The Civil Service Agency of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Agency) with the support of the European Union and the Council of Europe, launched in April 2024 the first online course for civil servants on recognising and responding to cases of hate speech.

The course, based on an earlier developed Manual, consists of three modules focused on: recognising hate speech; defining regulation of hate speech in international and domestic legislation; and the role of civil servants when it comes to hate speech.  By passing a final quiz, a certificate is generated for those successfully completing the course. Beside the basic notions, the course consists of many interactive parts, videos, and additional literature. The main advantage of the Agency’s Learning Management System is that all the self-paced courses are open to the public and therefore not only civil servants can register and complete the course but any other individual too.

This initiative is in line with a foreseen set of activities institutions are to implement within the document Mapping responses to hate speech in Bosnia and Herzegovina: A situational analysis and mapping report’, in order to challenge paradigms on impunity for hate speech and bias used for hate speech. This document was adopted by the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina on 27 November 2023, at the proposal of the Ministry of Human Rights and Refugees of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The course likewise follows a previously developed Manual for civil servants in Bosnia and Herzegovina for recognising and dealing with hate speech cases that, among others, includes findings of the conducted research among civil servants from Bosnia and Herzegovina when it comes to their knowledge, experience and perceptions of hate speech. Some of the key findings of this research were that hate speech is partially and insufficiently known/recognised by civil servants and that many of them underlined the need for further training on this topic.

This course was developed with the support of the action "Towards an equal, inclusive and tolerant Bosnia and Herzegovina", which is implemented within the framework of the joint programme of the European Union and the Council of Europe "Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Türkiye".