The training for the police officers in Bihać: Hate crime – a topic avoided in practice

As a part of the project „Fighting Hate Crime in BiH“, financed by the Permanent Mission of the Kingdom of The Netherlands to the OSCE in Vienna and implemented by Sarajevo Open Centre in partnership with OSCE Mission in BiH, a training was held for police officers of Unsko-sanski Canton on bias motivated crimes and prejudice as a motive of these crimes.

The training took place on the 15th September in Bihać. The aim of the training was to introduce the participants to the theory and the experiences related to the bias motivated crimes in the context of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which most frequently affects Roma, LGBT people, returnees’ community, religious and sacral property.

During the training, the police officers had a chance to listen and to be actively involved in the training, through the theoretical lectures about the legislative framework of Bosnia and Herzegovina, about the practical examples, bias motivated crimes, and about the modalities of the successful processing of this kind of crimes.

During the training, the inspectors emphasized that there are returnees among them as well, and that the adequate understanding of this subject contributes to a better prevention of this kind of criminal offence. Also, the participants emphasized that the training contributed to better understanding of the issues it brings, but also that it is a subject that wasn’t spoken about and avoided to talk about in the practice.

At the end of the day, the participants emphasized that in the future they will approach the investigative actions and collecting evidence for this kind of crimes more substantially.

They have also emphasized the importance of such education for judiciary.

There were 30 participants – Ministry of Internal Affairs’s inspectors of the Unsko-sanski Canton present at the training.