ILGA-Europe wholeheartedly welcomes today’s resolution by the European Parliament calling to criminalise homophobic and transphobic hate crime and speech across the European Union.

ILGA-Europe

At the moment the EU law criminalises only racist and xenophobic speech and crime and ILGA-Europe has been tirelessly campaigning for the inclusion of homophobia, transphobia and all forms of hatred in the 2008 Framework Decision on combating racism and xenophobia.

Hate speech and crime against LGBTI people is a plague which is spread across the continent and needs to be taken seriously by the EU institutions and EU Member States. LGBTI people and their supporters are regularly and systematically subjected to appallingly degrading, humiliating speech inciting to hatred and violence as well are subjects to physical attacks and even murders.

Martin K.I. Christensen, Co-Chair of ILGA-Europe’s Executive Board, said:

“This is an urgently needed piece of EU legislation which we have been asking for years. The EU Commission needs to move from promising statements to concrete action and propose the changes and ban hate crime and speech against LGBTI people. We are truly grateful to the European Parliament to maintaining the pressure on other EU institutions to act.”

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