Hate crime, as well as every type of hatred, is dangerous social phenomenon which, if not prevented at the earliest stage, may shake the very cornerstone of democratic society achievements, said Commissioner for Protection of Equality Brankica Jankovic at the conference “Hate Crime” that was organized by Provincial Ombudsman.

Hate crimes are motivated by irrational hatred based on prejudices and this increasing phenomenon causes general insecurity in the world today, especially among the members of ethnic, religious and other marginalized social groups.

Refering to the researches by American psychologist Gordon Allport, Commissioner Jankovic spoke about threats caused by prejudices and explained gradation path that may lead to a hate crime. “First, there are jokes about representatives of certain nations, then some members of that nation are isolated and no one wants to communicate with them. After that, comes severe wording aimed to these nations, insults which transform to hate speech and eventually to individual cases of violence, while the consequence of all this may as well be some kind of holocaust. In this regard, the consequences of hate crimes are much more dangerous because they are growing over individually targeted victim and spreading to a wider social group” Commissioner Jankovic said.

She emphasized that hate crime is closely correlated to discrimination, which as a dangerous phenomenon in its extreme may lead to violence, loss of human lives and even mass crimes, persecution and clashes. Ways and tools for suppression of hate crimes are in domain of the law, but also in areas of developing tolerance, equality and non-discrimination, said Commissioner, stressing that this is one of the key goals of the institution she is helming.

In the introductory part of this conference also spoke Zoran Pavlovic, Provincial Ombudsman, Radovan Kovacevic, director of Karlovci Gymnasium, Vesna Nikolic Ristanovic, director of Victimology Association of Serbia, while the works of authors were presented afterwards.