The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) today issued its findings on Denmark and four other countries that it reviewed during its latest session.
The findings contain positive aspects of each country’s implementation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, as well as the Committee’s main concerns and recommendations. Some of the key highlights on Denmark include:
Hate crime underreported
The Committee was concerned about the extent of underreporting and the lack of comprehensive data on hate crimes and hate speech incidents in Denmark. It recommended that the State party raise the awareness of what constitutes hate crimes and which forms of hate speech are punishable under criminal law. It requested the authorities to set up a data collection system in which racist hate crimes and hate speech incidents are registered separately with disaggregated data, including offence category, type of motivation, target group, and judicial follow-up.
Aliens act
Concerning the recent amendment to the Danish Aliens Act that allows the transfer of asylum seekers to a third country outside of the European Union, the Committee reminded Denmark of its obligation under relevant international law regarding the protection of asylum seekers.
It also called on the State party to revisit its evaluation of designating Damascus and Rif Damascus as safe zones to return people whose temporary protection status has been revoked or whose request for extension of temporary protection status has been denied.
The above Concluding Observations of the Committee are now available online on the session webpage.
Background
The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination monitors States parties’ adherence to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which, to date has 182 States parties. The Committee is made up of 18 members who are independent human rights experts drawn from around the world, who serve in their personal capacity and not as representatives of States parties.
Learn more with our animations on the Treaty Body system and on the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination
