Hate-motivated acts are referred to in the Criminal Code as hate crimes and are defined in Article 87(21) as criminal offences committed on the basis of the racial background, skin colour, religion, national or ethnic origin, language, disability, sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity of another person. These are acts motivated by prejudice against certain social groups.
However, these are criminal offences whose victims are not only individuals but also the communities or groups to which the victims belong and with whom they share certain characteristics: race, skin colour, religion, national or ethnic origin, language, disability, sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity. Such acts are intended to send a message about the undesirability or inferiority of the social group against which the crime is directed. For this reason, hate crimes are also referred to as signal crimes or message crimes, and the fact that such an act was committed out of hatred constitutes an aggravating circumstance when sentencing for that act.
The presence of such acts points to unresolved problems of intolerance in society, as physical violence is often only the tip of the iceberg — beneath it lie discrimination and hate speech, which pave the way for violence and hatred, and which facilitate, justify, or call for it.
However, not every act of violence committed on the basis of the above characteristics constitutes a hate crime in the criminal law sense. There are also offences under other laws that are connected to a motive of hatred. The correct classification of an act is the task of the competent institutions — the police, the prosecutor's office, and the courts.