Quality data essential to countering hate crime and intolerance against Muslims, say Austrian civil society participants in OSCE/ODIHR training

Enhancing the capacity of Austrian civil society groups working on intolerance against Muslims to monitor, report and respond to hate crimes was the focus of training organized by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) on 15 and 16 November in Vienna.

“Good qualitative and quantitative data on anti-Muslim hate crimes and incidents is necessary for the development of effective policies. Organizations and institutions representing Muslims need to have the tools that make this possible,” said Dermana Seta, ODIHR Adviser on Combating Intolerance and Discrimination against Muslims. “Through co-ordinated work, these groups can monitor and report the data and incidents, and have their say in the development of evidence based policies. We are pleased to be here and to help facilitate this process.”

ODIHR’s reporting demonstrates that hate crimes motivated by bias against Muslims remain under-reported. This training was designed to help overcome this challenge and was organized at the request of the Islamic Religious Authority of Austria (IGGiÖ) and the Documentation Centre for Muslims (Dokustelle für Muslime).

Participants also learned from the experience of “Tell MAMA”, the largest programme working on anti-Muslim hate crime in the United Kingdom.