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4 Activities of Non-governmental Organizations
In the following we will present the results of our study with respect to activities of NGOs operating in the field of monitoring right-wing violence and offering assistance to victims of hate crimes in Poland and Germany. As will be shown, the approaches of both research teams had to be slightly adjusted to the particular situation of non-governmental organizations in each country. While some parts of the NGO sector in Germany active in countering right-wing extremism, racism, homophobia and discrimination have gone through a process of professionalization and specialization over the past decade, often due to new government and state programs and funding opportunities, the Polish government and other institutions have made little effort to support activities in this field, leaving NGOs in Poland with fewer resources to develop monitoring strategies and specific support programs for victims of hate crimes.
Because of differences in the funding and NGO structures, the researchers agreed that it was reasonable to broaden the scope of the study for the Polish part of the study. The Polish team contacted and interviewed organizations and groups that had not yet been involved in such programs but that would have an interest and expertise in right-wing activities and hate crimes in Poland. They are involved either because they represent the interests of particular minority communities as welfare or human rights organizations, or they have regular contacts with potential victim groups such as refugees or the Roma community. Since one of the objectives of this study was to determine which organizations could benefit from transnational cooperation in the field of hate crime victim support, an important first step consisted of learning about the general perspectives and assessments of various NGOs and the issues at stake for them: did these groups recognize right-wing violence and hate crimes in Poland as a significant social and political problem; have members of their communities been affected by discrimination and attacks; and if so, to what extent and how have the groups and community networks dealt with these incidents and experiences of harassment so far?
In the German part of the study, we primarily concentrated on organizations already active in the field of monitoring and hate crime victims’ assistance, paying less attention to informal/self-help groups and general welfare or human rights associations. As described in this chapter in more detail, the biggest challenge for Germany was the identification of NGOs in the old federal states, where, in contrast to East Germany, no specialized support organizations for victims of right-wing violence have been set up so far. Here, we also decided to expand our survey by including groups like anti-discrimination offices. Hate crime monitoring may not be their primary objective, but they can and do already serve in their region as important contact points for potential victims.
Besides the funding and legal framework, there are, of course, further apparent structural differences between the two countries that have to be taken into account when examining hate crimes and the specific make-up of the national NGO sectors and civic engagement against intolerance in both countries. Each country has its own history and unique pattern of migration. Although a new ethnic diversity can be observed today in Poland as a result of opening borders, forms of international exposure within Poland are still very limited in comparison to Western European countries. This entails the movement of refugees and transit migrants as well as the establishment of international traders’ networks, the size of migrant communities and national/ethnic or religious minority groups.1 Right-wing extremist organizations and activities also differ to some extent in each country. While in Poland far-right and nationalistic groups have also gained influence, violent-prone neo-Nazi and skinhead scenes might nevertheless be smaller and more concentrated in certain regional areas than in Germany. Some of these issues will be briefly addressed in the following sections focusing on each country through interviews with our partners. However, not all issues could—mainly due to time restrictions—be dealt with more systematically. Overall, the study focused on four research questions:
1. What are the perspectives of the selected Polish and German NGOs on right-wing violence/hate crimes and their operational definitions?
2. Which groups are active in monitoring of hate crimes and what approaches/ methods are applied?
3. Which NGOs offer assistance to victims of ring-wing violence and related crimes? And what kinds of services are offered?
4. What forms of transnational cooperation and support could be useful, based on the needs, experiences and resources of the interviewed NGOs?
The sections focusing on Germany and Poland have a similar structure. We start the accounts with a short introduction, presenting an overview of NGO activities, campaigns and networks devoted to counter discrimination, right-wing extremism, racism, anti-Semitism and homophobia. In a second sub-section we outline the research design. The third part of each country section deals with different perceptions of hate crimes, and if and how the groups and organizations studied in both countries apply and use the term. In the fourth and fifth sub-section, we present our research results with regard to monitoring activities and support services to victims. The section on Polish NGOs also discusses at length the demands and needs for monitoring and support activities, as expressed by the interviewees. Furthermore, it tries to identify the main reasons why hate crimes in Poland have not been addressed more openly so far, including an analysis of obstacles and barriers within Polish society as well as limited resources and capacities of many NGOs.
Each country section concludes with an overview of the interviewed organizations’ perspectives with respect to transnational cooperation, a typology of studied NGOS, and finally, a summary of the most important research results.
1. Iglicka, Krystina 2005. Active Civic Participation of Immigrants in Poland: Country Report for the European Research Project POLITIS, Oldenburg.
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