On 28 May 2024, the Council of Europe Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals (HELP) Programme, and the Roma and Travellers Unit of the Council of Europe, in partnership with the Bulgarian National Institute of Justice, launched the HELP course focusing on combating hate speech. The launch event was held in Sofia and online, and was attended by judges and prosecutors from across the country. The activity was organised under the EU-CoE HELP "Judicial Training on Rule of Law and Fundamental Rights" project, funded by the European Union's Justice Programme.

The HELP online course aims at enhancing the necessary knowledge and skills of legal (and other) professionals in understanding the impact of hate speech on victims, communities and society and identifying effective responses. The course is delivered online with national tutors guiding participants through the material over the following months.

Dezideriu Gergely from the Roma and Travellers Division, Korneliya Kirilova from the National Institute of Justice and former ECtHR Judge Yonko Grozev opened the seminar with welcome addresses. Paul Blanchard provided a comprehensive overview of the HELP Programme, detailing its objectives and the functionalities of the online course platform, emphasising how the HELP courses support the implementation of European human rights standards at the national level.

Yonko Grozev presented the perspective of the ECHR on hate speech and overview of the case-law against Bulgaria, in particular Roma-related, which set the stage for the second presentation by Lubov Stoytcheva and Poliva Roussinova-Kucera from the Department of the Execution of ECHR judgments, who presented the execution of the hate-speech related judgements by Bulgaria.

Participants had the chance to benefit from a presentation made by Prof. Dr. Neli Ognyanova, Chairperson of the Commission for Journalistic Ethics, on the practice of the Commission in cases involving hate speech.

The tutors of the course, Sava Petrov (Prosecutor), Chavdar Dimitrov (Administrative Judge) and Galya Valkova (Judge) presented challenges in prosecuting hate speech incidents from the perspective of their offices.

Finally, specificities on cases of hate speech against Roma were introduced to participants by the lawyers Dilyana Giteva and Daniela Mihailova.

Understanding the concepts as well as the differences between hate speech and freedom of expression is crucial for legal professionals. Participants will therefore go through three comprehensive modules including concepts of hate speech and freedom of expression, effective responses to hate speech and legal standards on hate speech.

The HELP online course on Combating hate speech takes 3 hours to complete and is also available in several languages in self-learning format (openly accessible, self-paced, certified) at this link.