JKR vs Police Scotland?

[IcakethereforeIam]

Tras are trying to get JKR arrested.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/10/trans-activists-scottish-police-arrest-jk-rowling-crime/

https://archive.ph/5TEU4 highland fling yourself over the paywall, cos Scottish!

Thought to give IW a break.

The Hate Crime...crime(?) comes into force on 1st April, according to the article. The SNP has not engaged with any of the organisations who have expressed concerns and no-one knows what, if any, training the Police have been given.

Some of them, probably.

Others will be licking their lips.

'Explore perception, as it can reveal further evidence or incidents however do not challenge it. Even if only a little background to the perception exists, it must be accepted. In some circumstances people may struggle with expressing their perception'

From Police Scotland National Guidance.

'Internet hate crime offenders are not limited by national or international boundaries. Even though communications may be of short duration, many computers are located in easily identifiable places. Computers can be accessed remotely, regardless of the location of the person who is posting, sending, viewing or receiving information online. Wherever the computer or the individual is located, there will be an electronic audit trail that will have a significant evidential value.

Many sites carrying messages are hosted in countries outside the UK where their content may be protected by laws, such as safe guarding free speech under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. This means that the hosts are not willing to pass on user information without a USA Court order, which is not attainable for a majority of hate crime reports the police receive.'

'It is imperative that enquiry officers fully consider the serious nature of hate crimes when deciding how to refer the matter when the accused is a child. This must also consider if there is an appropriate service available within the local area to respond effectively to such offences.'

Breaking the law won't be retrospective. Don't be surprised if JKR calls out Windy Willoughby AGAIN or someone else as being male just after April 1st just to defy the law.

The TRAs have dug themselves into a hole. They are daring JKR not to do something, not to say the truth. That is not going to work out for them.

She is not scared of them. More to the point when she says the truth again she will DESTROY one purpose of the law to shut women and gays up.

Because if they don't arrest JKR every women in Scotland will know they can speak up too.

Also while the new law doesn't protect women from sexism it is triggered by homophobia - so lesbians and gay men may be able to use it to target people like Willoughby. It is a terrible law, but one way of derailing it besides defying it, is using it against TRAs.

Likewise remember Catholics that the Church says there are only two sexes/genders. Saying otherwise is sinful. What are they going to do arrest the Pope? The Catholic Archbishop of Scotland?
https://archedinburgh.org/bishops-highlight-concerns-over-gender-reform-bill/

No, it's only a 'hate crime' if you want it to be. So, if its against a woman, or another (particular) nationality, its merely 'banter' (= get over it). The implications at certain football & rugby matches are silly. But the implications for all women are genuinely terrifying.

In English law the "reasonable" person was described as "a man on the Clapham Omnibus" which dates it quite a lot. A boring, sensible "man" (of course) so not someone unreasonably sensitive or stoic but a normal person.

I don't know if there is an equivalent in Scotland but would be very surprised if there had not been a good number of cases defining a reasonable person... £££ for lawyers if not, not just in relation to this point!

ditalini · Today 09:46

Yes. I would imagine these cases would be heard in the Sherrif Court and if the potential sentence is no more than 12 months then my understanding is no jury.

Thank you for clarifying.

Thanks everyone! What a terrifying, shambolic shitshow.

I can see Political parties, sermons, things said by teachers in classrooms, all falling foul of this law.

What about MN posts? Not addressed to any particular person, read by someone in Scotland who then reports it? I, thank heavens, don't live in Scotland but could one of my posts be reported by someone there? I don't think I could be extradited but imagine the fuss and bother to MN. Will I be forever condemned to never visit again?

I suspect spurious tra reports about FWR could keep the entirety of Police Scotland tied up for years.

Can I just point out that given the terms of the law are so ridiculously wide to the point if anyone's offended not just the parties involved it has to be investigated, that examples of IW's being mean posted in this threat would if reported to the police fall under exactly the same law and have to be investigated too. That we are third parties makes not on jot of difference according to this law.

I'd like to highlight something that I think has strong similarities. And was turned on it's head by a comedian called Mark Thomas. There is I believe a very strong and hilariously funny lesson on how to defeat stupid laws here.
Short version: A long term protestor outside Parliament called Brian Haw annoyed Parliament. He'd been there protesting for 10 years. They decided to pass a law that all protests needed to obtain police authorisation first. They tried to get Brian removed using this new law. A judge decided that Brian had begun his protest before the law so his current protest was not bound by this new law.
Mark Thomas decided to test this new law, to have fun with it. He staged thousands of protests just to overwhelm the police with all the paperwork. He would get together a large group of people, each person would protest on a different topic of their own choosing, and submit the paperwork to the police requesting a permit for thie protest. The reasons could be as stupid as you like. On woman chose "stop putting bits in cheese" as her protest. The police were innundated with protest request paperwork which brought them to thier knees. At one point Mark Thomas submitted 40ish different protest requests covering 40 different protest reasons in 40 different locations around London for just 1 day. He ended up in the Guniess Book of Records for the most protests by one person in a single day. The police had to process more written protest requests that they could possibly cope with. One woman wrote her protest request in icing on a cake, and the police had no choice to process it.
The story is laugh out loud funny and if you have 30 minutes I promise listening to Mark tell the story himself will brighten your day.
But there's a serious point. Mark showed just how to make the point in a way that cannot be ignored when a stupid law is stupid. Mark provides a clear blueprint of how to do this. IW asked for a review of the police's decision not to prosecute. I assume this is an internal police process that takes time and effort. Imagine how much time and effort if they had to deal with thousands and thousands of these......
If a bad law become unworkble then the bad law becomes unenforcable and a point of mockery.
Enjoy listening to Mark explaining how it works :)
y

Yes. See my post upthread about International issues. (my bold):

''Internet hate crime offenders are not limited by national or international boundaries. Even though communications may be of short duration, many computers are located in easily identifiable places. Computers can be accessed remotely, regardless of the location of the person who is posting, sending, viewing or receiving information online. Wherever the computer or the individual is located, there will be an electronic audit trail that will have a significant evidential value.

