Under international law, discrimination is any difference of treatment based on a prohibited  ground that does not have an objective and reasonable justification. Discrimination impairs  the exercise of other human rights on an equal basis. Prohibited grounds can include any 

personal quality, characteristic or circumstances upon which arbitrary distinctions are made  such as: ethnicity, religion, national or social origin, language, physical appearance, descent,  gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age or disability, religion or belief, domicile, or any other status. 

A difference of treatment may be considered as having an objective or reasonable  justification if it is for a legitimate purpose compatible with the human rights obligations of the state.

A legitimate purpose could be related to public health or security, or public policy concerns such as health and safety. However, in order for a difference of treatment to qualify as objective and reasonable it should also be proportionate to the aim it seeks to achieve.

The European Court of Human Rights has been insistent that unfavorable treatment based on prohibited ground will require particularly weighty justification to be compatible with human rights standards.

International and European anti-discrimination law prohibits both direct and indirect discrimination. The latter occurs when an apparently neutral law, procedure or practice 

results in a disproportionate disadvantage for, or has a disparate impact on, a particular group without any objective or reasonable justification. 

Moldova is party to several human rights treaties prohibiting discrimination. These include the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against women (CEDAW), the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) and the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR) Most recently in September 2010 Moldova ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with 

Disabilities. 

What these obligations mean in practice is that Moldova must: 

Crimes which fall under the definition of “hate crimes” are the most insidious manifestation of intolerance and discrimination. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has defined hate crimes as “criminal offences, including offences against persons or property, where the victim, premises or target of the offence are selected because of their real or perceived connection, attachment, affiliation, support or membership of a group”. 

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has found that states have the duty to take all necessary steps to unmask possible racist motivations behind crimes: 

Where there is suspicion that racial attitudes induced a violent act it is particularly important that the official investigation is pursued with vigour and impartiality, having regard to the need to reassert continuously society's condemnation of racism and ethnic hatred and to maintain the confidence of minorities in the ability of the authorities to protect them from the threat of racist violence. 11 It also found that crimes perpetrated with a racist bias cannot be treated as common crimes because they are particularly destructive of fundamental rights.12The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) has addressed the role of the police in combating racist offences and monitoring racist incidents. In its General Policy Recommendation No. 11, ECRI calls on the governments of Council of Europe member states 

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