SAVVA TERENTYEV v. RUSSIA JUDGMENT 23 has a history of oppression or inequality, or that faces deep-rooted prejudices, hostility and discrimination, or that is vulnerable for some other reason, and thus may, in principle, need a heightened protection from attacks committed by insult, holding up to ridicule or slander (compare and contrast Soulas and Others v. France, no. 15948/03, §§ 36-41, 10 July 2008; Le Pen, cited above; and Féret v. Belgium, no. 15615/07, §§ 69-73 and 78, 16 July 2009, where the impugned statements were directed against non-European immigrant communities in France and Belgium respectively; Balsytė-Lideikienė v. Lithuania, no. 72596/01, § 78, 4 November 2008, where the impugned statements concerned national minorities in Lithuania shortly after the re-establishment of its independence in 1990; or Vejdeland and Others, cited above, § 54, where the impugned statement targeted homosexuals). 77. In the Court’s view, being a part of the security forces of the State, the police should display a particularly high degree of tolerance to offensive speech, unless such inflammatory speech is likely to provoke imminent unlawful actions in respect of their personnel and to expose them to a real risk of physical violence. It has only been in a very sensitive context of tension, armed conflict and the fight against terrorism or deadly prison riots that the Court has found that the relevant statements were likely to encourage violence capable of putting members of security forces at risk and thus accepted that the interference with such statements was justified (see, for instance, Sürek (no. 1), cited above, § 62; Falakaoğlu and Saygılı v. Turkey, nos. 22147/02 and 24972/03, §§ 32-34, 23 January 2007; and Saygılı and Falakaoğlu v. Turkey (no. 2), no. 38991/02, § 28, 17 February 2009). 78. In the present case, however, there is no indication either in the decisions of the domestic courts or in the Government’s submissions that the applicant’s comment was published against a sensitive social or political background, or that the general security situation in that region was tense, or that there were any clashes, disturbances, or anti-police riots, or that there existed an atmosphere of hostility and hatred towards the police, or any other particular circumstances in which the impugned statements were liable to produce imminent unlawful actions in respect of police officers and to expose them to a real threat of physical violence. Whilst holding that the police officers were a “social group” by virtue of their “common [professional] activity” (see paragraph 22 above), the domestic courts failed to explain why that group, in their view, needed enhanced protection; nor did they refer to any factors or context which would show that the applicant’s comment could have actually encouraged violence and thus put that group, or any of its members, at risk. In the absence of any such explanation in the domestic courts’ decision or any other evidence which would enable it to conclude otherwise, the Court is thus not convinced that