Legal protection and support for victims of hate speech and hate crime is crucial in the efforts to successfully combat hate speech and hate crime. In this aspect, lawyers and legal professionals are important actors in the process of ensuring protection for victims of hate-speech and hate crime, and more concretely when representing these victims in legal procedures.  

In this framework, another HELP course on the European standards and legal framework on combating hate speech and hate crime was completed in co-operation with the Bar Association with the participation of29 lawyers and legal professionals from North Macedonia. This initiative comes after the successfully completed HELP course on combating hate speech and hate crime in 2024, translated in Macedonian language for the first time in 2023 bringing the number of the officials who have followed the course to 72 legal professionals.

The HELP Course on Combating Hate Speech and Hate Crime is part of the European Programme for Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals (HELP). It was implemented in co-operation with the Bar Association of North Macedonia by the action “Combating Hatred and Intolerance in North Macedonia”, part of the EU and Council of Europe Joint Programme “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Türkiye” and the action “HELP in the Western Balkans”.