The Free Speech Union (FSU) has taken steps to safeguard civil liberties in Scotland, as a controversial new Hate Crime and Public Order Act is poised to come into effect. The Scotsman has the exclusive.
The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act will… [make] it an offence to stir up hatred on grounds of age, disability, religion, sexual orientation and transgender identity. …
The legislation has come under fire from opponents who claim it could lead to a chilling of free speech and be open to vexatious complaints. …
The FSU is already supporting Tory MSP Murdo Fraser, who has threatened legal action against Police Scotland after it recorded a social media comment he made as a “hate incident”.
Writing in Scotland on Sunday, Mr. Young said: “At the Free Speech Union, the advocacy group I created in 2020, we have been preparing for this moment for some time. When the Act received royal assent three years ago, we set up an office in Edinburgh, appointed a local man to be its director and created a Scottish advisory council consisting of prominent public figures committed to freedom of expression.”
He added: “We anticipate that tens of thousands of hate crimes will be reported in the next months, particularly as Police Scotland have said that, under the new law, ‘threatening or abusive material’ communicated via social media posts and ‘through public performance of a play’, which includes stand-up comedy, could be a ‘hate crime’.”
“I expect the vast majority of these complaints won’t go anywhere, but unless Mr Fraser prevails the police will painstakingly record every one as a hate incident.”
Mr Young said he was perhaps “being too sanguine about what percentage of complaints will end up in court”.
He said: “Just in case Police Scotland do engage in such zealous over-enforcement, the Free Speech Union has put an arrangement in place with one of Scotland’s top legal firms so we can have a solicitor on hand if any of our members are hauled in for questioning.”
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: The Free Speech Union is helping Murdo Fraser MSP to get Police Scotland to remove a ‘non-crime hate incident’ (NCHI) recorded against him for a tweet that criticised the SNP Government’s ‘Non-Binary Equality Action Plan’ and to change the national guidance it’s following whereby every report of a ‘hate crime’, no matter how trivial or vexatious, is automatically recorded as an NCHI. You can support the Free Speech Union’s Scottish Fighting Fund here.
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