Planting Hate Speech to Harvest Hatred: How Does the Political Hate Speech Fuel Hate Crimes in Turkey?

• In Event: Hate Crime Policies and Practice: The Politics and the Responses

Abstract

The hate speech used by politicians in Turkey against the opponent groups has become a part of their political campaigns and rhetoric. In this study, whether and how this rhetoric affects hate crimes among ordinary people in Turkey will be examined by investigating the experiences of the victims. To this end, semi-structured interviews and surveys will be conducted with a sample of hate crime victims who recently immigrated to Canada due to the fear of persecution in Turkey. One hundred and fifty survey respondents will be asked if they were victimized by any type of hate crime due to their political views and how they were affected by these incidents. Among the survey participants, twenty participants will be interviewed about their perceptions on the motivation behind the hate crimes against them and if there is a parallel between the hate speech of the politicians and the perpetrators’ acts. Specifically, a content analysis will be conducted to understand whether the verbal insults used by ordinary people are similar to those of politicians. The study attempts to address the gap in literature on the association between the political hate speech and the hate crimes committed by ordinary people against the targeted group.

Authors

• Davut Akca, University of Ontario Institute of Technology

• Fatih Karakus, University of Ontario Institute of Technology

• Mehmet Fatih Bastug, University of Ontario Institute of Technology