Motivation of the hate speech perpetrator from the Polish and Greek perspective

Abstract

Hate speech is a crime that is a serious violation of human rights. Themotivation of the perpetrator in the commission of such an offense are certaincharacteristics of the victim of the crime or the victim’s membership in a particular group, in relation to which the perpetrator feels disinclination. Problemswith the laws protecting human rights corresponding with hate speech inPoland and Greece towards various social groups differ when considering themotivation of the perpetrator. The complexity of hate speech and problemswith the definition of it were studied. Moreover, the attention was focused onthe psychological motivation of the perpetrator. The aim of the study was thecomparison of the penalization of hate speech under Polish and Greek law inthe context of the motivation of perpetrator. It was concluded that the act ofhate speech is always dependent on the context under which it was made, andeach such act should be judged on an individual basis. It has been shown thatthe motivations of the perpetrators of hate speech offenses are closely linkedto sociological and political determinants.