Chapter Notes

SOCI 349: Hate Crimes and Terrorism

Dr. Eargle

…
● With increased pressure from internal advocacy groups and international organizations, the
government has began to examine these attacks, including corrective rape.
● Government officials and community representatives met in Cape Town to develop effective
interventions and prevention initiatives.
● This included the establishment of a national task force, whose responsibilities include the
proposing of short and long term policies and working with other commissions.
● A review of these efforts by Human Rights First organization produced several recommendations
for the South African Government.
○ The government should initiate charges in a more expedient manner.
○ Hate crime legislation should be drafted and enacted more effectively.
○ Government officials should speak out against hate crimes more often.
○ Hate crime statistics should be collected more uniformly and monitored on a more
consistent basis.
○ And law enforcement should strengthen ties to community groups.
○ In an effort to build trust and encourage the reporting of hate crimes to authorities.
● Australia
○ International students are frequent targets.
○ Many of these students are from China and India.
○ In the last few years, attacks on Indians and Indian–Australians have intensified in
Sydney and Melbourne.
○ Indian government officials voiced much concern over the safety of their students.
○ And there's been a drop in Indian enrollments in Australia’s universities, impacting the
country’s economy both financially and employment wise.
○ Yet, Australis has not enacted any hate crime laws.
○ Some complained such laws would give preferential treatment to the victimization of
some and not others.
○ Initial reactions of the police were to blame the victims for being weak, impotent, and
passive individuals who carry expensive electronics.
○ Victoria and New South Wales saw the highest victimization, but Victoria enacted
comprehensive policies to respond to hate crimes.
○ The Victorian Sentencing Act was amended to recognize hate motivated acts as
aggravating features which would trigger sentence enhancements.
○ Police surveillance was increased through the operation safe stations program,
increasing camera use at train stations.
○ Also, the establishment of police community groups to improve relationships and a call
line to support the public and victims in reporting these crimes.
○ The Australian federal government held several high profile meetings.
○ The Australian Indian Institute was founded at the University of Melbourne in 2008.
○ Its purpose is to foster collaboration and partnership endeavors between India and
Australia on a host of issues.
○ It also serves to increase a deeper appreciation of Indian history and culture alongside
public policy.
○ All also hosted roundtable sessions where Indian students could voice their concerns.
 ○ This reaction regarding Indians is surprising victimization studies going back to the 1990s
show other groups (Muslims, LGBTQ, disabled, aboriginal persons) being victimized too.
○ Some other provinces enacted laws similar to Victoria state, but prosecution is infrequent.
● France:
○ Resurgence of anti-Semitism among the children of immigrants is ubiquitous among
students.
○ The number of Muslim immigrants from Northern Africa has increased dramatically, as
has the number of Jews from the same region.
○ The Israeli-Palestinian conflict plays a role in this backdrop of offenses resembling hate
crimes.
○ Anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, or xenophobic and racially motivated hate crimes are most
typical in france.
○ The National Consultative Commission on Human Rights advises the government on
matters impacting human rights and humanitarian law.
○ The organization publishes annual reports on hate crimes, bigotry and discrimination that
occur in France and comments on proposed policies that addresses hate rights concerns.
○ Data show only anti-semitic hate crimes have declined over time, due to effective
targeted campaigns against it.
○ Jewish institutions received more police attention through surveillance and more visible
police presence.
○ Special prosecutors with the aim to respond persistently and robustly to ant-semitic and
racially motivated hate crimes put in place.
○ Schools were also required to observe a teaching tolerance day that focuses on the
harms of antisemitism and the holocaust.
○ The law itself has been revamped to address hate crimes.
○ Harsher penalties for racially motivated violent hate crime initially in 2003, then followed
by harsher penalties for crimes based on sexual orientation.
○ Anti-homosexual crimes have increased substantially, including the burning of a young
man for his orientation by a juvenile gang.
○ In 2004, they criminalized hate speech in France - where defaming, insulting, or inciting
discrimination or worse - made a crime.
○ The 1990 Gayssot act made public denial of the Holocaust a crime.
○ France also took efforts to minimize the impact of right-wing extremist groups, by banning
their public meetings and taking down neo-Nazi websites.
● Germany:
○ The world will likely see Germany as the ultimate lesson in unaddressed hate gone
amuck.
○ As a result of its unique history, Germany has developed public policies aimed at stifling
anti-Semitism.
○ But since reunification, there has been an escalation in xenophobic and racist hate crime.
○ Human rights first reported an increase in crimes attributed to right wing extremists, with
a majority of those crimes being violent, since 2002.
○ These crimes are identified as politically motivated and are defined as any offense
“directed against a person on account of their political opinion, nationality, ethnic origin,
race, color, religion, sexual orientation, disability, appearance or social status”.
○ Extremists target those that are easily identifiable as non-German due to their physical
characteristics (eg Turks, Africans, Vietnamese, Sinti, and Roma)
○ The poor treatment these groups receive from ordinary citizens is partly attributable to the
discriminatory treatment by authorities.
○ They are disproportionately stopped by police for questioning in public, akin to racial
profiling behaviors.
○ Germany has taken measures to respond to hate in all of its manifestations.
○ Not by creating special category offenses, but by trying to change cultural beliefs and
practices.
○ A variety of initiatives were designed to support victims of political violence (hate crimes)
advocate diversity and multiculturalism and democratic ideals while educating the public
on the threat posed by intolerance and bigotry.
○ The funding for these programs, however, is not permanent; if state and local jurisdiction
are unable to sustain these programs, they will be short-lived.
○ Hate crime laws are not provided in germanys criminal code, but statures criminalizing
hate sppech have been incorparated.
○ A person is guilty of this offense if he/she in a manner qualified for disturbing the peace.