The Scottish government’s hate crime proposals could “devastate” the public’s relationship with the police, officers have warned.
The proposed Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill allegedly “seeks to modernise and extend existing hate crime legislation”.
But the Scottish Police Federation (SPF) has warned that the proposed legislation would lead to the “policing of what people think or feel” and the “criminalisation of what is said in private”, The Scotsman reports.
In its consultation response to the bill, the SPF expressed concern over how the law — which criminalises even the likelihood of “stirring up hatred”, and does not require intent to be demonstrated in order to prosecute an alleged hate crime — is “too vague to be implemented” and would create much more work for officers.
Callum Steele, SPF general secretary, said: “We are firmly of the view this proposed legislation would see officers policing speech and would devastate the legitimacy of the police in the eyes of the public.
“That can never be an acceptable outcome – and we should never forget that the police in Scotland police only with the consent of the people.
“Police officers are all too aware that there are individuals in society who believe that to feel insulted or offended is a police matter.
“The Bill would move even further from policing and criminalising of deeds and acts to the potential policing of what people think or feel, as well as the criminalisation of what is said in private.”
Current “hate speech” laws are already very strong in the liberal-run country, with police having recently investigated signs which appeared throughout Perth reading “it’s ok to be white”, which were branded “atrocious” by the Deputy First Minister of the Scottish Government.
Scottish YouTuber and comedian Count Dankula, who recently spoke out against the proposed bill, was found guilty in 2018 for committing the “hate crime” of filming his girlfriend’s dog doing a Nazi salute in what he described as a “joke video for a laugh”.
BBC Scotland editor Sarah Smith commented last week that it was “quite an achievement” for the globalist Scottish government “to have united the Catholic Church and the National Secular Society in opposition to the plans — along with academics, playwrights, and newspaper columnists who all say they fear the proposed legislation could pose a threat to their freedom of speech”.
The Free Church of Scotland has warned that “there is a real risk of Christians and others falling foul of this legislation” inadvertently, by preaching Biblical ethics and social teaching.
The church also said it was “deeply concerned” that Christian teaching materials, books, and even the Bible could be “confiscated and destroyed by the police” as a result of the bill, which would criminalise the mere possession of inflammatory material.
Breitbart London previously reported on the case of a Christian street preacher who was locked up and charged with a hate crime after quoting from the Book of Genesis in response to a teenager’s questions on the Biblical view on homosexuality.
University of Abertay senior lecturer in sociology and criminology, Dr Stuart Waiton, sounded the alarm on the bill. He described it as “profoundly dangerous” and “possibly… the most illiberal and intolerant piece of legislation in any liberal democracy, worldwide”, with wording that is “incredibly flexible and subjective”.
“Unlike the laws in the rest of the UK, where the crime of ‘stirring up’ hatred needs evidence that it is deliberate and also threatening, here we have a new law that potentially requires neither,” he said. The professor added that the legislation was so intrusive that it would open up “the possibility of comments at dinner parties becoming criminal offences”.
But the Scottish National Party (SNP) administration argues that the proposals “create a protection for, particularly minority groups and vulnerable groups in our society, against being targeted for hatred and being targets for hatred”.
Scotland’s justice secretary, Humza Yousaf, has dismissed criticisms of the bill, telling BBC Scotland: “I don’t accept that this curtails free speech at all. Free speech in itself is never an unfettered right.”
The private school-educated minister, who is a vocal mass migration enthusiast, recently also called on social media companies to do more to ban and censor what he called “hateful accounts” after backlash over a speech he gave denouncing the fact that in Scotland, which is 96 per cent white, the majority of top jobs are held by white people.
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