As part of the capacity building activities on combating hate speech under the joint European Union and Council of Europe Horizontal Facility II and Partnership for Good Governance II Programmes, representatives in the network of equality bodies joined Council of Europe staff and experts, as well as civil society activists, to discuss good samples and challenges in addressing cases of hate speech, and ensure protection of victims.

Equality bodies’ key role in this area was acknowledged, in form of preventive initiatives (for example, public statements) and addressing individual cases of hate speech targeting victims from vulnerable groups. Experts and activists in the field had the opportunity to discuss the good practices and difficulties of each institution in the efforts to fight hate speech and hate crimes. Monitoring of hate speech cases was highlighted as one of the most relevant, yet underdeveloped areas, in which the Council of Europe’s assistance is deemed as necessary.

The Council of Europe, in its joint efforts with the European Union in the Eastern and South Eastern European regions, has devised a capacity building programme to provide tools and peer to peer exchanges to better develop responses to hate speech, using the European standards and practices as reference, especially the ECRI General policy recommendation nr. 15 on combating hate speech. Training sessions took place online in the first part of 2021, while this session gathered 40 participants from equality bodies from the Western Balkans and the Eastern Partnership region in person in Strasbourg.

The event was also an opportunity to network in between the two regions and exchange common challenges.

The capacity building activity is developed within the joint programmes of the European Union and the Council of Europe, the Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey 2019-2022 (HFII) and the Partnership for Good Governance (PGG) and in particular the action “Promotion of diversity and equality in the Western Balkans” (HFII) and the project “Strengthening access to justice through non-judicial redress mechanisms for victims of discrimination, hate speech and hate crimes in the Eastern Partnership” (PGGII).