A report from the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) singles out Great Britain, saying there has been a significant increase in "hate speech" over the last few years and that the government must do a better job "training" journalists.

ECRI has made 23 recommendations to make the U.K. into the politically correct paradise ECRI wants.  Among them, the press should no longer mention the word "Muslim" when identifying terrorists.

Daily Express:

In the 83-page report, the Commission said: “ECRI considers that, in light of the fact that Muslims are increasingly under the spotlight as a result of recent ISIS-related terrorist acts around the world, fuelling prejudice against Muslims shows a reckless disregard, not only for the dignity of the great majority of Muslims in the United Kingdom, but also for their safety. 

“In this context, it draws attention to a recent study by Teeside University suggesting that where the media stress the Muslim background of perpetrators of terrorist acts, and devote significant coverage to it, the violent backlash against Muslims is likely to be greater than in cases where the perpetrators’ motivation is downplayed or rejected in favour of alternative explanations.”

"Alternative explanations"?  Is that like lying?  If a terrorist attacks a crowd of people with a machete screaming "Allahu akbar," I suppose the commission would approve of the press leaving that fact out of the story, or perhaps giving an "alternative explanation" that the terrorist was just clearing his throat.

Despite the creation of the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) in 2014 as an independent regulator for newspapers and magazines, the “ECRI strongly recommends that the authorities find a way to establish an independent press regulator according to the recommendations set out in the Leveson Report. It recommends more rigorous training for journalists to ensure better compliance with ethical standards.” 

But as Britain prepares to leave the crumbling bloc, the Government waded in to defend freedom of expression. 

n a written statement to the ECRI, the Government said: “The Government is committed to a free and open press and does not interfere with what the press does and does not publish, as long as the press abides by the law.”

ECRI is a human rights body of the Council of Europe, composed of independent experts, which monitors problems of racism, xenophobia, antisemitism, intolerance and racial discrimination. 

The group writes reports on every member state every five years and says the documents are “analyses based on a great deal of information gathered from a wide variety of sources. 

Great Britain already has very strict libel laws that chill free speech and strict rules governing the publication of national security information.  But there is little chance the government will ever adopt such draconian restrictions on speech.

The problem with ECRI is its interpretation of "hate speech."  ECRI administrators appear to be saying that any speech that offends anyone is hate speech.  

But what's really chilling is that they want the government to step in and order journalists and publications to toe the line.  To do that, government would have to oversee the editing process to ensure that no "hate speech" is accidentally posted.  Imagine letting some of those ECRI creeps determine what the British people read.

Needless to say, the ECRI report should make U.K. citizens grateful they voted to leave the EU.  Let the rest of Europe deal with these pompous asses who are as big a threat to freedom as Hitler or Stalen ever was.