“Our commitment must be to remember the victims who perished, respect the survivors still with us, and reaffirm humanity's common aspiration for mutual understanding and justice.”
-- Declaration of the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust
FRA Conference on Combating Hate Crime in the EU
12.11.2013
FRA is hosting the annual Fundamental Rights Conference "Combating Hate Crime in the EU: Giving Victims a Face and a Voice" in Vilnius on 12-13 November.
Europe’s socio-economic crisis has proved fertile ground for prejudice and, in some cases, violence against the most vulnerable groups of our society, such as Roma, migrants, and ethnic and religious minorities. Evidence collected by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) and other organisations shows that hate crime is a daily reality throughout the EU. Motivated by racism, xenophobia, religious intolerance or by bias against a person’s disability, sexual orientation or gender identity, such crimes harm not only those targeted but entire communities. They thus strike at the heart of EU’s commitments to democracy and the fundamental rights of equality and non-discrimination.
The Fundamental Rights Conference will invite over 300 decision makers and practitioners from across the EU to explore effective strategies to combat hate crime through legal and policy measures at the national as well as EU level.
The Fundamental Rights Conference (FRC) is a high level annual event, organized by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA). This year’s conference will focus on the issue of "Combating hate crime in the EU" and will be hosted in cooperation with the Lithuanian Presidency of the Council of the EU.
The conference will aim to:
- To develop concrete proposals for follow-up on FRA’s opinions pertaining to hate crime, as formulated in its reports on the subject;
- To explore practical solutions for victim support services tailored to specific situation and needs of the victims of hate crime;
- To stimulate debate on hate crime and exchange ideas and practices on how to combat it on an EU as well as Member State levels;
- To pool evidence and expertise of a variety of stakeholders in view of the foreseen review of Council Framework Decision 2008/913/JHA of 28 November 2008 on combating certain forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia by means of criminal law;
- To enhance cooperation between stakeholders at different levels to counter hate crime more effectively.
For more information: http://fra.europa.eu/en/event/2013/fundamental-rights-conference-2013