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EN Standup News Projects

European hate-crime battling project STAND-UP put an end with a seminar in Brussels

Brussels, 11 January 2024.- The closure event of the European STAND-UP project, the seminar “Stand Together Against Hate: A Multi-Agency Initiative”, has taken place this Thursday in the Residence Palace, Brussels, with the intervention of experts on hate speech crime, and the handout of the Victim Support Handbook as an efficient tool to hate monitoring and reporting. The morning session also included the presentation of the EU policy recommendations on supporting multi-agency cooperation in countering hate crime, making a special mention of the use of technologies for this purpose.

The seminar presented the results of various training programmes in different countries included in the project, creating an environment for in-depth discussions and exchanges. Experts such as Menno Ettema, Magdalena Adamowicz, Nataša Vučković, Akis Karatrandos will spoke on the topic of hate speech crime.

The six European project’s partners – National Commission for Human Rights (Greece), Euro-Arab Foundation (Spain), European Public Law Organization (Greece), Agenfor International Foundation (Italy), and European Association for Local Democracy (France), under the coordination of the Public Prosecutor’s Office at the Ordinary Court of Trento (Italy) –  have shared the afternoon session’s panels on interagency cooperation to tackle hate crimes and hate speech, as well as local pilot success stories and results developed in Veneto, Athens, Andalusia and Trentino-Alto Adige.

The STAND-UP project, co-funded with 748,780.66 euros by the European Commission Directorate General for Justice and Consumers, has taken place from January 2022 and January 2024 and it has focused on public authorities and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs)’ responsibilities and relationships with victims. It has enhanced multi-agency cooperation by establishing harmonized definitions of hate crime, embedded within a blueprint framework for cooperation, and it standardizes reporting procedures through the co-design and validation of reporting forms for law enforcement agencies, and CSOs/NGOs. STAND-UP has deepened the relevant actors’ point of view of hate speech and hate crime, including the sentiments behind them on a local level.

Project’s web page.

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EN Standup News

«Stand Together Against Hate: A Multi-Agency Initiative»

On January 2024, the EU STAND UP project final meeting will be held in Brussels. Registration is open.

On Thursday 11 January 2024, the seminar “Stand Together Against Hate: A Multi-Agency Initiative” will take place in Brussels, at the Residence Palace, as part of the European project STAND-UP, an initiative to combat hate crime in the European Union.

This event, organised by STAND-UP project, will bring together organisations and experts in the field, with the aim of preventing and combating hate crime through the cooperation of law enforcement agencies and organisations working on these issues.

The seminar will present the results of various training programmes in different countries included in the project, creating an environment for in-depth discussions and exchanges. Experts such as Menno Ettema, Magdalena Adamowicz, Nataša Vučković, Akis Karatrandos will speak on the topic of hate speech crime. 

The Victim Support Handbook, developed within the framework of STAND UP activities in collaboration with public authorities and NGOs and CSOs, will also be presented in order to empower people affected by hate crimes.

The afternoon session is dedicated to a panel debate led by EPLO, GNCHR, TNDJUPOL, AGENFOR and FUNDEA.

In addition, the Greek National Commission for Human Rights (GNCHR) will present a policy paper outlining effective strategies and policies to combat hate crimes in the European Union.

Link to register for the seminar:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe7Yi1RkCc_OYIchUt_AcPFay9JZgP3lsKfsEFyay9i4gdYMg/viewform

The main objective of the STAND-UP project is to improve inter-agency cooperation in the fight against hate crime through the design, development and implementation of a new inter-agency model led by public authorities.

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EN Standup News Projects

The Euro-Arab Foundation holds a specialised course on hate crimes and hate speech in the framework of the European Stand-Up project

The project “STAND-UP: Standing up against hate in the EU” held on 26 September at the headquarters of the Euro-Arab Foundation in Granada a specialised training for professionals on hate crimes and hate speech, with the participation of experts from different fields in four thematic blocks: “The phenomenon of hate and under-reporting: a victim-centred approach”; “Narratives of hate in digital contexts”; “Alternative narratives from civil society”; and “Tools for social transformation”.

The course was attended by professionals from the fields of education and social work, psychology, community mediation, research and the National Police Force, and with the participation of different entities such as CEAR, Save The Children, CEPAIM Foundation, Asociación Marroquí and Granada Acoge, among many others.

