The STAND-UP project has launch a Hate Crime & Hate Speech Victims Support Handbook. This manual aims to offer support to public authorities (in particular LEAs and judicial bodies) throughout the RIPP cycle, offering guidelines and best practices to strengthen victim support and protection in the process. It also promotes cooperation with CSOs to ensure the prioritisation of victim protection (as per Victims’ Rights Directive) & encourage “sensitive investigation and prosecution”.
The main topics covered on this Handbook are:
1. A summary with terminology and a synthesis of the STAND-UP project plans and the technology tool OSINT used
2. Context on Hate speech crimes Victims’ rights in the EU, defining who are hate crime victims, types of hate/hate speech crimes and its impact, as well as a victim-centred approach to support
3. The role of CSOs: considering the victims needs in order to provide and ensure access to adequate support services, working towards sustainability of support service providers, proposing different ways to report a hate crime and an approach to the LGTBI community hate crimes
4: The role of Prosecutors: addressing causes of underreporting for improve the reporting culture, assessing credibility without bias or prejudices and addressing possible conflicts with victims
5. The legal framework and good practices of Italy, Greece and Spain
6. Conclusions and a toolkit for analysing a case of hate speech
This Handbook has been developed by the authors Alessandra Brigo, Camilla Vedovato, Giulia Meco, Ivana Velkova from The European Association for Local Democracy (ALDA).
Here you can read the complete Handbook: