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BiH Coalitions against Hate preparing to protect their communities from expected rising tensions during the summer

Summary

During April the Mission organized five consultative meetings for the discussion of modalities of work in 2016 for more than 70 representatives of all Coalitions against Hate and local authorities in Sarajevo, Bihać, Tuzla, Višegrad and Doboj. This was an excellent opportunity to assess the achievements of 2015 which included the implementation of 100 activities, public condemnations of hate incidents, and the organization of the Month of Tolerance campaign. It was concluded that the data collected through the Hate Monitor represents a useful base for planning preventive activities. The data shows that the number of bias-motivated incidents increases over the summer period and during pre-election campaigns, and that the number of reported incidents by Roma and LGBT communities remains very low. Therefore, the Coalitions agreed that they would intensify co-operation and plan preventive activities together, to protect their communities from incidents in the upcoming months (local elections will be held in October). Furthermore, participants deemed it necessary to increase outreach to certain groups in order to encourage the reporting of incidents.