The director of the Euro-Arab Foundation’s European Projects, Javier Ruipérez Canales, welcomed the participants and opened the training, which began with a presentation by the director of the Instituto Confucio of the University of Granada, Isabel María Balsas Ureña, and her co-director, Bu Shan, on the role of the Institute and the activities they carry out to raise awareness of Chinese culture in society.

The researcher and project technician of the Euro-Arab Foundation, Lucía G. del Moral, was in charge of moderating the day, giving way to the first block on the phenomenon of hatred and under-reporting with a victim-centred approach, and to the first speaker, Ismael Cortés, Member of Congress in the 14th legislature, and his conference on access to justice and the different initiatives to tackle hate crimes from a multi-stakeholder and multi-level approach.

She was followed by María Pina and Marina Dólera from Columbares with the presentation of the project “Está en tu mano” (It’s in your hand) and a wealth of data and analysis to understand in depth the current situation regarding hate crimes. The third presentation of the block was given by Bárbara Pérez Serrano, health psychologist, expert in gender violence and coordinator of FUNCOP (Foundation for the Training and Practice of Psychology), who explained the group psychological care services for women victims of gender violence that exist in Andalusia, and how the processes of reporting and the causes of under-reporting are.

Agenda of the closed event for STAND-UP professionals

The theme of the second block was the narratives of hate in digital contexts. Carmen Aguilera Carnenero, PhD from the University of Granada, shared her analysis of the power of dissemination of Islamophobic hate speech through memes. Next, researchers from the Euro-Arab Foundation José Luis Salido and Lucía G. del Moral explained the monitoring of hate they carried out in the framework of the STAND-UP project on the extreme right on 20-N and Islamophobia in social networks during the World Cup in Qatar.

The third block dealt with the alternative narratives proposed by civil society. Vanesa Martín, head of projects and new narratives at Fundación Por Causa, explained how they generate new narrative frameworks on migrations that connect with audiences and change public debate. Javier Vaquero, artist and LGTBI+ activist, presented ‘La Intersección’, a research and digital strategy team dedicated to creating collective narratives and tools to stop hate on social networks.

The last block was dedicated to tools for social transformation. Óscar Negredo, coordinator of the Community Mediation service of the Llobregat City Council of Hospitalet, where they apply multi-agency strategies for the prevention of violent extremism, creating spaces to promote understanding between groups and communities, took part in it. The National Police Inspector and Delegate for Citizen Participation of the Granada Provincial Police Station, María José Ramírez Campos, also spoke, explaining the promotion and awareness-raising work carried out by this specialised unit to prevent hate crimes. The last presentation was given by Jero Varas, project technician of the Melilla Acoge Association, on the project ‘OWO: Defending the space of coexistence’ focused on the prevention of attitudes and behaviours that encourage hate speech and hate crimes.

El investigador Daniel F. Pérez y Sani M. Ladan, autor de ‘La Luna está en Duala’.

The day ended with the presentation of the book ‘The Moon is in Douala: And my destiny in knowledge’, in the form of a dialogue between its author Sani M. Ladan and Daniel F. Pérez, researcher at the Euro-Arab Foundation. During the conversation, they highlighted the prejudices and ignorance of European society about migratory phenomena, the lack of human quality that can be found in reception centres, the importance of having racialised references, the lack of protection of migrant children who are often used as a political tool, and the pan-African identity, among other interesting reflections.

This training takes place within the European STAND-UP project, the main objective of which is to improve inter-agency cooperation in the fight against hate crime through the design, development and implementation of a new inter-agency model led by public authorities.

STAND-UP project is co-funded by the European Commission Directorate General for Justice and Consumers. More information on the STAND-UP website and its activities on LinkedIn.

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EN Standup News Projects

The Euro-Arab Foundation holds STAND-UP training courses at communication and journalism universities

The first phase of this training has focused on future professionals in this sector, with sessions given last week on 15 and 16 May at the Faculty of Communication Sciences of the University of Malaga (UMA) for students of Citizen Journalism and Social Networks of the Journalism Degree, and for students of Audiovisual Programming and Audience Analysis of the Audiovisual Communication Degree at the University of Granada (UGR).

The training package, developed by the Euro-Arab Foundation researchers Lucía García del Moral, José Luis Salido Medina and Daniel Pérez García, focused on three specific blocks: presentation of the results of the monitoring they have carried out in two fields, Islamophobia and extreme right-wing hate speeches, and a third block on alternative narratives as a response to hate speeches from a holistic perspective.

