A/HRC/43/72 employees. The Swedish Police Authority has also commissioned a training course from Uppsala University intended to provide in-depth skills on the underlying causes of racism, hate speech and hate crimes. F. Adopting measures to criminalize incitement to imminent violence based on religion or belief12 32. Azerbaijan, Canada, Denmark, France, Hungary, Iraq, Italy, Mexico, Poland, Romania, the Russian Federation, Sweden and the Syrian Arab Republic sent comprehensive information about domestic criminal frameworks prohibiting incitement to violence based on religion or belief. Many of the frameworks addressed issues of incitement to racial, national or religious hatred through speech or written media and publications and through the Internet. The laws generally also covered the establishment of or participation in organizations that urge violence or incite religious hatred, and public meetings in this context; the denial of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity; and the linkages between incitement to violence and acts of terrorism. The frameworks outlined usually provided for criminal regimes and heavy sentences. Many of the States reported on important reforms, actions and updates to the measures taken during 2018– 2019. All the information provided by the States can be consulted on the OHCHR website.13 33. The High Commissioner recalls that, where legal sanctions may be necessary to protect human beings against incitement to hatred, discrimination or acts of violence, three types of expression should be clearly distinguished: expression that constitutes a criminal offence; expression that is not criminally punishable but may justify civil or administrative sanctions; and expression that does not invoke any legal action but still raises concern in terms of tolerance and respect for the rights of others. 34. Legislation prohibiting incitement to racial, national and religious hatred should be specific, should not be overly broad in either its scope or its application and should be consistent with the international standards on freedom of religion or belief and freedom of opinion and expression. States should ensure that there is no impunity in the judicial system and that prosecutions and adjudications are undertaken in accordance with the law. 35. Some useful guidance in this regard is provided by the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination14 and the Human Rights Committee.15 The Rabat Plan of Action on the prohibition of advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence 16 and its six-part threshold test, as well as continuing developments on what the threshold entails and what is considered to be advocacy of religious hatred constituting incitement may provide some guidance to those implementing the international standards relating to the prohibition of incitement to racial, national and religious hatred. G. Hate crimes 36. Denmark reported that, in order to implement its hate crimes monitoring programme, the National Police had issued guidelines to all police districts on how to detect and register hate crimes correctly, to ensure that all relevant crimes would be investigated as hate crimes. In 2018, the National Police initiated a dialogue with the police districts to ensure that all hate crimes were registered correctly in the Police Record System (POLSAS). The National Police had added some supplementary search words to its monitoring practice to give a more accurate overview of the extent of hate crimes in Denmark. 12 13 14 15 16 Ibid., para. 7 (f). https://adsdatabase.ohchr.org. General recommendation No. 35 (2013) on combating racist hate speech. General comment No. 34 (2011) on the freedoms of opinion and expression. A/HRC/22/17/Add.4, appendix. 7