joan_psmith | ILGA Europe Maps Out Countries That Legally Protect You against Homophobic Hate Crimes

First posted at eurOut.

If you've ever wondered if the country you're currently living in will protect you against homophobic hate crimes this map by ILGA Europe will come in handy. It highlights those 18 European countries that explicitly mention homophobia in their legislation against hate crimes and it provides a short summery of each country's laws against homophobia.

Reading these summaries Scotland seems to be the only country that specifically mentions transgender identities in their law.

Scotland: Article 2 of the Sentencing of Offences Aggravated by Prejudice Act: recognises bias on the grounds of sexual orientation and transgender identity as an agitating factor to be taken into account during sentencing.
ILGA Europe

What is apparent at first glance is that there's a line running down along Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium and France, to the east of which only a couple of countries (Estonia, Lithuania, Croatia, Romania and Greece) are saving the map from being completely blank.

map of homophobic hate crime legislation - ILGA Europe

I can't really answer why practically all of central Europe and most of east and south-east Europe's laws are lacking in this regard. Clearly Europe still has a long way to go.

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* You can download the map here on ILGA Europe's website: Map of homophobic and transphobic hate crime/speech legislation in Europe [0.6 MB, pdf]
* Further reading on hate crime laws: Hate crime - Subsection Eurasia (Wikipedia)