Very difficult to read when you indent like that. Here is it without the formatting:
"Any incident/crime which is perceived by the victim or any other person to be motivated by hostility or prejudice based on a person's race or perceived race"
or
"Any incident/crime which is perceived by the victim or any other person to be motivated by a hostility or prejudice based on a person's religion or perceived religion."
The Orwellian implications of these definitions are hair-raising. This turns crime into something that is in the eye of the beholder and lies the burden of proof upon the accused.
Eh, not really. To be prosecuted you still have to prove intent - that the person intended to cause harm or distress by their words. For example you could say "black people are smelly" in conversation, even to someone of colour, and it would be pretty rude and bigotted but not an offense. But to say to someone of colour in an aggressive manner "you are smelly because you are black!" it would be.
Seems pretty sensible to me. From my perspective the UK laws and police are very pragmatic, it's probably illegal to say "death to the queen" but nobody would prosecute you for just those words. Now, if you where burning effegies of her and planning something then that's another matter.
The charge seems ok to me, and he was not charged with hate speech.
At the end of the day, 12 ordinary people came to the same conclusion, and so he is guilty. It's hardly the "big evil government cracking down on this nice man's (non existent) right to be racist".
Perhaps in a one on one situation it wouldn't be a crime, but doing infront of a thousand people is clearly very bad and distressing. Perhaps it's down to poor judgement, but that's not an excuse.
I'm also not in any way outraged by the outcome, but actually this was heard in a magistrates' court so there would be no jury involved.
> big evil government
Nah, it's kind of down to the whims of the individual judge. The wording of the statutes is pretty broad and vague, and in practice I think you inevitably have to rely on the individuals who comprise the legal system to not be terrible.
Right now I'd say that if people want to be outraged about the UK's legal system, they'd do better to direct their ire towards cuts in legal aid rather than "hate speech" laws (which have always existed in some form).
Isn't racism judging someone's character by the colour of their skin? The joke is poor, but pointing out that pale skinned people are pale or dark skinned people are dark doesn't seem to be making any judgement on their character.
It's all about the manner of delivery: "Any communication which is threatening or abusive, and is intended to harass, alarm, or distress someone is forbidden"[1]
Notice the and condition, it has to be threatening and intended to harass for example. Just causing someone distress without the intend to harass or threaten is not illegal, so someone feeling upset about what you said is perfectly fine. But if you said it to threaten them, and that's clear from your delivery or manner, then yeah it's not OK.
> "Any communication which is threatening or abusive, and is intended to harass, alarm, or distress someone is forbidden"
Prohibitions like this one are overly broad and smother a lot of legitimate discussion. Exceptions to free speech used to be limited to things like:
* Don't yell "fire" in a crowded theater.
* Don't call for violence.
If we broaden the scope to any speech someone, somewhere might take offense to, then we can no longer have much diversity of thought in public debates.
If these kind of "hate speech" laws existed in England in the 19th century, Charles Darwin would possibly never have published the book "Descent of Man", because saying "You and I both descend from animals" was a very demeaning thing to say to most people at the time, and therefore could have landed him in court. The very idea of biological evolution is still offensive to a lot of people today, BTW.
So a company that champions and celebrates science to the outside world (like in their many doodles about scientists) and that has control over much of today's human communication, believes at the same time that it is a thoughtcrime to cite the scientific consensus about something as basic as biological differences between men and women.
> If these kind of "hate speech" laws existed in England in the 19th century
These laws not only existed, they where far more stringent, prosecution far easier and the punishment far more severe. Try going back then and discussing the king/queen in a negative way.
And yet, his book was still published.
And in any case, he didn't say it to be threatening or abusive, so that's moot.
> A stark warning that this concern is not a sterile theoretical exercise
The HR policies of an American company (a country where in a lot of states you can be fired for any/no reason at all) is neither here nor there in a discussion about the UK's definition of hate crime, where that definition needs to be proven in a court of law to a jury of your peers at a trial.
Not every country adheres to such a fanatical stance on free speech as the USA, and yet seem to be doing just fine. Especially the UK, where there are restrictions on free speech. Sensible restrictions supported by the sensible population, who are not oddly terrified of their government.
> These laws not only existed, they where far more stringent, prosecution far easier and the punishment far more severe. Try going back then and discussing the king/queen in a negative way.
True.
> And yet, his book was still published.
Because the subject of his book wasn't covered by these laws.
> And in any case, he didn't say it to be threatening or abusive, so that's moot.
Neither did Damore. He still got fired.
> The HR policies of an American company (a country where in a lot of states you can be fired for any/no reason at all) is neither here nor there in a discussion about the UK's definition of hate crime, where that definition needs to be proven in a court of law to a jury of your peers at a trial.
These HR policies are a sign of the times. The fashion of suppressing rational speech & thought in a misguided attempt to "protect" the minority-du-jour will eventually creep upwards into the laws of countries, as has already happened in Canada:
It isn't as broad apparently. If you go through the wikipedia link it also states :-
"Nothing in this Part shall be read or given effect in a way which prohibits or restricts discussion, criticism or expressions of antipathy, dislike, ridicule, insult or abuse of particular religions or the beliefs or practices of their adherents, or of any other belief system or the beliefs or practices of its adherents, or proselytising or urging adherents of a different religion or belief system to cease practising their religion or belief system. Subjective descriptions of a person's actions or behaviour, however abhorrent, crass or objectionable, may not be considered an attempt to spread hate unless the motive is clearly defined as such."
Certainly there are still going to be "grey incidents".
Any incident/crime which is perceived by the victim or any other person to be motivated by hostility or prejudice based on a person's bigotry or perceived bigotry is A-OK.
"Any incident/crime which is perceived by the victim or any other person to be motivated by hostility or prejudice based on a person's race or perceived race"
or
"Any incident/crime which is perceived by the victim or any other person to be motivated by a hostility or prejudice based on a person's religion or perceived religion."