The Council of Europe has identified deficiencies in the statistical recording of hate crimes in Germany.
A report published by the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) said that the German police relied on an "excessively restrictive definition of hate crimes" when registering them.
That is why "it was not surprising" that in Germany there were "considerable differences" between the official census of hate crimes and the figures presented by non-governmental organizations, the report elaborated.
Usually, the figures given by German authorities are much lower than the actual number of xenophobic acts. Hate crimes involve acts in which the skin color, religion, sexual orientation or origin of the victim play a role in the perpetrator's motivation.
ECRI experts recommended a very broad interpretation for hate crimes in Germany. According to the report, an act should be immediately registered as a hate crime when the victim perceives it in this way.
The current police procedures in Germany, however, do not focus on the victim's perception, but on the motivation of the perpetrator. An offense is only recorded as a hate crime when the perpetrator acts with xenophobic, homophobic or transphobic intent.
The authors of the report also criticized the fact that German judicial authorities did not statistically break down hate crime cases. Because of this, it would not be possible to name the number of accusations and convictions in cases of racist, homophobic or transphobic acts.
However, ECRI's anti-racism experts also point out that German courts were able give perpetrators with "racist, xenophobic or other inhumane" motives aggravated sentences thanks to the German Criminal Code, which was revised in 2015.
