Hate Speech Regulation in Post-Communist Countries: Migrant Crises in the Czech and Slovak Republics

Abstract

In 2015, the migrant crises in Europe showed that countries that have less experience with immigrants are also the less welcoming. Lack of proper application of hate speech laws and common use of political hate speech in the Czech and Slovak Republics have further promoted prejudice and intolerance towards minorities. In the absence of a universal definition of hate speech, I interpret incitement to hatred in three different but complementary ways: incitement to violence; incitement to discrimination; and incitement to denial of human dignity. This generational model is also applied to interpret the Czech and Slovak case law to explore the possibilities for outlawing hate speech that targets migrants and to decide on which ‘legal goods’ a society should protect in the twenty-first century.