In a Recommendation adopted on Friday 20 May at their annual session, Council of Europe foreign ministers called on European governments to develop comprehensive strategies aimed at preventing and combating hate speech, both online and offline.
In essence, they call for an effective legal framework based on calibrated and proportionate measures that strike the right balance between respecting privacy, the right to freedom of expression and the prohibition of discrimination.
The 46 member states of the Council of Europe are called upon to distinguish between, firstly, the most serious cases of hate speech which should be punished by criminal law, secondly, hate speech which is a matter for civil and administrative law, and thirdly, those forms of offensive or harmful expression which are not sufficiently serious to be legitimately restricted under the European Convention on Human Rights, but which nevertheless require alternative responses.
The provisions must be clear and predictable, the Recommendation states.
Also covered are redress and remedy mechanisms, advice on awareness raising, education, the use of counter-speech and alternative speech, the establishment of support mechanisms for those targeted by hate speech, and training for the police, judiciary and other professionals.
Media, NGOs and Internet intermediaries are also covered by this Recommendation, the adoption of which was welcomed by the Secretary General, Marija Pejčinović Burić, who recalled that “hate speech is on the rise in Europe (...) where it often takes the form of racism, antisemitism or incitement to violence”.
Link to the Recommendation on combating hate speech: https://aeur.eu/f/1ro (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)