Hate speech against refugees and migrants in the EU: legal perspectives, institutional responses, and inclusion/integration implications

Abstract

Hate speech against migrants and refugees is an ongoing phenomenon in the European area. In a time that the global communities are faced with major social, political, humanitarian and even health crisis the issue of managing to peacefully coexist in a shared social context with various cultures seems extremely important. Hate speech then creates various barriers to this objective. After the refugee crisis of 2015 in Europe the portrayal of migrants and refugees changed in a negative manner. In this context this study explores how the European Union answers to xenophobic and racist rhetoric against migrants and refugees through means of legal responses and policy recommendation. Moreover the research explores the manifestations of hate speech in the online world and in political discourse by examining both institutional and legal responses by the EU and Member States and the construction of hate speech against migrants and refugees from a communications and discourse analysis perspective. By adopting a multidisciplinary approach, the research analyzes the applicable legal framework in the EU, and the gaps that are created to the protection of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers from hate speech, through the lack of common and harmonized implementation of the legal obligations by Member States and the inability of today’s European societies to combat harmful speech. In this context the research highlights the impact of hate speech on integration of migrants and refugees and the impact on the society as a whole and calls for better applications of the law complemented by policies that include the society and community engagement for a holistic approach on combating all manifestations of hate speech against migrants and refugees.