Hate Crime: Violence and offences motivated by racism, xenophobia, religious intolerance, or by bias against a person’s disability, sexual orientation or gender identity.
Countries across Europe have also experienced an increased rate of hate crimes over the past several years. Between 2014 and 2015, Germany reported a 77 percent increase in hate crimes. Amnesty International reported that incidents of race-based violence are at an all-time high since World War II in Germany. Statistics collected by Germany’s Interior Ministry show that asylum shelters were attacked 1,031 times in 2015, a drastic increase from 199 attacks in 2014 and sixty-nine attacks in 2013. In Spain, the Spanish Federation of Islamic Religious Entities reported religious-based, anti-Islam attacks increased from forty-eight in 2014, to 534 in 2015. Additionally, Spain’s Interior Ministry published statistics for 2015 reporting hundreds of hate crimes based on disability, ideology, and sexual orientation.