Many sites carrying messages are hosted in countries outside the UK where their content may be protected by laws, such as safe guarding free speech under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. This means that the hosts are not willing to pass on user information without a USA Court order, which is not attainable for a majority of hate crime reports the police receive.''

I agree that it's a further SNP attempt to expand the law (as always preferably antagonistic to Westminster policy). It will be impossible to Police & a huge waste of public resources. Its more open to abuse than anything I've ever seen. I'm female & live in Scotland (& disabled). I've experienced racial abuse, disablist shite & domestic violence. All times the Police / authorities were either useless or actively awful. What scares me more is that I have 2 ASD children, one of whom is currently confused about their 'identity' (in all ways really: age 16, selectively mute & trying to work out stuff about their place in the world). It seems one of my (Autistic, very literal, scared of authority) children could Report me for trying to reassure my other child that, eg 'teen confusion is normal & all will work out OK in the end'. And the Police could, in theory, break my door down over it. Terrifying.

From MBM letter:

'Contradiction between policy and law

Under existing Police Scotland policy, officers are required to record all ‘hate
incident’ reports, even if there is no evidence of a crime, based on the perception of the person reporting an incident to them.

1 Following a successful legal challenge to a very similar policy, police forces in England and Wales must not record anything that is ‘trivial, malicious or irrational’.

2 Police Scotland has stated that it intends to review its own policy in response to this development; but that any changes will not be made ahead of the 2021 Act coming into force.

3Unless immediate action is taken, this means that officers will be required on the one hand to regard all reports of ‘hate’ as subjectively true on the perception of the complainer; and on the other, to apply what Ministers described as a ‘high threshold’, for whether a ‘reasonable person’ would regard the material as ‘threatening or abusive’, and whether it is intended to ‘stir up hate’ under the 2021 Act. This is clearly contradictory, and it is unclear how officers are being guided to manage that tension.

4
Lack of information on training
Police Scotland have provided no detail or assurance on how it will protect freedom of expression. We understand that training for frontline officers largely consists of an online package'

I had really hoped I'd misunderstood, and that MBM would be able to dispel my worries. Unfortunately not.

This is really terrifying. Not just for the obvious reasons, but for completely shutting down the prospect of debate when it comes to making further batshit laws. Imagine sticking up for women under those circumstances? Where are the grown ups? The Scottish parliament are not fit to govern. Should be shut down.

From MBM letter:

'we would strongly urge the Committee to seek urgent reassurances from Police Scotland about what measures it has put in place to ensure that complaints made to it under the Act cannot be used to exert a chilling effect on lawful freedom of expression, including sight of the training material and guidance material being provided to officers. We would also ask that the Committee
seeks an explanation from the Scottish Government as to why it reneged on the
undertaking made to the Parliament by the now First Minister to engage further with stakeholders concerned about the Act, after it was passed'

Has IW shown IWs cervix on live TV like IW pledged that IW would, to prove that IW is female?

As above I think it will become a ‘ I am Spartacus’ moment if they go after JK and SM will be full of people just saying the same thing, it will be entirely unmanageable.
Also most people don’t have an issue with what she says, even if TRAs keep saying ‘the tide is turning’ and ‘most people are on our side’ it’s fairly obvious it’s not true.

With regard to Mark Thomas and his protest, I have long thought that, if self-ID comes to pass, I would be happy to take part in a mass protest where women legally change their “gender” to male and make their presence known in male spaces, consistently and over a long period.

If laws are created with huge loopholes, then a harmless mass demonstration of those loopholes would absolutely be in order.

Perhaps this is the way to go - while they're prosecuting 50,000 Rangers fans the court will be too clogged to deal with anyone else.

It seems more likely their priorities will be in line with the Bold Gendarmes but maybe I'm too cynical.

Re 'the man on the Clapham omnibus' - perhaps the appropriate 21st century Scottish transport related comparator might be 'the passenger on the CalMac ferry (or marooned on the quayside)'?

What would happen if lots of people took offence at MSPs and started reporting them?

I would imagine if they said things that a reason person felt fell under this law that they might get reported to the police. And if the police decided not to arrest apparently from the IW action you get to appeal which I again assume is a formal process that the police have to go through. Probably involves a respone and the police giving their reasoning for the response.

The thing about these laws is that we KNOW that they are not carried out without fear or favour. They will be fine if you are a certain type of person - an SNP MSP, say, or a man with a decent media presence. They will be so liable to misuse and abuse by a police person with a grudge, or a civilian activist working in a community centre who is charged with recording hate crime.

I'm excited to hope this gets to a point where the TRAs have to ACTUALLY SAY WHAT THEY THINK 'MAN' MEANS in court!

I love it that they are protesting a word that they literally do not know what it means. They pretend it doesn't mean what's in the dictionary but can't provide the meaning they want to use, essentially rendering the word 'man' completely meaningless.

The day we have an actual definition is the day the TRA's sexism and homophobia is revealed.