also in other human rights defenders to prevent them from carrying out their work, participating States should consider adopting national legislation that recognizes such motives as an aggravating factor in relation to sentencing for such crimes.109 78. If human rights defenders become targets of violent attacks that are motivated by intolerance towards a specific social group, authorities should punish such crimes under relevant hate crime legislation. Such crimes may include attacks committed against human rights defenders protecting the rights of those who, as a consequence of their ethnicity, religion, “race”, citizenship, gender, disability or any other status, are themselves particularly vulnerable to hate crimes. Relevant hate crime legislation should be applied irrespective of whether those targeted belong to these groups themselves or whether they are associated or affiliated with them through their human rights work. Participating States should enact, where appropriate, specific and tailored legislation to combat hate crime, in line with their OSCE commitments, providing for effective penalties that take into account the gravity of such crimes.110 In reviewing existing legislation, participating States should be guided by, among other resources, the OSCE/ODIHR publication on Hate Crime Laws – A Practical Guide.111 79. As the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers has stated, “impunity is caused or facilitated notably by the lack of diligent reaction of institutions or state agents to serious human rights violations. In these circumstances, faults might be observed within state institutions, as well as at each stage of the judicial or administrative proceedings.”112 In order to prevent and combat an institutional culture which promotes impunity, it has also called on states to elaborate policies and take other practical measures, such as promoting a culture of respect for human rights at the national level, establishing or reinforcing appropriate training and control mechanisms, introducing anti-corruption policies, making the relevant authorities aware of their obligations and establishing appropriate sanctions for the failure to uphold those obligations, conducting a policy of zero-tolerance of serious human rights violations and providing information to the public concerning violations and the authorities’ response to these violations.113 109  An example of good practice in this respect, albeit not from a country within the OSCE region, is the ­Penal Code of El Salvador, which considers it as aggravating circumstance for criminal responsibility if a crime is motivated by the work of the victim in the field of the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms. See Article 30 of the Penal Code of El Salvador, <http://www.asamblea.gob.sv/eparlamento/ indice-legislativo/buscador-de-documentos-legislativos/codigo-penal>. 110  See OSCE Ministerial Council, Decision No. 9/09, “Combating Hate Crimes”, Athens, 1-2 December 2009, <http://www.osce.org/cio/40695>. 111  See OSCE/ODIHR, “Hate Crime Laws – A Practical Guide”, 2009. On the issue of association and affiliation, see pp. 49-51. 112  “Guidelines of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on eradicating impunity for serious human rights violations”, section I. The need to combat impunity, para. 2. 113  Ibid. section III. General measures for the prevention of impunity. Guidelines on the Protection of Human Rights Defenders 49