to prohibit racist insults and the public dissemination or distribution with a racist aim of material containing racist statements”.

As a follow-up of the workshop, a concept paper for ways forward in defining hate speech and interested party will be developed and presented in spring 2024.

This event is part of the European Union and Council of Europe joint programme “Partnership for Good Governance”, co-funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe, and implemented by the Council of Europe in the framework of the project “Combating hate speech in Georgia”.