Minority vilification: Redress for community members
Balancing the right to be free from hate speech with a right to… hate speech?
By Margarita Ilieva
On 16 February 2021, the European Court of Human Rights (Court) delivered landmark judgments against Bulgaria regarding ethnic minority berating: Behar and Gutman; Budinova and Chaprazov. The domestic courts had failed in their positive duties to afford minority members redress for anti-Roma/anti-Semitic speech attacking their communities. This blog summarises the cases’ backgrounds, the Court’s judgments, and their significance as precedence, and includes two points of criticism and caution as well.[1]
More...