A/HRC/28/47
penalizes acts of damage to places of worship, such as churches and mosques, and the
property used in such places, and to cemeteries and the facilities and protective structures
thereof.
81.
Turkey cited a number of other laws and regulations that prohibit discrimination on
the basis of race, language, sex, religion, political opinion, nationality or social origin.
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
82.
The United Kingdom outlined key legislation to protect victims and tackle
offenders, including provisions setting out specific offences relating to stirring up hatred on
the grounds of race, religion, belief and sexual orientation (under Part III and Part IIIA of
the Public Order Act 1986 as amended); separate racially and religiously aggravated
offences, which carry a higher maximum penalty than non-aggravated offences (under the
Crime and Disorder Act 1998); and powers for the courts to increase the sentence of an
offender convicted of a crime where hostility towards the victim is based on several
grounds, to reflect the seriousness of hate crime (Criminal Justice Act 2003).
83.
In March 2012, a cross-Government action plan was published in England to tackle
hate crime, bringing together the work of a wide range of departments and agencies to:
prevent hate crime; increase reporting and victims’ access to support; and improve the
operational response to hate crimes. It includes specific work programmes to tackle antiSemitism and anti-Muslim hatred and actions to better engage with disabled and
transgender persons, Gypsy, Traveller and Roma communities and new migrants and to
tackle racism, homophobia and transphobia in sports.
84.
Recently, a review of actions to tackle hate crime was conducted. Close cooperation
with a wide range of voluntary sector and community representatives, front-line
organizations and the Government’s Independent Advisory Group on Hate Crime is
ongoing, which provides insight into the day-to-day experience of hate crime.
85.
In that context, one of the challenges that have continued to evolve is the task of
removing hate material from mass media channels such as the Internet, while protecting
freedom of expression. The Government is working with the police and the Independent
Advisory Group on Hate Crime to build relationships with leading social media providers
and to improve their response to offensive and illegal hate-related content online, including
through support to the international working group of the Inter-Parliamentary Coalition for
Combating Antisemitism, to find collaborative solutions to reduce the harm caused by
hatred on the Internet.
86.
With regard to anti-Muslim hatred, police forces across the country work together
with Muslim communities and organizations to provide reassurance, security measures and
safety advice. In some areas 24-hour police patrols are in place to safeguard high-profile
premises. The United Kingdom outlined a number of projects under way, including: (a) the
first cross-Government working group on anti-Muslim hatred; (b) the launch of Tell
MAMA, the first third-party reporting service to record incidents and support victims of
anti-Muslim hatred; (c) the hosting of the first Srebrenica Memorial Day in the United
Kingdom; (d) support from the Department of Communities and Local Government for
social media workshops aimed at countering hatred online in Birmingham and Leeds,
following two initial workshops held in London and Manchester; and (e) a number of road
shows held by the Department of Communities and Local Government around the United
Kingdom in March and April 2014 to promote the work of integration and combat antiMuslim hatred, and to engage with the communities to find out what more the Government
can do.
14
Select target paragraph3
Connect to a paragraph
Connect to an entity
Disable highlights
Add to table of contents