38 representatives of prosecutorial offices as well as police forces from Bosnia and Herzegovina, received the training on domestic and European legal standards on protection from hate speech. Through the presentations of the relevant practice of the European Court of Human Rights and a case study discussions, the participants understood the criteria and a wide spectrum of elements under which hate speech is judged, such as the context of the expression, the form as well as the content, the frequency, the intensity and the importance of who is the person who spreads such expression and  which platform does he or she use for it.

In the part of the training on the domestic legal framework, the inconsistency of legal texts treating the area across the country was identified as an important obstacle for the efficient protection. In addition, the significant attention was given to deconstruction of the differences between the hate speech and the hate crimes. The aim was to enhance the investigators of such crimes to explore the hatred towards the protected categories as a motive, to recognise incitement to hatred and treat it accordingly.

On the second day of the training, through the session on Antigypsysm and hate speech, the human rights approach was reinforced by raising awareness of the participants on principles of equality and non-discrimination.

The training was organised, in co-operation with the Centres for judicial and prosecutorial training of the two Entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, within the joint European Union and Council of Europe programme “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Türkiye”, within the action “Protection of freedom of expression and the media in Bosnia and Herzegovina – PROFREX”.