Tackling hate crime: what Lithuania can learn from Sweden and Ireland
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Hate (associative image) / Andre Hunter/Unsplash
Lithuania s police register only a handful of hate crimes every year. But the real scale of the problem is much bigger – the society lacks awareness, and despite running training programmes, the police often choose not to investigate, according to experts.
What can Lithuania learn from Sweden and Ireland in tackling hate crimes? The National Human Rights Forum raised this question in its discussion Response to Hate: Examples of Good Practice.
The Lithuanian society does not recognise the scale of hate crimes, according to Goda Jurevičiūtė, project manager at Human Rights Monitoring Institute. Various groups still choose not to report such offences for fear of negative reactions, she said.