The Euro-Arab Foundation, a member of the STAND-UP consortium and responsible for its Communication package, has initiated this training as it understands that the media are a fundamental element in the chain of information and education of citizens because, according to the European Code of Ethics in Journalism, approved in 1993 by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, “the media assume an ethical responsibility towards citizens and society that is necessary to remember at the present time, when information and communication are of great importance for the development of citizens’ personalities as well as for the evolution of society and democratic life“.

One of the training sessions given at the University of Malaga

The main objective of the STAND-UP project is to improve inter-agency cooperation in the fight against hate crime through the design, development and implementation of a new inter-agency model led by public authorities. Among the different actions developed by this project, funded by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers, is the design and implementation of training for civil society organisations, law enforcement agencies, prosecutors and judges on how to report, investigate, prosecute and prevent hate crime and discrimination.

The model developed by the STAND UP project, which involves institutions from four European countries: Spain, France, Greece and Italy, includes technological tools to improve the reporting, investigation, prosecution and prevention of hate speech and hate crime, as well as the exchange of data between different agencies; an established definition of hate crime; standardised templates for reporting hate crime (for law enforcement and civil society organisations) and an inter-institutional manual for victim support.

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EN Standup Intercepted News Projects

The Euro-Arab Foundation strengthens its commitment against Human Trafficking with the INTERCEPTED project

The new european project INTERCEPTED held its kick-off meeting on April 27 in Trieste, Italy, where consortium partners presented the project, which aims to disrupt the digital business model of human traffickers by enhancing the capabilities of law enforcement and judicial authorities.

At the inaugural meeting the partners presented the different work packages of the project, in which the Euro-Arab Foundation is leading the Communication and Dissemination work package. The INTERCEPTED consortium is led by the Prosecutor Office of Trieste, Italy (TSJudPol) and is composed by the Hellenic Police of Greece (HP), the German Police Academy (HfÖV), the Euro-Arab Foundation of Granada, Spain, the KEMEA Center for Security Studies in Greece and the foundation Agenfor International of Italy.

To disrupt human trafficking, INTERCEPTED focuses particularly on two key points: the recruitment and advertisement that exist on the Internet and the different strategies used by traffickers, according to the diverse types of exploitation and victim profiles. In order to achieve this goal, INTERCEPTED aims to:

  1. Elicit variation in the way the internet is used along the trafficking chain according to target victims’ profiles and types of exploitation.
  2. Design an early interception tool specifically targeting the recruitment of victims and advertisement of services.
  3. Enhance the capabilities of LEAs and Judiciary in public-private cooperation through the planning of OSINT Targeted counter-THB Campaigns.
  4. Establish a common European mechanism for the detection and reporting of suspected online recruitment or advertisement material, fostering strengthened multi-agency cooperation and rapid cross-border responses and ensuring successful use of digital evidence in court.
  5. Strengthen the digital capacities and knowledge base of law enforcement.

INTERCEPTED is conceived as an evolution of the UNCHAINED and BIGOSINT projects, which share the objective of disrupting the online business of Human Trafficking, and also draws on the results and synergies obtained from the MIRROR and PERCEPTIONS projects, in which some of the partners have coincided and collaborated.

The INTERCEPTED project is co-financed by the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF), the Internal Security Fund (ISF) and the Border Management and Visa Instrument (BMVI) of the European Union.

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EN Standup News Projects

The project “Stand-Up: fighting against hate crimes in the EU” is holding 4 online seminars in February

In the framework of the project “Stand-Up: fighting against hate crimes in the EU”, they are going to celebrate 4 webinars: 3 national webinars held in Greek, Italian and Spanish, developed by the partners Euroarab Foundation (FUNDEA) from Spain; Fondazione Agenfor Internacional from Italy, and the European Public Law Organization (EPLO) along with the Greek National Comission for Human Rights from Greece. In addition, a fourth webinar will also be held at an pan-european level. The topic of these seminars are about the use of technological tools to monitor hate speech, identifying hateful feelings, areas of intervention, groups at risk and hate narratives on social networks.

