Police and NGO cooperation to combat hate crime in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania

The project “Police and NGO cooperation to combat hate crime in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania” aims to kickstart cooperation between NGOs and national police authorities with the purpose of tackling hate crime against vulnerable groups in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Vulnerable groups include LGBTI community, persons with disabilities, refugees, migrants. During the project, different stakeholders in each country are brought together on a number of events with the purpose of providing them with tools to develop and ensure sustainable cooperation in the future. Furthermore, the project enables civil society organisations to provide better support for victims of hate crime and victims to access necessary information.

Project activities include mapping and countering disability hate crime in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania; encouraging cooperation between NGOs and police authorities, carrying through a Training of Trainers on civil society and hate crime, mutual learning and sharing good practices; awareness-raising by production of videos and online guide to recognise and report hate crimes.

The project is co-funded by the European Union’s Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme (2014–2020), and the National Foundation of Civil Society of Estonia.

International events:

Capacity-building workshop for NGOs and law enforcement in April 2019, in Tallinn, Estonia

-workshop was led by Sergio Saldenha (Lisbon police, Portugal) and Nick Antjoule (Galop, UK)

Training of Trainers from NGOs in Baltics on tackling hate crime in September 2019, in Tallinn, Estonia

-training was led by Ewa Stoecker (anti-discrimination trainer, Poland) and Dr Piotr Godzisz (criminologist, Poland/UK)

Training for law enforcement and NGOs on disability hate crime in November 2019, in Vilnius, Lithuania

-training was led by Dr Angharad Beckett (University of Leeds, UK)

Final virtual conference “Joining forces: together against hate crime” (watch the recording fo the conference on Youtube)

Outcomes and materials:

Policy recommendations on disability hate crime

Training curriculum and implementation guideline for trainers on the topic of hate crimes

Online guidelines and videos on hate crimes, hate speech and ways to deal with it

Interview with the keynote speaker at our final conference, Dr Piotr Godzisz