Below is the prepared text for the intervention read by Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, representing Bürgerbewegung Pax Europa, during the morning session at OSCE Warsaw on September 25, 2019.

Intervention by Bürgerbewegung Pax Europa

OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting
Working Session 14
Specifically selected topic: Hate Crime

Warsaw, September 25, 2019

Return to non-statist legal standards! End suppression of freedom of expression!

The introduction of the terms “hate crime” and “hate speech” can still be considered more than problematic. Firstly, the term “hate” has no legal definition, and rightly so, as it describes a feeling, a state of mind. Although feelings must never be criminalized, all indicators point in the direction that they are.

Secondly, a crime is a crime, and no qualification — be it hate crime or love or any other emotion — can change this.

As a matter of fact, the very concept of hate crime arises out of the notion of hate speech, which itself seeks the overt criminalization of expression, thereby turning free expression on its head with a goal of criminalizing thought based on how other people feel, where the feeling can be anything or nothing at all.

Pax Europa recommends:

• That OSCE participating States reconsider their commitment to fundamentally anti-democratic, purely statist legal standards that exist to suppress the freedoms of the people they presume to represent in this forum.

For links to previous articles about the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, see the OSCE Archives.