On March 11th “Make Room” and the Latvian Centre for Human Rights held its third seminar “Discrminiation, hate crimes and hate speech: what can I do?”. The online seminar was attended by newly arrived foreign students and majority of the participants expressed that they have not yet experienced any instance of discrimination, hate crime and/or hate speech directed at them in Latvia. The participating students were from Japan, Nepal, India, The Philippines, France, Sri Lanka, Uzbekistan and Russia. 

During the two-hour interactive online session, participants learned how to identify discrimination, hate crime and hate speech, analysed practical situations and understood how and to whom report incidents of discrimination, hate crimes and hate speech.

Most of the participants have recently arrived in Latvia and have not yet had many personal interactions with public authorities and local individuals, therefore have also not yet faced incidents of discrimination, hate crimes an hate speech. At the end of the session the participating students highly appreciated the session and agreed that the information provided during the session is very useful and it is important to be aware of it. 

We are glad to raise the much-needed awareness on the topic, educate the community of newcomers about the legal provisions when faced with discrimination or subjected to hate crime and/or hate speech. Discrimination, hate crimes, and hate speech are punishable offences and wrong-doers can be brought to justice, but only if and when reported.

If you ever face a hate crime or hate speech, please report it to LCHR by using electronic form: http://cilvektiesibas.org.lv/en/database/report-hate-crime/ 

In case of discrimination you can report using this form: http://cilvektiesibas.org.lv/en/database/report-discrimination   

To read more about discrimination, please click here: https://makeroomeu.com/discrimination/

This was the third seminar of a series of 5 seminars raising awareness within the community of newcomers in regard to the topic. The session was organised by the Latvian Centre for Human Rights in partnership with Foundation “Make Room” in the framework of a project “On the way to more tolerant society – awareness, education, support and cooperation” The project is funded by the Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through EEA / Norwegian grant program “Active Citizens Fund”.

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