Eight monitoring networks to record and investigate hate crimes were established across Kosovo as a result of a series of workshops organized by the OSCE Mission in Kosovo between 2 and 30 October 2017. The networks are comprised of police investigators, community police officers and prosecutors who will co-operate to address hate crimes across the regions in a more efficient way. The networks will enable a unified institutional approach to properly identifying, recording and investigating hate crimes.
“Co-operation between law enforcement agencies is crucial to preventing and combating criminality in general, and hate crimes in particular,” says Eduart Caka, Senior Police Monitoring Officer at the OSCE Mission in Kosovo. “The monitoring networks will enhance co-operation between the agencies, which will then effectuate a better institutional response to this issue. The Mission is very happy to see that the institutions have a good understanding of what constitutes a hate crime and welcomes the fact that the recommendation by the OSCE Mission to include the topic of hate crimes in the training curricula for new police cadets has been implemented.”
The workshops also served to expand participants’ knowledge with respect to the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR’s) definition of hate crime, the specifics of hate crimes as compared to other crimes and the importance of recording these bias-motivated cases. They were also introduced to the findings and recommendations of a 2016 OSCE Mission report on improving hate crime recording, which included the recommendation to establish the monitoring networks, and were briefed on the applicable legal framework and international law provisions related to hate crime.
The OSCE Mission in Kosovo is mandated with human rights and communities rights protection and promotion, democratization and public safety sector development. It supports law enforcement agencies through advanced and specialized training courses and workshops to increase co-operation and co-ordination.