The main objective of these seminars is to establish a comprehensive and holistic framework in the fight against hate crimes and hate speech based on the RIPP model (complaint-investigation-prosecution-prevention) from a victim-centered approach. Within the seminars, technological tools as OSINT (Open-Source Intelligence) and FALKOR platform will be presented and the results of monitoring hate speech in every research field.

Pan-european webinar invitation

The pan-european webinar is about “Tackling and monitoring hate phenomena in Europe: right-wing extremism, islamophobia and antisemitism” and it will be held on 22 february. The seminar will be initiated by Viviana Gullo presenting STAND-UP and the preventive and investigative model to tackle the hate phenomena; Yuval Sanders and Lior Mordechai will address the technologies OSINT and Falkor supporting the model. As more, regional OSINT reports will be presented by Katerina Charokopou, Thanassis Dimopoulos, Fabio Frettoli, Lucía García del Moral and Viviana Gullo. Finally, Sergio Bianchi will raise a debate and future opportunities.

Spanish webinar invitation

As for the national online events, the Spanish webinar by FUNDEA, “Narratives and right-wing hate speech and Islamophobia in Spain”, Lucía García del Moral will present the project STAND-UP. As in the Italian seminar, it will also participate Yuval Sanders and Lior Mordechain presenting the tools for hate speech monitoring online OSINT and FALKOR. Finally, Lucía García del Moral and Jose Luis Salido will explain two case studies from Spain: “Islamophobia in social networks: the World Cup in Qatar” and “Narratives of the extreme right: monitoring 20-N and 25-N dates”. The inscription is done by this form.

Italian webinar invitation

The Italian webinar managed by AGENFOR will talk about “Contrast and tracking of hate phenomena in Italy: Veneto Front Skinheads and anti-semitic climate” and it will be on 14 february. The speakers, as the pan-european webinar, will be Viviana Gullo; Yuval Sanders and Lior Mordechain; Fabio Frettoli and Sergio Bianchi, exposing the topics mentioned in the pan-european event. The inscription is done by this form.

About the Greek seminar, EPLO together with the Greek National Comission for Human Rights will celebrate on 15 february the webinar “Confronting Hate Crimes & Hate Speech through OSINT” with Professor Vasilki Artinopoulou, scientific coordinator of the project.

Greek webinar invitation

STAND-UP has as its main objective to improve cooperation between different organizations in the fight against hate crimes through the design, development and implementation of a new inter-institutional model.

This project is financed by the General Directorate of Justice and Consumers of the European Commission and the consortium is formed by the Euro-Arab Foundation of Higher Studies (Spain), Procura della Repubblica di Trento (Italy), The prosecution office of Venice (Italy), Fondazione Agenfor International (Italy), European Public Law Organization (EPLO), Greek National Commision for Human Rights (GNCHR), Association Des Agences de la Démocratie Locale (ALDA) in France.

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EN Standup News

The European Parliament will host the STAND UP seminar ‘Against Hate Crimes’

This week, 28-29 September, the seminar organised by the European project STAND UP – Fighting Hate in the EU takes place in the European Parliament (Brussels). The aim of this event is to find a common European definition of “hate crime” and to analyse measures that can counter this hate speech.

The seminar will also provide an overview of the results of the focus groups developed by the STAND UP project on hate crime and hate speech in Greece, Italy and Spain, as well as a proposal for standardised reporting procedures, including the use of technology to report, investigate, prosecute and prevent (RIPP) hate speech and hate crime in the framework of multi-agency cooperation and the highest level victim assistance model.

To this end, the seminar at the European Parliament will bring together experts from the legal, law enforcement, CSO (civil society organisations), NGO and policy-making fields from different European countries.

  • Wednesday 28th: “Defining Hate Crimes: Towards a common European definition”
  • Thursday 29th: “Reporting Hate Crime: Cooperation between Law Enforcement Authorities (LEAS) and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs)”.

STAND UP

Discrimination, intolerance and hatred are still present in European societies, often leading to serious and violent crimes.

These practices and sentiments are to a large extent causes of wider social tensions and have lasting repercussions on victims, their families and our societies. However, there are shortcomings at European level in the handling of hate crimes and discrimination towards individuals or communities on grounds of gender, race, sexuality or other aspects, as well as in the response given by public authorities in European countries.

The STAND-UP project aims to improve inter-agency cooperation in the fight against hate crime through the design, development and implementation of a new inter-agency model led by public authorities.

