STAND-UP Newsletter No. 5 was released in January 2024. It was the last newsletter of the project and it gathered information about all partners’ activities from September 2023 and January 2024, including the final event in Brussels that marked the end of the two-year project.
You can read it on the following link: STAND-UP Newsletter #5
On 25th September 2023, the Granada-based Euro-Arab Foundation held the International Conference against Hate Crimes and Underreporting. The Government Delegate, Inmaculada López Calahorro; the Director of Columbares, Rosa Cano Molina, and the Director of Projects and Research at Euro-Arab Foundation, Javier Ruipérez Canales, participated in the opening ceremony. The one-day conference was organized by COLUMBARES with funding from the Ministry of Social Rights and Agenda 2030, and the collaboration of the Euro-Arab Foundation, the University of Murcia, and the European project STAND-UP.
Throughout the day, a multidisciplinary analysis of hate speech in our societies was carried out by expert speakers from universities, the Civil Guard, NGOs, associations, and social activists. Needs that currently exist to address these crimes were analyzed such as, among other topics, the role played by the media and social networks, the response given to this kind of crimes by associations and social organizations, as well as the approach and actions carried out by activists. The institutional attention given to these crimes by the Guardia Civil was also addressed and the Spanish Network against Hate Crimes and Infradenuncia, REDOI, was presented to the public.
Among the speakers were María Pina Castillo, coordinator of the project ‘Está en tu mano-Actúa’ (It’s on your hands: Act!); the MP Ismael Cortés Gómez, researcher in international Peace and Conflict Studies; the lecturer at the University of Granada, Carmen Aguilera Carnerero, expert in Islamophobia; the activists Sani Ladan, international analyst and migration expert; Xaby and Raffa, LGTBIQ+ activists, and Ignacio Paredero Huerta; Organizing Secretary of the LGTBI+ Spain Federation. Other speakers were the lieutenant of the Civil Guard, Benjamín Salas, and the psychologist, Mª Carmen Filigrana García, from the Federation of Gypsy Women’s Associations FAKALI; the researchers from the Euro-Arab Foundation, Lucía García del Moral, Daniel Pérez and Jose Luis Salido; the social educator María Ibáñez Palazón, from the project ‘Está en tu mano-Actúa’ and the journalist and social communicator, Natalia Díez from ‘Maldita.es’.
In 2022 there was an increase of almost 4%
In terms of the data collected by the Ministry of the Interior on an annual basis, in 2022 there was an increase of 3.7% in hate crimes compared to those recorded in 2020 and 2021. With 1869 hate crimes reported in the last year, those motivated by racism and xenophobia, sexual orientation, gender identity, and ideology stand out for their abundance.
Why are these crimes not always reported?
Considering the above data, we cannot forget the high percentage of under-reporting. According to the study carried out by Columbares in 2022, victims do not report for various reasons, including being in an irregular administrative situation, having limited financial resources, not repairing the damage, ignorance of the process, not disclosing sexual orientation, and lack of trust in the system.
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In the framework of the “Stand-Up: fighting against hate crimes in the EU” project, 4 webinars will be presented: 3 national webinars held in Greek, Italian and Spanish, developed by the partners Euroarab Foundation (FUNDEA) from Spain; Fondazione Agenfor Internacional from Italy, and the European Public Law Organization (EPLO) along with the Greek National Comission for Human Rights from Greece. In addition, a fourth webinar will also be held at an pan-european level. The topic of these seminars are about the use of technological tools to monitor hate speech, identifying hateful feelings, areas of intervention, groups at risk and hate narratives on social networks.
The main objective of these seminars is to establish a comprehensive and holistic framework in the fight against hate crimes and hate speech based on the RIPP model (complaint-investigation-prosecution-prevention) from a victim-centered approach. Within the seminars, technological tools as OSINT (Open-Source Intelligence) and FALKOR platform will be presented and the results of monitoring hate speech in every research field.
As for the national online events, the Spanish webinar by FUNDEA, “Narratives and right-wing hate speech and Islamophobia in Spain”, will be held on 20 february, with a presentation of the STAND-UP project by Lucía García del Moral. As in the Italian seminar, it will also participate Yuval Sanders and Lior Mordechain presenting the tools for hate speech monitoring online OSINT and FALKOR. Finally, Lucía García del Moral and Jose Luis Salido will explain two case studies from Spain: “Islamophobia in social networks: the World Cup in Qatar” and “Narratives of the extreme right: monitoring 20-N and 25-N dates”. You can register through this form.
The Italian webinar managed by AGENFOR will talk about “Contrast and tracking of hate phenomena in Italy: Veneto Front Skinheads and anti-semitic climate” and it will be on 14 february. The speakers, as the pan-european webinar, will be Viviana Gullo; Yuval Sanders and Lior Mordechain; Fabio Frettoli and Sergio Bianchi. You can register through this form.
