CST Joins EU Project to Tackle European Hate Crime

The European Commission has given a substantial grant of over two hundred thousand Euros to CST and three other Non-Governmental Organisations from Belgium and the Netherlands, to improve monitoring and recording of hate crimes and incidents throughout the European Union.

The Facing Facts! project is made up of the Brussels-based CEJI – A Jewish Contribution to an Inclusive Europe; CST; the Dutch Centre for Documentation and Information Israel (CIDI); and the Federation of Dutch Associations for the Integration of Homosexuality (COC Netherlands). ILGA-Europe (International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association) is an associate partner to the project. Each body brings a long established expertise to the work of monitoring hate crimes and training civil society and government bodies.

Hate crime is a growing problem in the European Union, yet most states do not monitor hate crime in a consistent or thorough fashion. According to the European Union’s Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) 2007 Report on Racism and Xenophobia in the Member States of the EU:

The Agency’s data collection work shows that most Member States do not have official or even unofficial data and statistics on anti-Semitic incidents. Even where data exist they are not compatible, since they are collected following different methodologies.

The FRA report also endorsed the work of NGOs in this area, saying:

For those Member States where official data collection on racist violence and crime is absent or lacking, NGOs play a vital role in monitoring and attracting attention to the problem.

This project will help civil society NGOs to produce data on hate crimes which affect their own community, and work with local authorities to improve government and police monitoring of hate crimes.

The two-year project will introduce standardised criteria for hate crime data collection; train civil society organizations representing victims; hold governments accountable to existing international agreements so that civil society and public authorities can work together; and improve cooperation between different communities.

The centrepiece of the project will be a training manual utilising each organisation’s expertise, and that of outside experts, to ‘train the trainers’ in monitoring and recording hate crimes. This will be implemented at a hate crime trainers’ conference, to be held in The Hague in late 2012.

CST's involvement in this project follows our publication of A Guide to Fighting Hate Crime, as part of our commitment to use CST's experience in combating hate crime for the benefit of other communities.

The grant of 227,896.05 Euros is part of the Daphne111 General Programme on “Fundamental Rights and Justice”.

Co-founded by the European Union’s Fundamental Rights and Citizenship Programme.