A/HRC/55/47 I. Introduction 1. In the present report, the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, Nazila Ghanea, explores the advocacy of hatred based on religion or belief. 1 The report examines the many forms such hatred takes, its differing legal implications and how it burdens members of society, individually and collectively. 2 The Special Rapporteur also considers State and civil society responses and transformative responses to counter the advocacy of hatred based on religion or belief. 2. The report draws on United Nations normative standards, prior mandate practice, scholarship, submissions provided by 24 States, 4 national human rights institutions, 1 intergovernmental organization and 49 civil society organizations, as well as input from individuals. It takes note of existing observations and guidance on the topic, in particular that contained in General Assembly resolution 77/318 and Human Rights Council resolutions 16/18, 52/6, 53/1, including statements made at the urgent debate held during the fifty-third session of the Human Rights Council.3 II. Nature of hatred and its relationship to human rights 3. Psychological harm is a form of emotional distress that can arise as a direct consequence of exposure to hate speech among members of a target group. Research indicates that exposure to such messages, for example, from multiple sources on social media, can lead to yet greater emotional distress.4 At scale, such harm represents a public health issue. Research has related perceived discrimination to “allostatic overload” and an increased risk of all-cause mortality.5 4. Hateful expressions can also directly engender dignitarian harm, where hate speech is recognized as harm to dignity, per se, in that it undermines the assurance of members of a target group of their dignity through recognition of their status as free and equal members of society.6 This draws from an egalitarian understanding of dignity, which goes beyond formal legal recognition of equality of status for marginalized groups. 5. Dignitarian harm may lead to “offence”, which, while subjectively real, differs depending on culture, nationality, religion or belief and other variances. Since people can take offence and be disgusted and shocked by a whole range of matters and situations, how are societies to respond? Proposed criteria for the application of an offence principle include: the provision of an alternative time and place for expression in a way that would not be unreasonable to the actor but would avoid causing offence to a captive audience (avoidability), noting the vitality and importance of the conduct to the actor, the nature of the locality, malice and spite; and characterizing an offence as unreasonable in cases where there are “taunting affronts”, where the expression is “flagrantly spiteful and malicious”, where it does not constitute genuine political speech or other expression that is “socially useful”, where the speech is not seeking to persuade and where alternative opportunities for expression and locality are available. The latter criterion comes with a warning that special 1 2 3 4 5 6 2 Warm appreciation is extended to Daniel Cloney for research support and to staff of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Ahmed Shaheed and Thiago Alves Pinto for feedback and comments. Direct and public incitement to commit genocide is forbidden under article III (c) of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Genocide and hate speech are pertinent to at least three (symbolization, dehumanization and polarization) of Gregory Stanton’s “Ten Stages of Genocide” (see https://www.genocidewatch.com/tenstages). The scope of the present report does not allow inclusion of this topic. Statements of 11 July 2023 by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, available at https://www.ohchr.org/en/statements-and-speeches/2023/07/turk-calls-states-combat-weaponizationreligious-differences, and by Nazila Ghanea on behalf of the Coordination Committee of Special Procedures, available at https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/issues/religion/2023-0711-HRC53-UD-religious-hatred-SR-FoRB-statement.pdf. See https://doi.org/10.1080/15213269.2019.1612760, pp. 603–624. See https://agsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jgs.18215. See https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674416864, pp. 81–89. GE.23-25950