European Evangelical Alliance
EEA
The EEA, originally created in 1846, is a pan-European movement representing more than 50 national and international evangelical Protestant organisations in 36 nations, and 23 million citizens in the EU.
ID: 922173318516-97
Lobbying Activity
Response to Extension of the list of EU crimes to hate speech and hate crime
20 Apr 2021
The question is not whether authorities should address hate speech and hate crimes, or not. They definitely should. The questions are how to address hate speech while protecting free speech, and whether or not this would be done more effectively at European level.
Freedom of thought, conscience and religion and Freedom of Expression are cornerstones of any democratic society. Together, they guarantee and foster a free flow of ideas and opinions. This free and public exchange will sometimes include ideas and opinions we strongly feel about, either positively or negatively. In an increasingly diverse landscape of thoughts and opinions, we cannot wish these confrontations away. But where does the genuine expression of ideas end and where does hate speech begin? The answer to that question will be partly influenced by history and culture.
The Rabat Plan of Action focuses on the prohibition of advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence: The Plan of Action contains a six-part threshold test for forms of speech that are prohibited under criminal law. The test takes into consideration: the context of incitement to hatred, the speaker, intent, content, extent of the speech, and likelihood of causing harm. This test can be applied to incitement to hatred on other grounds as well.
The Rabat threshold test creates a wide space for genuine discussions and sometimes strong arguments that can nurture and educate but can also challenge, shock, and deeply disturb. This stresses the need to find ways to live peacefully together, even when we strongly disagree. After all, in all our diversity we are still one human family. As European Evangelical Alliance we fully support The Global Charter of Conscience. This Global Charter advocates for a civil public square with sufficient space for a wide variety of opinions.
According to article 83 (1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, “The European Parliament and the Council may, by means of directives adopted in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure, establish minimum rules concerning the definition of criminal offences and sanctions in the areas of particularly serious crime with a cross-border dimension resulting from the nature or impact of such offences or from a special need to combat them on a common basis.”
With the modern means of communication at our disposal, borders have lost at least some of their meaning as far as freedom of expression is concerned. The algorithms used on social media platforms, and their reported preference for more extreme messages, significantly increase the ‘likelihood of causing harm’. That does not automatically qualify hate speech as a ‘particularly serious crime with a cross border dimension’. Even without this label, social media platforms bear responsibility for the thoughts and opinions shared on the services they provide (Digital Services Act currently discussed).
Without the cross-border impact of social media, ‘the special need to combat [hate speech] on a common basis’ is no longer obvious. Given the ‘margin of appreciation’ often used by the European Court for Human Rights to take national history and culture into account, the added value of European rules and regulations on hate speech and hate crimes is limited. Therefore, the principles of sovereignty and subsidiarity should prevail.
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