Qualitative improvement in combating hate crimes and hate propaganda. Statement for the OSCE meeting in Warsaw, 28 September 2005.

In September 2005 SOVA participated in the OSCE Human Dimension Commitment Meeting in Warsaw. On September 28, at the session "Tolerance and non-discrimination" ("Prevention of aggressive nationalism, chauvinism and ethnic cleansing"), Galina Kozhevnikova, on behalf of the SOVA Center and the International League for Human Rights, made a statement about the situation with counteracting radical nationalism in Russia and possible steps to improve this activities in Russia and the region.

Dear conference participants!

Before turning to recommendations for the OSCE countries and for the OSCE as a whole, we must express concern that the level of ethnic and religious tolerance in Russia is steadily declining. The number of attacks motivated by hatred is growing, sociologists state the general growth of xenophobia. Hate propaganda is on the rise again, especially anti-Semitic propaganda, which serves as the ideological basis for many other manifestations of hatred. And if violent crimes meet opposition from the law enforcement system, then the propaganda of anti-Semitism and other forms of hatred is carried out with virtually impunity.

Racist crimes and hate speech are a growing threat in the OSCE region as a whole. Shortcomings in countering them on the part of law enforcement agencies cause a natural desire to modify and, often, to tighten legislation in this area. However, the flaw in some national legislations is not excessive leniency, but lack of flexibility. For example, in Russia there is only one sanction against the media for inciting hatred or enmity - the closure of the publication. The absence of more lenient punishment options (for example, fines) does not at all contribute to the effective suppression of such abuses of freedom of speech. Any national legislation should provide the courts with a sufficiently wide range of sanctions for hate speech.

Most importantly, law enforcement agencies and courts do not use the existing legislation effectively enough. In this regard, the OSCE program for special training of law enforcement officers to combat hate crimes, established by the decision of the Sofia Ministerial Council, should be welcomed. We ask the conference to include in the final document a call to all countries to send their law enforcement officers to these training courses.

No one denies the importance of such work as monitoring hate crimes and cases of hate propaganda. The Cordoba Declaration ended with a call to strengthen the interaction of states with NGOs in this area. But it is obvious that so far the monitoring mechanism, including in terms of interaction with NGOs, leaves much to be desired.

We offer a general scheme of interaction between the state and NGOs. It includes the appointment of a government agency responsible for monitoring in this area; mutual obligations of the state and NGOs to exchange information; the preparation by the said institution, in cooperation with the NGOs participating in the monitoring, of an annual report based on the standards proposed by the OSCE. The implementation of such a scheme will make it possible to make monitoring work a common project of the OSCE, governments and NGOs.

The practice of law enforcement on racist crimes and hate propaganda shows that the investigation and the court constantly face significant difficulties in qualifying the act in question. The clarifications of the highest national judicial instances cannot always help here, and these clarifications are not always given. On the other hand, the number of convictions in cases of this kind is small, they de facto create a valuable case base, but these precedents are not used enough.

We, in the spirit of the decisions of the Council of Ministers in Maastricht, are proposing the creation of national databases of convictions and acquittals in cases of racist crimes and in cases of hate propaganda, moreover, together with a detailed description of the incidents themselves (and in cases of propaganda - including incriminated texts). At the next stage, it is possible to combine national databases across the OSCE. Of course, one should add to this base the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights.

The presence of such a common factual basis will contribute to the formation in our societies of a more stable and clear idea of ​​what kind of actions caused by intolerant feelings are criminal, which deserve administrative sanctions, and which ones are more likely to be morally condemned.

With all the differences in approaches that exist in different countries, this will contribute to the convergence of legal norms in the field of limiting manifestations of intolerance and preventing hate crimes.