Hate Crimes against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Persons and the Policy Response of International Governmental Organisations
| Author | Dennis van der Veur,Joke Swiebel |
| Date | 01 December 2009 |
| DOI | 10.1177/016934410902700403 |
| Published date | 01 December 2009 |
| Subject Matter | Part A: Article |
Netherlands Q uarterly of Human R ights, Vol. 27/4, 485–524, 2009.
© Netherlands I nstitute of Human Rig hts (SIM), Printed in the Net herlands. 485
HaTe CRIMes aGaInsT lesbIan, Gay,
bIseXual anD TRansGenDeR PeRsOns anD
THe POlICy ResPOnse Of InTeRnaTIOnal
GOVeRnMenTal ORGanIsaTIOns
J S and D V*
Abstract
International governmental organisations (IGOs) understand discrimination of lesbi an,
gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) indiv iduals mostly a s unequ al treatme nt in
spheres such as employment, pensions, hou sing or insurances. Hate crimes a re oen
not taken on board , though they can be regarded a s the most cruel and v iolent form of
discrimination and opp ression of minorities. is article e xplores to what extent IGOs,
that is the European Union, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe,
the Counc il of Europe , the Organi zation of American States and the United Nations
have incorporated the issue of hate crime in their policies to ght disc rimination against
LGBT persons. ese organisations var y in their respon se, but most app roaches so far
are only par tial one s. is is not only a question of a lack of political will. Sound analyses,
coherent concepts and methodolog ies and the collecting of relevant and comparable
data are also part of the equati on.
1. INTRODUCTION
During the las t two decades, raci sm and xenophobia, or more general intolerance,
violence and a ggression against mi norities, seem to have be en on the increase. Jews,
Muslims, (im)migrants and other groups are the victims of violent acts, which oen
* Joke Swiebel worked ma ny years for the Net herlands’ government as co-ordinator of international
women’s aairs. She served, inter alia, as Vice-Chair of the U N Commission on the Stat us of Women.
From 1999 to 2004 she was member of the European Parliament. Den nis van der Veur worked at t he
Oce for Democratic Instit utions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the OSCE in Warsaw. Since 2007
he is Adviser at the Oce of the Cou ncil of Europe’s Commissioner for Human R ights. e authors
would like to tha nk Christine L oudes (Belgium) and Hans Ytterberg (Sweden) for thei r thoughtful l
comments; the remaining fau lts are their ow n. All internet sites were last acce ssed on 9 November
2009.
Joke Swiebel and Den nis van der Veur
486 Intersentia
occur in a context of political turmoil, economic instabil ity and rapid social change.
Some examples: a systematic count of serious ac ts of anti-Semitic violence worldwide
shows a vefold increase between 1989 and 2008;1 the reports on the trends of violence
against Muslims ma ke also grim reading;2 and reports on the steady rise of racist and
neo-Nazi violence, for example in Russia, c annot be overlooked.3
Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) persons are no exception to this
sometimes indi scriminate aggression. Hate crimes a nd hate-motivated incidents
against LGBT persons f requently happen all over the world. Examples reporte d
over the past t hree years include: two South African lesbia n activists were murdered
in ‘maa-style’; four men narrowly escaped being lynched by a homophobic mob
in Kingston (Jamaica); the Gay Pride march in Moscow, fuelled by homophobic
language of politicians a nd religious leaders, ended in violence; a transgender woman
was murdered in Port ugal; a group of sex rig hts activists was arrested and ill-treated
in Bangalore (India); transgender human rights act ivists were murdered in Honduras
and Turkey; the premises of gay rights organisations were attacked in Budapest and
Rome and death squads persecuted a nd killed homosexuals in Iraq. 4
is enumeration is only a selection of the cases which can be found in the reports
cited and these reports are incomplete by denition. We w ill elaborate on the problem
of underreporti ng and incomplete statistics below. Not only reporting is incomplete,
studies on the magnitude and the backg round of the phenomenon of hate crimes
against LGBT persons are also scarce. e stud ies and reports ava ilable suggest that
hate crimes against LGBT persons are a serious problem. 5 Two Dutch pilot research
1 Stephen Rot h Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemiti sm and Rac ism, Tel Aviv University,
‘Antisemitism Worldwide 2008/9: General Ana lysis’, 2009, p. 5 0, available at: ww w.tau.ac.il/Anti-
Semitism/asw 2008/gen-analysis- 08.pdf. See also Human Rights First, ‘20 08 Hate Crime Survey’,
New York, 2008 p. 42: ‘Antisemit ic Violence Sti ll Rising ’, available at: www.human rightsrst.org /
discrimination/reports.aspx?s=antisemitism&p=index.