About the Greek seminar, EPLO together with the Greek National Comission for Human Rights will held on 15 february the webinar “Confronting Hate Crimes & Hate Speech through OSINT” with the welcoming of Professor Vasilki Artinopoulou, scientific coordinator of the project. The round of discussions will be presented by Maria Poulopoulou, establishing the project’s objectives and methodology. Kouroutzas Christos will talk about “The role of new technologies in tackling hate crime and hate speech”. Lior Mordechai will develop a technical presentation about the use of OSINT intelligence. Finally, the Greek OSINT report focus on the case study “xenophobia towards refugees and inmigrants in Greece” will be presented by Katerina Charokopou and Thanasis Dimopoulos.
The pan-european webinar is about “Tackling and monitoring hate phenomena in Europe: right-wing extremism, islamophobia and antisemitism” and it will be held on 22 february. The seminar will be initiated by Viviana Gullo, presenting STAND-UP and the preventive and investigative model to tackle the hate phenomena; Yuval Sanders and Lior Mordechai will address the technologies OSINT and Falkor supporting the model. As more, regional OSINT reports will be presented by Fabio Frettoli, Katerina Charokopou, Thanassis Dimopoulos, Lucía García del Moral and Viviana Gullo. Finally, Sergio Bianchi will raise a debate and future opportunities. You can register through this form.
STAND-UP has as its main objective to improve cooperation between different organizations in the fight against hate crimes through the design, development and implementation of a new inter-institutional model.
This project is financed by the General Directorate of Justice and Consumers of the European Commission and the consortium is formed by the Euro-Arab Foundation of Higher Studies (Spain), Procura della Repubblica di Trento (Italy), The prosecution office of Venice (Italy), Fondazione Agenfor International (Italy), European Public Law Organization (EPLO), Greek National Commision for Human Rights (GNCHR), Association Des Agences de la Démocratie Locale (ALDA) in France.
The STAND-UP project held 4 webinars in february: 3 national webinars developed by the partners Euroarab Foundation (FUNDEA) from Spain, Fondazione Agenfor Internacional from Italy, and the European Public Law Organization (EPLO) along with the Greek National Comission for Human Rights from Greece, and a final pan-european webinar with the participation of the STAND-UP partners and all the case studies discussed.
All the webinars explained the use of technological tools as OSINT software and Falkor platform to monitor online hate speech and hate crimes. As well, each regional webinar focused on a particular case to investigate.
The Spanish webinar by FUNDEA presented “Narratives and right-wing hate speech and Islamophobia in Spain” with two case studies: the World Cup in Qatar and narratives of the right-wing on two controversial dates in Spain.
The Italian webinar managed by AGENFOR spoke about “Contrast and tracking of hate phenomena in Italy: Veneto Front Skinheads and anti-semitic climate”, focus on antisemitism and right-wing extremism in Italy.
The Greek seminar lidered by EPLO along with the Greek National Comission for Human Rights held the topic “Confronting Hate Crimes & Hate Speech through OSINT” analyzing xenophobia in Greece.
Here you can find all the reports exposed in the webinars:
The STAND-UP Webinars foreseen for this month aim to promote and present the use of technologically advanced tools to combat and prevent hate speech, starting from the analysis of online hate speech, with a view to cooperation between public sector-Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) mainly-and the private sector (associations, NGOs and research centres).
Discriminatory behaviours, intolerance and hate are widespread in Europe towards individuals or entire communities based on biased motivations – race and ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation, religion, disability, or other peculiar features identifying those individuals. According to the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), Amnesty International and the European Parliament’s Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs, the hate and discriminatory climate towards other minorities or sensitive groups grew significantly during the Covid-19 pandemic[1], which exacerbated social tensions and hate sentiments – against Asian people primarily, but also against Jewish, for instance,
always put in the spotlight by conspiracy theories.
Analysing the available data, despite the high number of hate crime incidents, “victims continue to avoid reporting” to LEAs (only one out of ten in Spain, for instance), together with a rise of hate speech, in particular in the online environment, resulting in companies and governments applying increasingly strict regulations.
The hate phenomena are inextricably connected, originating from hateful socio-cultural conduct based on a discriminatory foundation, marginalizing and harming – either physically or verbally – the targets.
However, the specificities of hate crimes and hate speech need to be distinguished, especially concerning the features of the online environment which shape how those phenomena manifest themselves. The criminal component can also lie in a comment on social media or in a text: the web analysis, in this sense, results prominent, not only in thoroughly understanding hate phenomena but also in preventing the escalation from online hate speech to offline hate crime.
The Regional OSINT Report drafted within STAND-UP will offer an insight into the partners’ countries, specifically investigating selected topics: xenophobia in Greece, Antisemitism in Italy and islamophobia in Spain.
