CCPR/C/117/D/2124/2011 and expression.i Limiting criminal penalties to speech that incites the commission of criminal offences or acts of violence is also consistent with the positions of other human rights bodies.j 8. Such a restrictive standard for imposing criminal punishment is also appropriate. As the UN, OSCE, and OAS Special Rapporteurs have observed, “[i]n many countries, overbroad rules in this area are abused by the powerful to limit non-traditional, dissenting, critical, or minority voices, or discussion about challenging social issues”. k Hate speech and similar laws ironically are often employed to suppress the very minorities they purportedly are designed to protect. Thus, while appropriately tailored laws addressing hate speech and hate crimes have an important role, around the world today, abuse of overbroad criminal provisions to suppress speech by journalists, human rights defenders, political opponents, and other social critics is a frequent concern of this Committee. l 9. The State party in this case had a robust civil and criminal law framework in place to prohibit speech addressed by article 20(2), both through criminal prohibitions and civil remedies, and pursued a criminal prosecution against Mr. Wilders before an independent court. The authors pursued the remedy they preferred – an action civile that depended on the success of the criminal proceeding, with its heightened standard of proof and standard for criminal incitement – and did not pursue the independent avenue for civil remedies available to them. Criminal penalties are not mandated by article 20(2), and the authors had no personal entitlement under article 2(3) or any other provision of the Covenant to secure a successful criminal conviction. Under these circumstances, the authors have not demonstrated that the State party violated its obligation to “prohibit by law” the “advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence” under article 20(2) in conjunction with article 26. Nor have they demonstrated that it failed to provide them with a remedy for such violation. i j k l General Comment No. 34, para. 49 and note 116. Compare Communication No. 550/93, Faurisson v. France (Views adopted 1996), para. 9.7. See Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Recommendation 1805 (2007), Blasphemy, religious insults and hate speech against persons on grounds of their religion, para. 15 (under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, “national law should only penalise expressions about religious matters which intentionally and severely disturb public order and call for public violence.”) (emphasis added); American Convention on Human Rights, art. 13(5) (“any advocacy of national, racial, or religious hatred that constitute incitement to lawless violence or to any other similar illegal action against any person or group of persons on any grounds including those of race, color, religion, language, or national origin shall be considered as offenses punishable by law”) (emphasis added). The CERD Committee has recognized that “the criminalization of forms of racist expression should be reserved for serious cases” under CERD Article 4, that “incitement characteristically seeks to influence others to engage in certain conduct, including the commission of crime….” and that States parties should take into account, inter alia, “the intention of the speaker, and the imminent risk or likelihood that the conduct intended by the speaker will result from the speech in question”. CERD Committee, General Recommendation No. 35, Combating racist speech (2013), paras. 12, 16. Joint Declaration by UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media the OAS Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression (2006), and the ACHPR Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, https://www.article19.org/data/files/pdfs/standards/four-mandates-dec-2006.pdf. E.g., Concluding Observations on the second periodic report of Kazakhstan (2016), para. 49; Concluding Observations on the third periodic report of Kuwait (2016), para. 40; Concluding Observations on the sixth periodic report of Ecuador (2016), para. 27; Concluding Observations on the fourth periodic report of Rwanda (2016), paras. 39-40; Concluding Observations on the second periodic report of Cambodia (2015), paras. 21-22; Concluding Observations on the seventh periodic report of the Russian Federation (2015), paras. 10, 18-20. 27