Representatives from Equality Bodies from Albania, Montenegro and North Macedonia gathered for a two-day meeting in Skopje to discuss the role of equality bodies in combating hate speech. The meeting primarily focused on the exchange of good practices and ideas to improve the mechanisms to combat hate speech and the possibilities of strengthening the co-operation of equality bodies in the region when it comes to tackling hate speech.
The representatives of equality bodies were greeted by Lejla Dervisagic, Head of Operations of the Council of Europe Programme Office in Skopje who highlighted the importance of combating hate speech and that the Council of Europe and EU are supporting all of the beneficiaries in the Western Balkans to tackle hate speech and Equality bodies do play a big and important role in combating this negative phenomenon in our societies.
Elena Mihajlova Stratilati and Vasilika Hysi, ECRI members in respect to North Macedonia and Albania also joined this meeting. Ms Mihajlova Stratilati also greeted the participants and pointed out the ECRI recommendations on North Macedonia especially in regard to combating hate speech, and Ms Hysi focused on the European standards and good practices regarding equality bodies and their role in combating hate speech, including some key topics from ECRI’s General Policy Recommendations.
The representatives from the equality bodies shared interesting cases and examples from their everyday work, and also discussed about the challenges that they have faced and possible ideas to overcome them.
During the meeting, representatives from the Institute for Human Rights, the Network for Protection Against Discrimination and the Council of Ethnic in Media also joined the discussion with particular focus on the co-operation between the civil society and the equality bodies, highlighting good examples and sharing ideas on how this area could be improved.
The representatives from the equality bodies from Albania, Montenegro and North Macedonia agreed to continue the co-operation and to continue the efforts to join forces and to follow-up on the ideas discussed during the meeting.
The action ‘Promotion of Diversity and Equality in North Macedonia’ is part of the “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey 2019-2022”, a co-operation initiative of the European Union and the Council of Europe, implemented by the Council of Europe, which aims at assisting beneficiaries in the Western Balkans region and Turkey to comply with the Council of Europe standards and European Union acquis in the framework of the enlargement process, where relevant.