The choice of the categories affected is the result of the debate rise during each national Focus Group, providing a broad perspective of the southern hate climate. While migrants and refugees are the most affected group, selecting hate incidents based on religion offers a socio-cultural framework of Italy and Spain which is inherently related to their historical roots. Moreover, both antisemitism and islamophobia actually cover other individuals’ features, as intersectional phenomena: from the religious aspect, they also encompass ethnicity and gender.
In the framework of the “Stand-Up: fighting against hate crimes in the EU” project, 4 webinars will be presented: 3 national webinars held in Greek, Italian and Spanish, developed by the partners Euroarab Foundation (FUNDEA) from Spain; Fondazione Agenfor Internacional from Italy, and the European Public Law Organization (EPLO) along with the Greek National Comission for Human Rights from Greece. In addition, a fourth webinar will also be held at an pan-european level. The topic of these seminars are about the use of technological tools to monitor hate speech, identifying hateful feelings, areas of intervention, groups at risk and hate narratives on social networks.
The main objective of these seminars is to establish a comprehensive and holistic framework in the fight against hate crimes and hate speech based on the RIPP model (complaint-investigation-prosecution-prevention) from a victim-centered approach. Within the seminars, technological tools as OSINT (Open-Source Intelligence) and FALKOR platform will be presented and the results of monitoring hate speech in every research field.
The pan-european webinar is about “Tackling and monitoring hate phenomena in Europe: right-wing extremism, islamophobia and antisemitism” and it will be held on 22 february. The seminar will be initiated by Viviana Gullo, presenting STAND-UP and the preventive and investigative model to tackle the hate phenomena; Yuval Sanders and Lior Mordechai will address the technologies OSINT and Falkor supporting the model. As more, regional OSINT reports will be presented by Fabio Frettoli, Katerina Charokopou, Thanassis Dimopoulos, Lucía García del Moral and Viviana Gullo. Finally, Sergio Bianchi will raise a debate and future opportunities. You can register through this form.
As for the national online events, the Spanish webinar by FUNDEA, “Narratives and right-wing hate speech and Islamophobia in Spain”, will be held on 20 february, with a presentation of the STAND-UP project by Lucía García del Moral. As in the Italian seminar, it will also participate Yuval Sanders and Lior Mordechain presenting the tools for hate speech monitoring online OSINT and FALKOR. Finally, Lucía García del Moral and Jose Luis Salido will explain two case studies from Spain: “Islamophobia in social networks: the World Cup in Qatar” and “Narratives of the extreme right: monitoring 20-N and 25-N dates”. You can register through this form.
The Italian webinar managed by AGENFOR will talk about “Contrast and tracking of hate phenomena in Italy: Veneto Front Skinheads and anti-semitic climate” and it will be on 14 february. The speakers, as the pan-european webinar, will be Viviana Gullo; Yuval Sanders and Lior Mordechain; Fabio Frettoli and Sergio Bianchi, exposing the topics mentioned in the pan-european event. You can register through this form.
About the Greek seminar, EPLO together with the Greek National Comission for Human Rights will held on 15 february the webinar “Confronting Hate Crimes & Hate Speech through OSINT” with the welcoming of Professor Vasilki Artinopoulou, scientific coordinator of the project. The round of discussions will be presented by Maria Poulopoulou, establishing the project’s objectives and methodology. Kouroutzas Christos will talk about “The role of new technologies in tackling hate crime and hate speech”. Lior Mordechai will develop a technical presentation about the use of OSINT intelligence. Finally, the Greek OSINT report focus on the case study “xenophobia towards refugees and inmigrants in Greece” will be presented by Katerina Charokopou and Thanasis Dimopoulos.
STAND-UP has as its main objective to improve cooperation between different organizations in the fight against hate crimes through the design, development and implementation of a new inter-institutional model.
This project is financed by the General Directorate of Justice and Consumers of the European Commission and the consortium is formed by the Euro-Arab Foundation of Higher Studies (Spain), Procura della Repubblica di Trento (Italy), The prosecution office of Venice (Italy), Fondazione Agenfor International (Italy), European Public Law Organization (EPLO), Greek National Commision for Human Rights (GNCHR), Association Des Agences de la Démocratie Locale (ALDA) in France.
A significant number of contributions made by European experts from the legal and police fields, civil society organisations, NGOs, policy makers and academia, were discussed in Brussels at the seminar “Standing Up Against Hate Crime”. The seminar was organised by the STAND-UP project at the European Parliament on 28 and 29 September.
The meeting aimed to find a common definition of “hate crime” in order to support the RIPP-cycle (reporting-investigating-prosecuting-preventing) and ensure the highest level of victim assistance within the framework of multi-agency cooperation.
