Council of Europe Office (CoE) in Georgia, in cooperation with the CEC and the Training Centre, conducted remote working meeting on the topic: “Countering Hate Speech in Electoral Processes”

The event was open with welcome speech from Tamar Zhvania, the chairperson of the Central Election Commission and Guillaume Loiseau, the representative of Council of Europe Office’s Election and Civil Society division.

The representatives of the CEC, the Training Centre and the Supreme Election Commission (SEC) of Adjara alongside with CoE experts were actively engaged in two days long discussion. The participants discussed the following important topics: terms (definition) related to the hate speech; CoE’s legal and political instruments; challenges and good practice for Election Administration (preventing hate speech and addressing hate speech cases); CoE members states standards and good practices in countering hate speech during election campaign.

Within the meeting the participants discussed challenges before the Election Administration of Georgia and mechanisms to be implemented within its competence, in order to ensure hate speech free election environment.

Working Meeting, held on June 14-15, was organized with the support of the Council of Europe Project “Supporting Transparency, Inclusiveness and Integrity of Electoral Practice and Process in Georgia”.