Verbal hate speech and the legitimacy of its criminal punishment

Verbal hate speech and the legitimacy of its criminal punishment Hate speech has been enjoying an elevated level of media attention in the last few years. These biased expressions of hate - most often verbal - targeted against specific groups of people are a manifestation of social antagonisms and as such, disturb public order and coexistence of people; furthermore, they are often associated with issues of prejudice, bias-motivated violence, xenophobia, discrimination, and extremism. Criminal punishment of this type of expression is already possible today and it can be reasonably expected to become increasingly important. The purpose of this thesis is a critical review concerning the legitimacy of criminal punishment of verbal hate speech in the Czech Republic, including identification of troublesome elements of the current legislation. Conclusions of this review shall stem primarily from the legal analysis of constituent elements of relevant crimes, commentary literature, jurisprudence and legal literature related to the topic. The first chapter aims to explain the central concepts - hate speech, verbal hate speech and the relationship between them. A closer look is given to the phenomenon which links these concepts together and, at the same time, constitutes an inherent part of them both: biased..