30/09/2014 Session
At the opening of the Living Library “No hate, no extremism” PACE President Anne Brasseur and the Speaker of the Norwegian parliament OlemicThommessen called on all parliaments in Europe to support the initiative to make 22 July a “European Day for the Victims of Hate Crime”.
Today, the Parliamentary Assembly has endorsed this proposal, which both stressed was a highly symbolic and meaningful decision. “We, as parliamentarians, have the responsibility to speak out against hatred,” they said. Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland also warned that the greatest danger was indifference as this could lead to extremist speech and hate speech becoming mainstream.