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It is important to know what is a hate crime. When a hate crime is committed, one or more perpetrators target the victim, which can be one or more people or property, because of a protected aspect of the victim's identity, such as religion or ethnicity, race, sexual orientation or disability. Similarly, a hate incident is an act of hostility motivated by prejudice or bias that does not necessarily reach the threshold of a criminal offence, or the criminal nature of which is yet to be determined. A hate crime is any crime where the perpetrator is driven by prejudice or bias. Criminal offence + bias motive = hate crime.

In this document, ODIHR makes the following recommendations to enhance the provisions of the Draft Law in accordance with international standards and good practices:

Information Exchange on the Code of Conduct on Politico-Military Aspects of Security

Information Exchange on Anti-Personnel Mines and Explosive Remnants of War

The main purpose of this Urgent Opinion is to analyze the Law Amending Act No. 213/1997 Coll. on Non-profit Organizations providing Public Benefit Services and Amending Other Acts (print 245), initially registered in March 2024, as adopted on 16 April 2025 (hereinafter “the Law”). The Urgent Opinion provides an overview of the key human rights concerns raised from the perspective of international human rights standards and OSCE human dimension commitments, primarily the rights to freedom of association and freedom of expression, but also other rights, including to respect for private life, participate in public affairs, and the right to non-discrimination.

In this document, ODIHR makes the following recommendations to further strengthen the Law in accordance with international standards, OSCE commitments and good practices: