Stakeholders discuss introduction of hate crimes legislation |21 February 2022

Delegates from across the civil society working to protect and advance the rights of marginalised people, as well as participants from the public sector and the media met at the Eden Blue Hotel, Eden Island on Saturday to discuss the need for hate crimes legislation in the country.

The half-day workshop was organised by the international human rights organisation, the Human Dignity Trust (HDT) based in London, United Kingdom (UK), in collaboration with local non-governmental organisations (NGO) such as LGBTI Sey and the Seychelles Human Rights Commission. It was facilitated by Dr Mark Walters, professor of criminal law and criminology, University of Sussex (UK) and an international expert in hate crime law. He was assisted by Rosie Brighouse, senior lawyer at the trust. The trust provides technical assistance to countries to reform and update laws with discriminatory impact and drafting of new laws that are more proactive and with protective elements, particularly to the vulnerable and marginalised groups.

The workshop was an opportunity for the stakeholders to learn more about hate crime laws and their purpose and for HDT to learn of the Seychelles experience with regards to hate crime.

To that extent, the delegates discussed their priorities for the upcoming new legislation to address hate crimes in the country, including which characteristics and offences should be included, and the appropriate terminology to be used in legislation.

They also explored the type of protection hate crime could provide in the country with regard to the drafting of a new law by the attorney general’s office in collaboration with HDT and this will be presented to the cabinet of ministers and the National Assembly. It was the attorney general’s office that requested for HDT to provide the technical assistance two years ago.

In his presentation, Professor Walters described hate crimes as criminal acts which involve a ‘hate-element’. The ‘hate-element’ of a crime refers more specifically to emotional drivers such as prejudice, animosity, hostility, bias or even contempt that underpin or accompany an offender’s conduct. The‘hate-element’ of a crime maybe evident by looking at an offender’s motive, the words they express while making their offence or the way it is implied through their selection of the victim because of their identity.

The professor explained that there is a large body of empirical evidence that shows that hate crimes are likely to hurt more than similar non-hate based crimes. He gave an example in his home country (UK) where through a survey conducted, 35% of hate crime victims are very much affected compared with 15% of other crime victims.

Hate crime laws are designed to protect vulnerable groups from crimes targeted at them because of a personal characteristic, such as their race, colour, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or disability. The law provides important symbolic recognition of crimes that take place because of prejudice against marginalised and vulnerable groups, as well as legislating for offenders to receive harsher punishments for such crimes depending on the gravity. There are different hate speech laws which focus on forms of expression against marginalised groups.

Hate incidents can feel like crimes to those who suffer them and often escalate to crimes or tension in a community.

Professor Walters said that the benefit of a law against hate crimes is it will recognise that it (hate crime) hurts more and therefore causing greater levels of harm to victims and the entire community of people, it will provide symbolic support to targeted communities (minority) who may have experience systemic levels of targeted violence, sometimes even committed by the state authorities, and it will also allow for monitoring and for resource deployment for the police forces, prosecution services among other criminal justice agencies, to begin to monitor the number of cases that flow in the criminal system which will enable statutory  agencies to better understand the extent of the problem and to deploy resources where they are needed the most. 

Apart from the presentation by Professor Walters, the delegates also viewed a video on hate crimes, which included participants from Seychelles and abroad, and also participated in a question and answer session, and group discussion.

It was concluded at the end of the workshop that hate crime is an alarming problem here, especially towards the marginalised groups, and that legislation is needed to address it, including education and awareness sessions on the subject, and training for the police who will be responsible to administer the law.

Patrick Joubert