CERD concluding observations 2024, paragraph 20
Plain English recommendation
Government should take all actions necessary to prevent and combat racist hate crimes and hate speech. In particular, Government should:
(a) Adopt and implement laws to combat racist hate crimes. Provide ongoing training to law enforcement officials, judges, and prosecutors on investigating hate crimes;
(b) Adopt a media strategy to address journalists’ and broadcasters’ responsibility to avoid hate speech and stereotypes of minorities. It should also check newspapers and broadcasters for content that incites racial discrimination, hatred or xenophobia;
(c) Encourage reporting of racist hate crimes by building public trust in the police and justice system. Protect victims from reprisals and intimidation. Make the reporting procedure transparent and accessible;
(d) Investigate all reported racist hate crimes. Prosecute and punish the perpetrators with suitable sanctions. Provide effective remedies to the victims and their families;
(e) Collect disaggregated data on racist hate crimes, including those with intersectional motives. Ensure that affected groups help develop measures to combat these crimes. Also, conduct a thorough impact assessment of any actions taken;
(f) Increase work to combat racist hate speech on the internet and social media. Collaborate with internet providers, social media platforms, and affected communities when doing this;
(g) Take action to combat racist hate speech and xenophobia from politicians and the public, including online. Ensure effective investigation and punishment of such cases. Also, public authorities, including senior officials, must reject hate speech and xenophobia in political discourse. They should publicly reject and condemn hate speech and racist ideas;
(h) Remove its interpretative declaration on and give full effect to article 4 of the CERD.
Original UN recommendation
The Committee recommends that the State party take all measures necessary to prevent and firmly combat racist hate crimes and hate speech and, in particular, that it:
(a) Adopt a comprehensive legal framework to combat racist hate crimes, take effective measures to ensure its implementation and provide continuous training to law enforcement officials, judges and prosecutors on addressing and investigating hate crimes;
(b) Develop and adopt a media strategy addressing the responsibility of journalists and broadcasters to avoid the use of hate speech and stereotypes in describing minority communities, and closely and effectively scrutinize newspapers and broadcasters with respect to content that incites racial discrimination and hatred or strengthens xenophobic attitudes;
(c) Encourage the reporting of racist hate crimes by strengthening public trust in the police and the justice system, protecting victims from reprisals and intimidation and ensuring that the reporting procedure is transparent and accessible;
(d) Investigate all reported racist hate crimes, prosecute the perpetrators and punish them with sanctions commensurate with the gravity of the offence, and provide effective remedies to the victims and their families;
(e) Systematically collect disaggregated data on racist hate crimes, including cases involving intersectional motivations, ensure that measures to combat racist hate crimes are developed with the meaningful participation of affected groups, and undertake a thorough assessment of the impact of the measures adopted;
(f) Strengthen measures to combat the proliferation of racist hate speech on the Internet and on social media, in close cooperation with Internet service providers, social media platforms and the communities most affected by racist hate speech;
(g) Adopt comprehensive measures to discourage and combat racist hate speech and xenophobic discourse by political and public figures, including on the Internet, ensure that such cases are effectively investigated and sanctioned and ensure also that public authorities, including high-level public officials, distance themselves from hate speech and xenophobic political discourse and formally and publicly reject and condemn hate speech and the dissemination of racist ideas;
(h) Withdraw its interpretative declaration on article 4 of the Convention and give full effect to all provisions of article 4.
Date of UN examination
24/09/2024
Original UN document
Download the original CERD concluding observations 2024 on the UN website.
Last updated on 25/04/2025