Recommendations of SOVA Center and International League for Human Rights to OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting

These recommendations were distributed on OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting, Warsaw, 19-30 September 2005.

To OSCE Member States:

1. To improve the system of hate crime and hate speech monitoring through better cooperation between Governments and NGOs. For this end:

2. to charge some Government body to collect and arrange all the information on hate crime;

3. to oblige law enforcement bodies to produce detailed answers to NGOs' inquiries on the matter;

4. to oblige this body to consider the information produced by NGOs;

5. to prepare yearly detailed statistical reports based on the OSCE proposed standards adjusting it with the NGOs actually contributing to data collection.

6. States ought to amend their legislation on hate speech so as to provide for a broader scale of penal sanctions against hate speech periodicals, publishers and authors (if the state up to now lacks such legal provisions). One should provide courts with the opportunity to apply lenient sanctions, mild fines are advisable for periodicals and authors, while in case of recidivism or in other aggravating circumstances to apply heavier sanctions up to imprisonment.

7. States have to send regularily the staff of their law-enforcing agencies to training, established in Warsaw, on combating hate crime. States commit themselves to ensure the consequtive use by the staff of the skill acquired.

8. It's necessary to maintain data base of general use on courts judgements on hate crime cases and hate speech cases (accompanied by respective statements and texts examined by the courts).

Supreme Courts or other competent authority could advise courts to refer to such a base as a source of expert reviews and legal precedents.

To OSCE:

1. To maintain common data base of general use on court judgements combined of the data from above mentioned national data bases so as domestic courts could refer to other countries case law, while Governments could obtain some base for better co-ordination on their domestic legislation on hate speech.

2. To prepare in cooperation with international NGOs a more detailed plan for national monitoring of hate crime.