2 Human Rights First, lo c.cit. (note 1), p. 67 ; Open Society I nstitute, EU Monitori ng and Advocacy
Program, ‘Muslims in t he EU: Cit y Reports’, 2007, www.eu map.org/topics/minority/repor ts/
eumuslims/ background_ reports; Eu ropean Monitor ing Centre on Raci sm and Xenophobia, ‘e
Impact of 7 July 20 05 London Bomb Attacks on Mus lim Communities i n the EU’, November 2005,
http://fra.europa .eu/fra/materia l/pub/London/London-Bomb-at tacks-EN.pdf; Situation of Muslims
and Arab peopl es in various parts of the world, Report of the Special Rapporteur on contemporary
forms of racism, racial discri mination, xenophobia and related intolerance, Comm ission on Human
Rights, 6 6th session, UN Doc. E/CN.4/2006/17, 13 February 2 006; and McCli ntock, Michael,
Everyday Fears: A Survey of Violent Hate Crime s in Europe and North America, Human Rights Firs t,
Washington/Ne w York, 2005.
3 Kozhevnikova, G alina, R adical Nationa lism in Ru ssia in 2 008, and Eorts to Counteract It , 2009,
available at: ht tp://xeno.sova-center.ru/6BA24 68/6BB4208/CCD6D21.
4 See Human Rights First, l oc.cit. (note 1), pp. 129 ; the LGBT-part of t he Human Rights Watch
website, ww w.hrw.org/en/category/topic/lgbt-rig hts; information col lected by the Internati onal
Gay and Lesbian Human Rig hts Commis sion (IGLHRC), w ww.iglhrc.org/; and the International
Gay and Lesbian A ssociation (ILGA), ww w.ilga.org.
5 Human Rights First, Hate crimes 2007 Survey and Hate Crim e Report Card, H RF, New York, 2007;
Human Rig hts First, Minori ties under sieg e: hate crimes and intolerance in the Russian Fede ration,
Hate Crimes Aga inst Lesbian, Gay, Bisex ual and Transgender Persons
Netherlands Q uarterly of Human R ights, Vol. 27/4 (2009) 487
projects among LGBT people, initiated by t he city councils of Amsterda m and
Rotterdam showed t hat approximately 10 percent of L GBT people indicate that they
have been threatened wit h violence, whereas 3–10 percent has faced an actual v iolent
attack due to their sexual orientation.6 A recent s tudy on the per petrators of hate
crimes a gainst gay men in the Netherla nds, focusing on the motives of gay bashers,
showed that perpetrators of anti-gay violence are not so much motivated by religious
beliefs but rather by t he repulsion they feel of homosexuality in general and their
emotions and perceptions of masculinity and sexu ality in particular. Aversion to anal
sex, eeminate b ehaviour, visibilit y of homosexuality and fear to be seduced by a
homosexual are the four found bigge st drivers of anti-gay violence.7
Hate crimes again st LGBT people a re an oen violent and brutal form of
discrimi nation. However, a nti-discrimination ‘discourse’ in va rious Europea n and
international organisations has so far mostly focused on issues like unequal treatment
and dis crimination in elds suc h as employment, housing or insurance. Until
recently, hate crimes and hate-motivated act s have hardly been conceived as forms of
discrimi nation. is is the more remarkable and worrying as hate cri mes and hate-
motivated acts can be regarded as the cruellest form of discrimination and oppression
as the physical and mental integrity of an individual, oen as a member of a particular
community, is at sta ke. is art icle gives an overview of this remarkably skewed
approach followed so far by international governmental organisations, disc usses some
factors which can explain the gaps, but also points out some recent developments,
which could bring more focus on homophobic and transphobic hate cri mes.
is article proc eeds as follows. Section two explores how LGBT issue s in general
became human rights issue s and discusses the context in which this parad igm shi is
taking place. e third section discusses the concept of hate crime and how that relates
to hate speech, ex plores the various ty pes of hate crimes and how they are measured
and documented and discusses whether hate crimes are a stand-alone crime or a form
of discrimi nation. Section four rst deals wit h the role of international organisations
as gu ardians of huma n rights at large, and subsequently reviews how the European
Union (EU), t he Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), t he
Council of Europe (CoE), the Organisation of A merican States (OAS) and the United
HRF, New York, 200 6, p. 19; Jano, D ouglas Victor, Pin k Blood: homophobic v iolence in Cana da,
University of Toronto Pres s, Toronto, 200 5, p. 15; Organisat ion for S ecurity and Coope ration in
Europe (OSCE), Hate crimes in the OSCE Region: Incidents a nd Respons es. Annu al Repor t for
2006, OSCE/ODIHR , Warsaw, 2007, pp. 51–56; and OSCE, Hate crimes in the OSCE Region:
Incidents and Resp onses. Annual Rep ort for 2007, OSCE/ODIHR, Warsaw, 2008, pp. 109–118.
6 De Boom, J. and Van San, M., Gewel d tegen homos eksuelen [Violence against ho mosexuals], Ri sbo
Contractre search, Rotterdam, 2006; and Factsheet discrimin atie en homoseksua liteit [Factsheet
discrim ination and homosex uality], 2007, avai lable at: www.ar t1.nl/artikel /6914-Factsheet_
discrimi natie_en_ homoseksual iteit.
7 Buijs, L ., Hek ma, G, a nd D uyvendak, J.W., Als ze maar van me alijven: een onderz oek n aar
anithomoseks ueel geweld in Amsterdam [As long as they keep away f rom me; a researc h project on
anti-gay violence i n Amsterdam], Amsterda m University Press, Am sterdam, 2009.
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