The State Election Commissioner Mr. Ilirjan Celibashi and the Commissioner for Protection against Discrimination, Mr. Robert Gajda signed together joint recommendations for the prevention of hate speech during 2021 election campaign.
The Central Election Commission and the Commissioner for Protection Against Discrimination recommend that political parties, the candidates and the people who work for them, should refuse to use or support a language that might be considered as hate speech.
The Electoral Subjects should refuse to use a discriminatory language or propose discriminatory policies or laws.
It is recommended that political parties, candidates or people who work for them, should address with accountability and fairness the sensitive topics on the protected groups with common and personal characteristics, in order to avoid their stigmatization.
In addition, the political parties should take into consideration the implementation of practices and policies that achieve a representation in their election lists that reflects diversity in society, at all levels, even if there is no explicit legal requirement to do it.
The Central Election Commissioner and the Commissioner for Protection against Discrimination call for the cooperation of media in order to support the fight against the use of hate speech or discriminatory language by political parties or candidates.
