Key partners, beneficiaries, institutions and civil society organisations attended the public presentation of the “Data analysis on hate speech and hate crime” which was prepared within the action “Promotion of diversity and equality in North Macedonia”, under the joint European Union/Council of Europe programme “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey 2019 – 2022”.

The event was opened by Lejla Dervisagic, Head of Operations of the Council of Europe Programme Office in Skopje.

“The Council of Europe and EU are supporting all Beneficiaries in the Western Balkans to tackle hate speech in many various ways: through campaigns for raising awareness such as the Block the Hatred. Share the Love campaign, through building capacities of institutions and beneficiaries and co-operation with the civil society organisations and through analysis and sharing the knowledge and standards of the Council of Europe”, said Dervisagic.

Angela Longo from the Anti-Discrimination Department of the Council of Europe presented the key achievements and results of the work of the action on Promotion of diversity and equality both on local and on regional level, including the HELP course on anti-discrimination, meeting between equality bodies from North Macedonia, Albania and Montenegro, the preparation of the Anti-Discrimination manual and the Block the Hatred. Share the Love campaign.

Joanna Perry and Bojana Netkova, the two experts who prepared the Analysis, presented the key highlights and conclusions of the document, as well as the key recommendations that came out of the analysis. The recommendations are thorough and tackle different aspects of combating hate speech including amendments to the legislative, more capacity building on institutions (especially law enforcement, public prosecution and judiciary), and strengthening the co-operation with the civil society.

The second panel was focused on the role of the institutions in combating hate speech, where the participants got the opportunity to hear from Gavril Bubevski, the Chief of the Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office in Skopje and Boris Palceski from the Bureau of Public Security of the Ministry of Interior Affairs, who respectively gave a brief overview of the efforts that the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Ministry of Interior Affairs have made throughout the years regarding collecting data and tackling hate speech and hate crime, as well as the various challenges.

The participants also got to hear the perspective of some of the civil society organisations working on hate speech and hate crime. Slavica Anastasovska from the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights and David Tasevski from Subversive Front also presented their experience with monitoring of hate speech and hate crime cases and their efforts to submit reports and the challenges in prosecuting these cases.

These presentations were followed by a very dynamic and constructive discussion, where representatives from various institutions and organisations discussed about the different approaches that could be taken in combating hate speech and hate crime and it was agreed that co-operation is crucial when tackling such an important and widespread area.

The action ‘Promotion of diversity and equality in North Macedonia’ is a part of the “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey 2019-2022”, a co-operation initiative of the European Union and the Council of Europe, implemented by the Council of Europe, which aims at assisting beneficiaries in the Western Balkans region and Turkey to comply with the Council of Europe standards and European Union acquis in the framework of the enlargement process, where relevant.