Council of Europe proposes a comprehensive legal and policy framework to combat hate speech

On 20 May, the Council of Europe issued a set of guidelines to its 46 member states aimed at preventing and combating hate speech, both online and offline. The guidelines recommend that member states differentiate between, firstly, the most serious cases of hate speech, which are to be prohibited by criminal law, secondly, hate speech subject to civil and administrative law and, finally, offensive or harmful types of expressions which are not sufficiently severe to be legitimately restricted under the European Convention on Human Rights but nevertheless call for alternative responses.

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