A/HRC/48/77 the perception of discrimination in 2020, the adoption of the action plan to combat hate crimes, and the publication of annual reports on hate crime. Sweden 96. The Government of Sweden reported that violent far-right extremism was a growing concern. According to the Swedish Security Service, the existence of a xenophobic and radical nationalist flow of ideas had increased in the society, especially on the Internet. 97. Sweden had adopted, in 2016, a national plan to combat racism, similar forms of hostility and hate crime. The national plan was a tool for preventing and combating racism and polarization in society. In it, the Government had stressed the importance of working on a broad front against racism, similar forms of hostility and hate crime while maintaining a focus on particular forms of racism, such as Afrophobia, anti-Gypsyism, antisemitism, Islamophobia and racism against the Sami peoples. Since 2020, Sweden had been strengthening the national plan, including by allocating adequate resources for its implementation. New measures would be implemented within the framework of the five strategic areas of the national plan: dissemination of knowledge, educational programmes and research; improved coordination and monitoring; greater support to civil society and more in-depth dialogue; strengthened preventive measures online; and a more active legal system. 98. The National Council for Crime Prevention had conducted an in-depth study of antisemitic hate crime and had found that antisemitism was present in broad layers of the population. The Council was currently conducting equivalent studies on hate crime rooted in Islamophobia and Afrophobia. A national centre for preventing violent extremism had been established under the auspices of the National Council for Crime Prevention. 99. At the end of 2020, the Ombudsman for Children had been in the process of compiling information about children and young people’s vulnerability to different forms of racism, including antisemitism. The main purpose was to understand the different manifestations of racism against children and young people and how racism could affect their lives, in order to adopt measures to address those issues. 100. In 2019, Sweden had appointed an all-party committee to consider the introduction of specific criminal liability for participation in a racist organization and a ban on racist organizations. The committee was to submit its report in April 2021. III. Summary of submissions from intergovernmental organizations and civil society organizations European Union 101. The European Union highlighted that the COVID-19 crisis had exacerbated certain forms of discrimination and intolerance, including an increase in hateful conspiracies scapegoating minorities for being responsible of the spread of the virus. The European Union stressed the need to pay particular attention to the way intolerance and racism proliferated online and how social media platforms were misused to propagate hateful messages. Muslims and migrants, as well as other groups, including Jews, were often the groups most exposed to hate speech online. The results of monitoring exercises on the implementation of the code of conduct on countering hate speech online showed that anti-Muslim hatred, jointly with xenophobic hatred against refugees and migrants, were often among the most widespread grounds of intolerance. 102. The code of conduct on countering online hate speech, signed in 2016 with major social media companies, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and, most recently, TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat, had quickly achieved progress in identifying and taking action against hate speech. 103. The European Commission had presented the European Union anti-racism action plan for 2020–2025 on 18 September 2020, aimed at stepping up action and building a truly anti- 16