CPD Campaign “In Support of Tolerance” 

On 16 November 2009, the Commission for Protection against Discrimination held a meeting of the working group for the implementation of the campaign “In Support of Tolerance”. 

The main objective of the campaign is to sensitise the public, the media, NGOs and responsible institutions to hate speech, crimes and incidents motivated by intolerance. There is a need to understand the importance and the need to fight intolerance incidents and crimes at institutional level. The Commission for Protection against Discrimination is the national contact point for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe on hate crime. The Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe collects information annually from the designated national contact points on the status of hate crimes, statistics, typical and most frequent forms, their investigation by prosecutors and police, and the practice of the courts in dealing with this type of criminal case.  

The working group will collect and analyze information on the practice of the courts, prosecutors and police in this regard, especially in cases indicating evidence of possible crimes under Article 162 - Article 166 of the Criminal Code, Article 172, Article 416 - Article 418 of the Criminal Code. At the meeting, the tasks, the persons responsible for them and the deadlines for implementation were defined. The Commission for Protection against Discrimination will collect reports and materials on the use of hate speech, hate incidents or incitement to hatred on various grounds - propaganda through speech, images, on the Internet, violence and abuse. The Working Group will review cases or decisions of the CPD referred to the prosecution and gather feedback on their progress and development. The working group discussed the case of the attack on the Indian diplomat. 

The CPC will invite the Indian Ambassador and Mr. Pawa, a victim of the incident, to hear their point of view, after which it will consider filing a criminal complaint under Section 162(2) of the IPC. Instances of hate speech and enmity on the Internet were considered in the wake of the news of the attack on Mr. Pawa, Attaché of Education at the Indian Embassy. The Task Force is preparing the first reports to the Public Prosecutor's Office for a probe into these cases, comments on the internet and whether they constitute offences under Section 162(1) of the Penal Code. During the meeting, in order to attract the attention of the authorities with legislative initiative, the Framework Decision 2008/913/JHA of the Council of the European Union on combating certain forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia by means of criminal law was discussed, which obliges EU Member States to bring their criminal legislation into line with the requirements of the Decision by 28 November 2010.  

Publicising the campaign - on the CPD website, through the media, regional representatives and other appropriate means - is one of the priorities of the working group.