1
June
2006

The right to offend and the right not to be offended - Equal Voices Issue 18

The recent months have seen a heated debate on freedom of speech and hate speech. This issue of the EUMC's Magazine Equal Voices brings together different views on the issue: NGOs, representatives of different religious communities, and media experts explain how they think hate speech can be tackled, and how freedom of speech should be applied in our societies.

From an EUMC perspective, protecting people from racist and xenophobic discourse is a basic principle of any democratic society. Hate speech even undermines free expression: hate speech and incitement are deliberately intended to cause harm to people or groups of people. That is why the EUMC strongly supports the planned EU Framework Decision on Racism and Xenophobia, which has been proposed by the European Commission. This edition of the Equal Voices coincides with a conference on the planned EU Framework Decision on Racism and Xenophobia, so this magazine shall
serve as food for thought for the discussions around the EU’s plans in this field.