Facts Against Hate

Goals and results

The objective of the project is to improve the effectiveness of work against hate crime and hate speech. The project aims to develop data collection, hate crime reporting and local cooperation practices, among other things. The project is coordinated by the Ministry of Justice, and the project partners are the Ministry of the Interior, the Police University College, Anti-Racist Forum ry, the Centre for Peace Studies (Croatia) and INAR (Ireland).

The project consists of four (4) work packages.

1) Development of hate crime reporting: The objective of the work package is to test a tool devel-oped by the OSCE for reporting hate crimes in Finland, Croatia and Ireland. Another objective is to develop guidance of victims of hate crime to support services and to the police.

2) Development of local cooperation practices: The objective of the work package is to build capacity of different actors to prevent and tackle hate crime and hate speech at local level. The focus is on the local police work, especially on the development and testing of practices that aim to build trust in the community, not only between different population groups but also between the police and minority population groups. The activities support the implementation of the national strategy for preventive police work at local level. The aim is also to increase awareness of hate crimes and the existing reporting channels among local politicians, sexual and gender minorities, and persons with disabilities.

3) Development of hate crime monitoring: The objective of this work package is to test a compre-hensive model for monitoring hate crimes in the prosecution service and courts of law. Indicators for monitoring hate crime will also be developed. Another objective is to test new tools for targeted monitoring of online hate speech.

4) Transnational and EU-level cooperation: The objective of the work package is to exchange experi-ences between authorities at EU level and to share good examples of measures against hate speech and hate crime.

Summary

The objective of the project Facts against Hate is to improve the effectiveness of work against hate crime and hate speech. The project aims to develop data collection related to hate crime and hate speech, improve local cooperation practices, and produce material to support work against hate crime and hate speech. The project is funded by the European Commission's Rights, Equality and Citizenship (REC) pro-gramme.

Starting points

Hate speech and hate crime are a societal problem despite the fact that a number of measures have been taken to identify, address and prevent them. In recent years, hate speech has taken new forms, such as the so-called targeting of professionals in different fields.

Many international human rights bodies have paid attention to the increase in racism and discrimi-nation in Finland and urged Finland to step up its efforts.

According to a report published by the Discrimination Monitoring Group in 2016, hate speech and other harassment occur most often in streets, parking places, parks, and other public places. The second most common place is the internet, especially public discussion forums and social media sites.

Several measures to strengthen the fight against hate crime and hate speech are currently under way. A number of measures related to hate crime and hate speech have been outlined in Prime Min-ister Sanna Marin's Government Programme, such as horizontal measures to address systematic harassment, threats and targeting, the promotion of monitoring of the situation in relation to dis-crimination and hate crime, and the drafting of an action plan against racism and discrimination.