Hate Speech

Public expression that attacks, threatens or incites hatred, discrimination or violence against a person or group on the basis of a protected characteristic such as race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, sexual orientation or disability. Its legal treatment varies substantially by country: a number of jurisdictions, including Germany, whose Volksverhetzung, or incitement to hatred, provision criminalizes denying or trivializing the Holocaust and inciting hatred against a group, along with France, the United Kingdom and Canada, maintain a specific criminal hate speech offense, while the United States, under the First Amendment's protection of free expression as interpreted by the Supreme Court, most notably in its 1969 decision in Brandenburg v. Ohio, generally does not criminalize hate speech as such unless it rises to the level of a true threat or is directed at inciting imminent lawless action. International human rights instruments, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, permit a state party to prohibit advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.