Scotland’s controversial new hate crime laws have been implemented. But bemused Scots are ridiculing the measure.
The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act came into force on April 1. Sponsors of the Act claims it aims to “provide greater protection for victims and communities”.
Suppress free speech
A person commits an offence under the Act if they communicate material, or behave in a manner, “that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening or abusive”, with the intention of stirring up hatred based on the ‘protected characteristics’.
The new regulations will “address the harm caused by hatred and prejudice”. However, critics argue that they will suppress free speech and be weaponised to “settle scores”.
The legislation combines current laws and introduces fresh offences for behaviour that ‘aims to incite hatred based on prejudices against various characteristics such as age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, and “transgender” identity’.
The new provisions add to the laws on the statute book for race, which have been in place since 1986. Sign our petition against these and similar provisions and to defend free speech:
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Weaponised to “settle scores”
There are concerns that innocent people could end up on police databases with controversial new hate crime laws in Scotland being weaponised to “settle scores”.
The director of campaign group For Women Scotland, told Sky News: ‘Much of this is very vague as stirring up offences seems to be based on someone’s perception that someone is being hateful towards them, and they can make a complaint and the police are saying they will investigate everything.
‘We know that there are people out there who have lists of people they are looking to target.
According to Susan Smith, the officials who supports the bill are seeing this as an opportunity to “settle scores and make political points”.
“Misgendering” a crime?
Sex has been omitted from the act as a standalone bill designed to tackle misogyny. It might be laid before the Scottish parliament at a later date.
When asked whether ‘misgendering’ someone on the internet was a crime under the new law, Siobhian Brown MSP, minister for victims and community safety, said on Monday morning: ‘It would be a police matter for them to assess what happens.
‘It could be reported and it could be investigated – whether or not the police would think it was criminal is up to Police Scotland.’
During the interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme, she added: ‘There is a very high threshold which is in the act which would be up to Police Scotland, and what would have to be said online or in person would be threatening and abusive.’ But according to her, it is subjective.
Scots are laughing at the new law.
Scots are having some fun with the new law. Anyone can report a hate crime to Police Scotland, not just the alleged victim, and the force has pledged to investigate every report it receives. The public have taken full advantage.
In the first 24 hours alone, Spiked Online reported: ‘an astonishing 3,800 so-called hate crimes were reported to the police – at a rate of around 60 complaints per hour. This is well above the 790 daily crime reports of all types that police in Scotland had to deal with last year. Given that Police Scotland have pledged to investigate every single report of hate, it is surely only a matter of time before they are completely overwhelmed.’
The Telegraph reports the force is hastily recruiting extra personnel to cope with the deluge. Many of the reports from the public concern the anti-white remarks made by Humza Yousaf himself in the Scottish Parliament during a debate on Black Lives Matter and the murder of George Floyd in 2020. See our report here. Of course those remarks will not be investigated. They were made before the Act came into force, and in any case, the Scots elite, white or not, will never investigate one of their own.
The public have also made complaints about Siobhian Brown. Spiked say: ‘Scots have no idea what speech could fall foul of the law. It hasn’t helped that Police Scotland’s own publicity states that deciding what is hateful comes down to an individual’s perception. Who is Siobhian Brown to say that Yousaf’s rant against white Scots was not “hateful”?’
‘Hatred has been far too pervasive in our society’
Scottish First Minister, Humza Yousaf, speaking about the new legislation on Sky News said: ‘In terms of acts of hatred, I think anybody would recognise in the last few years… hatred has been far too pervasive in our society.
‘We have to take strong action against it. We have to have a zero-tolerance approach to it.
‘I’ve got every confidence in police investigating matters of hatred appropriately, and of course making sure that we protect freedom of expression so vital to our democracy.”
‘Are we allowed to call a man a man’?
Harry Potter author, J K Rowling, has criticised the new hate crime laws.
Rowling posted several remarks on X, speaking out against “transgender women”, including those who were incarcerated in women’s prisons.
‘I’m currently out of the country, but if what I’ve written here qualifies as an offence under the terms of the new act, I look forward to being arrested when I return to the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment.’
She said the new legislation ‘is wide open to abuse by activists who wish to silence those of us speaking out about the dangers of eliminating women’s and girls’ single-sex spaces’.
The 58-year-old argued: ‘It is impossible to accurately describe or tackle the reality of violence and sexual violence committed against women and girls, or address the current assault on women’s and girls’ rights, unless we are allowed to call a man a man’.
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PM, a free speech champion?
Among those who praised Rowling for her opposition to the Hate Crime Act was UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
He defended her by stating that individuals should not face criminalisation for stating basic biological facts and affirmed that his Conservative Party will always safeguard free speech.
However, before we laud Rishi Sunak as a champion of free speech, it’s important to note that the rest of the UK doesn’t necessarily provide a safe place for unrestricted thought and expression. Beyond Scotland, there exist stringent hate speech laws. Christian street preachers are frequently arrested and charged for publicly preaching the word of God.
Read our related articles here:
Christian arrested for ‘homophobic’ preaching receives compensation →
Mother banned from seeing sex-ed materials →
Costa promotes mutilation as Government
delays schools “transgender” guidance →
World Health Organisation’s godless sex-ed guide →
UK in disarray over “puberty blockers” →
Transgender teenager dies after vaginoplasty surgery →
Read and pray
READ: Gen 1:27-28; Ezekiel 16:49; Romans 1:25-27; 1 Cor 6:9; Gal 5:19; Col 3:5; Hebrews 13:4.
PRAY: for the repeal of woke laws.
Pray for the Church to wake up and stand up for King Jesus.
Pray for our leaders to repent and seek the Lord.
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JK Rowling courageously called in her X (formerly known as Twitter) posts men ‘men’ who were purporting to be transgender ‘women’, and hence in woke terms she was ‘misgendering’. However, Police Scotland are taking no action, a publicly known precedent that ‘misgendering’ is not in practice a crime, in Scottish law, under the new act. So in one brave swoop, she has torpedoed the act. We don’t know whether the police discussed this with CPS, but anyone, wealthy author or not, can now put up a strong defence that Rowling was not prosecuted for ‘misgendering’, so why am I? Perhaps their consideration was that it is reasonable to describe someone according to their sex rather than their professed ‘gender,’ not hatred but a true statement of objective fact. If so, I concur. I hope that perhaps we have now passed the high water mark of the transgender axis, but our fight for freedom of speech should not flag.
For the avoidance of doubt, to any to whom it may be concerned, when I use pronouns, I refer to biological, gene determined, sex and by so doing assert my lawful right to state the truth.