The model developed by STAND-UP comprises technological tools to improve the monitoring of hate speech and hate crime, as well as the exchange of data between different agencies; an established definition of hate crime; hate crime reporting templates (for law enforcement and CSOs); inter-agency manuals for victim support.

STAND-UP, financed by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers, is coordinated by the Procura della Repubblica presso il Tribunale Ordinario di Trento -Italy,and counts in its consortium with the National Commission for Human Rights- Ethniki Epitropi gia ta Dikaiomata tou Anthropou – GreeceFundación Euroárabe de Altos Estudios -Spain ; European Public Law Organization – GreeceFondazione Agenfor International – Italy Association des Agences de la Democratie Local – France

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EN Bigosint EN Standup News

Virtual reality sessions and coordination of the BIGOSINT and STAND-UP European projects at the Euro-Arab

An important work agenda begins this morning at the headquarters of the Euro-Arab Foundation today and tomorrow, May 10 and 11, developed by the consortium of two European projects in which the Euro-Arab participates, the BIGOSINT project and STAND -UP.

The objective of this conference is to work on the training and coordination of the pilot tests that will be carried out, sharing the tools and platforms of these two projects financed by the European Commission, the BIGOSINT project, whose objective is to counteract Trafficking in Human Beings through the analysis of Big Data and Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) and the STAND-UP project that focuses its work on the fight against hate in the European Union.

In this sense, training in Virtual Reality will be held tomorrow in Granada. With it, it will be possible to support the understanding of the training methodology that both projects will apply in a later phase. This, in turn, will allow them to contribute to the development of the training content and its implementation in a more meaningful way.

This joint activity is expected to open the way to new collaborations with other projects financed by the European Union, those that share a similar research approach and training methodologies, as well as beneficiaries and the use of open source intelligence.

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EN Standup News

The Euro-Arab Foundation reaffirms its commitment to the fight against hate, intolerance and discrimination with the STAND-UP project

The Euro-Arab Foundation is committed to fighting against hate, intolerance and discrimination by integrating the European consortium of the STAND-UP project, co-funded by the European Commission Directorate General for Justice and Consumers. These practices and feelings often lead to committing serious and violent crimes and are largely causes of broader social tensions and have long-lasting repercussions on victims, their families and on our societies. However, there are deficiencies at the European level in the management of hate crimes and discrimination against people or communities based on gender, race, sexuality or other aspects, as well as in the response given by the public authorities of European countries.

The partners of the STAND-UP project meet today from Italy, Spain, Greece and France for the first time, starting the project that will be developed over the next two years.

The STAND-UP Project’s main objective is to improve cooperation between different organizations in the fight against hate crimes through the design, development and implementation of a new inter-institutional model led by public authorities. To achieve this objective, STAND-UP proposes:

1. Establish common definitions of hate crime, integrated into a framework for cooperation;

2. Standardize reporting procedures;

3. Deepening understanding of the phenomena of hate speech and crimes, including the feelings behind them;

4. Strengthen support for victims;

5. Design and implement training for CSOs, LEAs, prosecutors and judges on how to report, investigate, prosecute and prevent hate crimes and discrimination.

The model developed by STAND-UP will include technological tools that make it possible to improve the monitoring of hate crimes and speeches, as well as the exchange of data between the different organizations; an established definition of hate crimes; two models for reporting hate crimes (for law enforcement agencies and CSOs) and an inter-agency manual for victim support. STAND-UP will make use of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) techniques and tools in such a way that public authorities and Civil Society organizations can identify areas of intervention, groups at risk and the weight of the feelings of hatred expressed. via Internet.

Within the framework of the project, training will be carried out for relevant actors, CSOs, LEAs, prosecutors and judges, so that they can implement the tools and mechanisms developed within the framework of the project with the support of Virtual Reality.

The Foundation will be in charge of the dissemination and communication of STAND-UP in order to publicize the project and its results, seek the sustainability, exploitation and transferability of the products, contributing to raising awareness of hate crimes.

Project coordinator:

Procura della Repubblica presso il Tribunale Ordinario di Trento – Italy 

Partners:

National Commission for Human Rights – Ethniki Epitropi gia ta Dikaiomata tou Anthropou – Greece
Fundación Euroárabe de Altos Estudios – Spain
European Public Law Organization – Greece
Fondazione Agenfor International – Italy
Association des Agences de la Democratie Locale – France