Scottish hate crime law sparks heated row

A new law relating to hate crime has come into effect in Scotland, stirring up a major debate about freedom of speech.

The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021, creates a new crime of “stirring up hatred” relating to age, disability, religion, sexual orientation or gender identity, and senior police officers have said they expect social media and online posts to be the source of a large number of complaints.

A punishment of up to seven years in prison could be imposed on someone found guilty of communicating material or behaving in a manner “that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening or abusive”, with the aim of stirring up hatred based on protected characteristics.

The law in England and Wales already forbids threatening or abusive behavior based on racial, religious or sexual orientation grounds, but the new Scottish law takes it further, with the prosecution only needing to show that the stirring up of hatred was “likely” rather than “intended”.

When asked if misgendering someone on the internet now counted as a crime, Siobhian Brown, the Scottish minister for victims and community safety, told the BBC Radio 4 Today program “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.”

Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf told Sky News it was important to recognize that “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,” he said.

Police service representatives have expressed their concern, with the general secretary of the Scottish Police Federation David Kennedy warning that the judgement calls officers will be required to make over highly-sensitive issues “will cause havoc with trust in police”, and the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents wrote to the Justice Committee of the Scottish Parliament, warning that the law could be “weaponized” by an “activist fringe” for political purposes.

JK Rowling, the Scottish author of the Harry Potter books, has found herself caught up in a series of public disputes over comments she has made about the transgender movement, and has been fiercely critical of the new law.

“If you genuinely imagine I’d delete posts calling a man a man, so as not to be prosecuted under this ludicrous law, stand by for the mother of all April Fools’ jokes,” she wrote on social media platform X, observing that the legislation was introduced on April 1, a day associated with the playing of jokes and hoaxes.