Ethnic, religious and sexual minorities in Romania are the main targets of hate speech in Romania, a recent study found.

The Roma minority, the Jewish community, the Hungarian minority, and the gay community are most affected by the hate speech in Romania, but so are atheists, the study by the Foundation for the Development of the Civic Society recently found.

The study, part of the NGO Fund program, was financed by Norway grants. The sociologists who conducted the study in 2013 found that most of the hate speech is in fact disguised as discrimination, with one of the major challenges being a lack of a universally accepted definition for hate speech. This is what made it difficult to collect data about hate speech, and create mechanisms against it.

Freedom of speech is another issue raised by the authors of the study, who say many statements that are in fact hate speech frequently fall into the speech freedom category, and cannot be properly punished.

The full study is here, in pdf version, in Romanian.

editor@romania-insider.com