“Together!” is a new project financed by the Justice department of the European Commission, which will be implemented by KISA (Cyprus) and partners- OPU (Czech Republic), Lunaria NGO (Italy), CGIL Migration Department (Italy), University of Roma Tre (Italy), SOS Racismo Gupuzkoa (Spain) and SOS Racisme Catalunya (Spain). Other associated Partners are: National Union of Chiefs and Local Police Officers of Spain, Catalan Association of Local Police Chiefs and Commanders and the Office of the Commissioner for administration and Human Rights (Ombudsman) in Cyprus.
The project will take place from December 2014 and end on the 31st of November 2016.
In its two years duration “Together!” aims to improve LEAs (Law Enforcment Agencies) and civil society capacities in making hate crimes visible among European society, which is the first step to tackling hate crimes and addressing related fundamental rights violations.
The specific objectives of the project are:
- To strengthen the capacity of LEAs, NGOs and community-based organizations to identify and report hate crimes and to interact with victims;
- To improve data collection on hate crimes by creating and implementing standard methodologies and tools for data collection aimed at LEAs and civil society organizations;
- To strengthen networking and collaboration between LEAs and civil society –on a national and international level– in information exchange and follow up on hate crimes.
The ways in which these goals will be met are:
- Elaborate a comprehensive training program on hate crimes (based on European best practices) aimed at members of LEAs, NGOs and community-based organizations.
- Implement a) training sessions and b) follow-up sessions with members of LEAs, NGOs and community-based organizations in the involved countries.
- Develop a) a protocol aimed at LEAs and b) a data collection tool aimed at NGOs on hate crimes reporting, based on European best practices.
- Promote setting up of mechanisms of information exchange between civil society and LEAs in the involved countries.
- Elaborate four national reports and a comparative report on hate crimes, based on data collected by civil society organizations by using the data collection tool.
- Organize an international conference on hate crimes under-reporting.
Impact of the project at European level
A clear added value of the project at European level is the standardization of knowledge on hate crimes for officers and agents of LEAs in different countries, as well as the standardization of methodologies for reporting cases of hate crimes among Member States.
Indeed, the availability of comparable information and data on hate crimes will help the institutions of the Member States to make decisions and implement the most appropriate measures in the fight against hate crimes. Likewise, it will facilitate comparing the results of these decisions and actions at European level, as well as analyzing and exchanging good practices between actors from different European countries.
Moreover, project deliverables (handbook, videos, data collection tools, reports etc.) will be available on the project website, making possible that concerned people, organizations, institutions etc. from the Member Countries use them to raise awareness on hate crimes among the European society.
The context in which “Together!” was created is the persistant presence of indications that the situation of hate crimes in Europe is not improving, despite the efforts of EU Member States to combat them based on racism and xenophobia. In particular, according with the European Agency on Fundamental Rights (FRA), under-reporting of hate crimes continue to be a significant problem across Europe.
Under-reporting of hate crimes based on racism and xenophobia continue to be a significant problem through the EU. Many times victims do not identify the crime they suffered as a hate crime, or not report it to Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) for fear and lack of trust in authorities. Alike, most of the time Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs), non-governmental organizations or victim support groups do not have the specific knowledge to identify and report correctly this type of crimes. As a result, many crimes remain unreported, unprosecuted and, therefore, invisible. In such cases, the rights of victims may not be fully respected or protected, meaning that EU Member States are not upholding their obligations towards victims.
For a more detailded view on each members work and responsabilities within the project please follow the link:
Project TOGHETER – final draft activities.docx
