Concerned about hate speech, government wants to evaluate legislation

Youth and Modernization Minister Margarida Balceiro Lopez said on Tuesday that hate speech worries the government and wants to evaluate legislation, provide greater legal protection for victims and raise public awareness.

“Official figures show that there was an increase of around 38% in this type of crime last year,” and “it is very important to act to prevent and combat them. Secondly, invest in raising public awareness and thirdly, support the victims of these crimes,” a government official told Luse on the occasion of the International Day against Hate Speech, which is celebrated today.

The Council of Europe recently made “a set of recommendations to its 46 member states, and there are several recommendations that should naturally be considered by the Portuguese state,” notably “ensuring support for the victims of this crime, as well as investing in police training.” bodies of criminals,” explained Balseiro Lopez.

However, to discuss this topic, “the participation of the Assembly of the Republic is necessary,” he said, recalling that “recently this year, changes were made to the Criminal Code in its article 240, number 2, and it is also important to assess whether the legislation meets the needs.”

Regarding the political situation in Portugal, with the electoral rise of populist movements, similar to what is happening in the rest of Europe, Balceiro Lopes sets the boundaries.

“Every government must be committed to uncompromisingly defending human rights, whether it is centre-left or centre-right” and “we must be relentless in combating this discourse, which particularly affects minorities, but not only minorities such as the LGBTI community, but we We can also talk about women who are especially vulnerable,” he said.

On the other hand, “there is a need to raise public awareness and be ruthless against this kind of speech,” he said, believing that this is a discussion “of a political nature, with great social impact, but it is also a highly technical discussion” and “besides There are other regimes of the Criminal Code that are currently in force and which should also eventually be returned to.”

In particular, the minister is concerned about children and young people “who are particularly vulnerable to these types of crimes in cyberspace.”

In this sense, the Government is assessing “whether it makes sense to create a line [telefónica] specific, such as in Poland, where more than 50 thousand participants were registered last year, with a multidisciplinary team targeting children and young people who have been victims of, for example, “bullying” and “cyberbullying”.

There is a need to “invest in raising awareness”, “to look very carefully and very specifically at children and young people who are local Internet users, but who are also very easy and accessible targets for this kind of behavior, which in some cases even constitutes criminal offences.” “, – he said.

But it is also “important to understand that when we talk about cyberspace, for example, there are no borders” and there is “the fact that many of these crimes can be committed in other countries and the victims are in Portuguese territory.” “.

Portugal is therefore working with partner countries to try to act on content platforms.

However, Balceiro Lopez insisted that over-criminalization of hate speech could create other problems. On the Internet, “it is important to ensure the compatibility of different rights, since we also do not want to reintroduce censorship,” but “it is also fundamentally important that we can guarantee the protection of people’s rights in the digital age, taking into account also that no state will be able to isolate the use of anything other than coordination with other states.”