A record number of suspected hate crimes were registered in Finland last year, according to an annual report published on Thursday by the Police University College.
The college's report revealed that 1,245 suspected hate crimes were reported to police in 2022, an increase of about 20 percent on the previous year.
The figure for last year is just slightly above the number reported in 2015, which held the previous record for reports of suspected hate crime.
Hate crimes often target ethnic background
The report noted that the motive behind the majority of hate crimes reported to police last year was the ethnic or national background of the victim.
In total, 930 such reports were made to police in 2022, an increase of one third from the previous year.
The most common type of crime reported last year was suspected assault, while about half of suspected cases were linked to defamation, illegal threats or breaching domestic peace.
The report also revealed that in the vast majority of hate crime cases, the suspected perpetrator was usually a member of the native Finnish population and the victim a member of a minority group.
The suspect in cases with an ethnic or national background motive was usually not known to the victim. However, the report noted one exception, as suspected hate crimes committed against members of the Roma community usually involved a perpetrator and suspect who knew each other.
The number of suspected hate crimes involving neighbours also remained high this year, the report noted.
Slight rise in reports of LGBTQ-linked hate crimes
There was also a slight increase last year in the number of hate crime reports believed to have been linked to sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.
By contrast, the number of suspected offences of incitement against a particular ethnic group continued to fall last year. The police recorded a total of 29 such suspected crimes, compared to 41 the previous year.
In addition, hate crime reports related to religion or disability were also down compared to 2021.
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