Council Of Europe Urges Finland To Tackle Hate Speech

The Council of Europe Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) on Tuesday called on Finland to tackle growing racist and intolerant hate speech.

In a report, the ECRI also called on Helsinki to coordinate integration activities for immigrants and review the law requiring transgender persons to be sterilized before they can have their new gender legally recognized.

It welcomed the adoption of a new anti-discrimination law and the prohibition of ethnic profiling.

"However, ECRI regrets that racist and intolerant hate speech in public discourse and on the internet has been escalating, mainly targeting asylum seekers, Muslims, persons of African descent, LGBT persons, Roma and the Jewish community," the report said.

According to the report, certain extremist organizations, particularly Neo-Nazi groups, engage in the systematic use of hate speech.

"The report underlines that there is a serious problem of underreporting of such crimes," it added.

The ECRI is a human rights monitoring body which specializes in questions relating to the fight against racism, discrimination, xenophobia, antisemitism and intolerance. -