Hate-speech laws : Consistency with national and international human rights law

Racism has climbed the political agenda at national, European and international levels.’ Reports from national and international non-governmental organisations (NGO’s) and inter-governmental organisations have focused considerable attention on racism and xenophobia and document an increase in racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and race-related activities.* As racism has climbed the political agendas, so there has been a substantial increase in the number of national, European and international legal instruments devoted to it.3 In particular, race-related restrictions on freedom of expression (‘hate-speech’) are increasing and seem likely to continue to do so

Life satisfaction in people with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Background/AimsThere is limited research on the association between post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and life satisfaction in community samples. We set out to investigate levels of life satisfaction and its demographic, trauma related and clinical predictors in a sample of people with PTSD (n ?=? 46).MethodsParticipants completed a battery of standardised self-report measures including Satisfaction with Life Scale, the PTSD Checklist and The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale.ResultsOur results indicated that people with moderately severe PTSD in the community are likely to experience lower levels of life satisfaction compared with those with other psychiatric conditions or those without any diagnoses. Multivariate analysis revealed that marital status and trauma symptoms were the only significant predictors of life satisfaction. In specific, being married and presenting with less severe posttraumatic symptomatology were both significantly associated with higher levels of life satisfaction in people with PTSD.ConclusionsThe strong association between traumatic symptomatology and life satisfaction may indicate that routine assessment for life satisfaction or similar positive constructs in people with PTSD, referred for psychological therapies might be useful. Information on positive psychology constructs may facilitate capitalising on clients' strengths and not just on pathology