During the two days of the workshop, relevant case studies across Europe were analysed during the meeting, including results obtained in the focus groups held in Greece, Italy and Spain. Proposals for standardised reporting procedures focus on using technology were also presented. In addition, experts discussed bias motivations behind hate crimes, the environment in which the hatred occurred and the application of intersectional approaches.
The meeting held opened with a round table of experts on hate crimes. Giovanni Gasparini, Deputy Public Prosecutor of Vecine on behalf of Sandro Raimondi, Public Prosecutor’s Office of Trento (TNJudPol) presented the STAND-UP project, followed by the summary of STAND-UP Deliverable D3.3 “Defining Hate Crime Report” by Eva Tzavala and Katerina Charokopou, Legal Advisors (Greek National Commission for Human Rights, GNCHR).
Following this introduction, the first day was divided into three sessions. The first one focus on tackling Hate Crime and Hate Speech. With this aim, Viktor Kundrak (OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights) debated around the question of ideal hate crime legislation, analysing substantive offences versus sentencing enhancement provisions. The following presentation by Tina Stavrinaki, Vice-Chair of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) defined bias motivation of hate crimes.
The session closed studying mechanisms for countering hate speech in the area of particularly serious crimes and the online context by Menno Ettema, Programme Manager / Co-Secretariat of the former Committee of Experts on Combating Hate Speech (ADI/MSI-DIS), Council of Europe.
The second session paid attention to the international, regional and national framework on hate crimes, with special references to the need of harmonizing EU definitions and norms for countering hate crimes. This table included the presentation of Niels Letsrade, EU Internet Referral Unit (Europol), and Christel Mercade Piqueras, Officer, DG Justice (European Comission).
Finally, the third session focus on analysing hate crime in another context. On the one hand, an analysis of hate crime in the African context was presented by Fabrizio Lobasso, Deputy Director for Sub-Saharian African countries at the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. On the other hand, Alberto Izquierdo Montero (Intercultural Education Research Group, Faculty of Education UNED) focused his presentation on visibilising the mechanisms of hate speech to critically read the wor(L)d in education. This session ended with Concluding Remarks by Eva Tzavala and Katerina Charokopou, Legal Advisors GNCHR.
The second day started with the opening presentation of STAND-UP focus on hate crime reporting forms by Giovanni Gasparini, Deputy Public Prosecutor of Venice (VEJudPol).
As on the previous day, the Seminar was organized on three sessions. The first one, analysed the definition of Hate Crimes based on the three Focus Group held in Greece, Italy and Spain in framework of the STAND-UP project. Alessandra Brigo, Project Manager and Coordinator of the Gender, Inclusion and Human rights HUB at ALDA- European Association for Local Democracy, discussed about the challenges and models for fighting against hate at national level in these three countries. This presentation was followed by a panel about “Best Practices to counter Hate Speech/Crime Between Penal Proceeding, Administrative Prevention and Mediation. A blueprint towards public-private cooperation and new training models” with Giovanni Gasparini, Deputy Public Prosecutor of Venice (VEJudPol), Viviana Gullo, Junior Project Manager (AGENFOR), Yuval Sanders, Managing Director of Falkor, and Sergio Bianchi, Senior Researcher (AGENFOR).
To conclude this session, a round table about “Coordinated responses to tackle hate crimes and the role of civil society organisations (CSOs)” took place with Vasiliki Artinopoulou, European Public Law Organisation (EPLO) and member of the SPT, United Nations as main speaker. The following discussants added key notes for understanding the importance of involving CSOs in a multi-agency cooperation model for countering hate in the EU: Garyfallia Anastasopoulou, Racist Violence Registration Network; Lucía García del Moral, EuroArab Fundation -Spain (FUNDEA) and Sergio Bianchi, Senior Researcher AGENFOR – Italy.
The second session addressed the topic of technology to prevent hate speech/hate crimes. Luigi Ranzato and Nicola Cordeschi, Judicial Police of the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Trento (TNJUDPOL) explained technology to prevent hate speech and prosecute hate crimes in the framework of public-private cooperation.
Lastly, the final session approached to religion and race in the context of hatred. Cristina Rodríguez Reche, Autonomous University of Barcelona, spoke on “Islamophobia as a challenge in a diverse Europe: the importance of the gender perspective” and Carmelo Ruberto, former Public Prosecutor of Rovigo, focused his speech on “Sinti ethnicity in the context of hatred: murder of C.E., of Sinti ethnicity, by her minor son (perpetrator) and G.A. (moral accomplice). 4 February 2022”.
The seminar concluded with some final remarks stated by Viviana Gullo, Junior Project Manager (AGENFOR) and Sergio Bianchi, Senior Researcher, trainer (AGENFOR).
