Humza Yousaf says JK Rowling's tweets are a 'perfect example'

[ArabellaScott]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-68725547

Wasn't sure which thread to put this on, so ...

'Humza Yousaf said he was "not surprised" police had assessed JK Rowling's online posts challenging the new hate crime law to be non-criminal.
The Harry Potter author described several transgender women as men, including convicted prisoners, trans activists and other public figures.
The legislation creates a crime of "stirring up hatred" relating to protected characteristics.
But Police Scotland said no action would be taken against Ms Rowling.
The first minister said the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 "protects the most vulnerable and marginalised in our in society" while also safeguarding "freedom of expression and freedom of speech".

Mr Yousaf told BBC Scotland News: "Those new offenses that have been created by the act have a very high threshold for criminality.
"The behaviour has to be threatening or abusive and intends to stir up hatred.
"So it doesn't deal with people just being offended or upset or insulted."
He said Ms Rowling's posts on X were a "perfect example of that".
The first minister added: "Anybody who read the act will not have been surprised at all that there's no arrests made.
"JK Rowling's tweets may well be offensive, upsetting and insulting to trans people.
"But it doesn't mean that they meet a threshold of criminality of being threatening or abusive and intending to stir up hatred."
Mr Yousaf said it was up to Police Scotland to decide how to deal with hate incidents.'

I mean Americans aren't exactly known for their subtly are they?

Edited entire post because I found Andy and posted a YT video, and then found that Arabella had already posted the exact same one! 😂

Cheers "Arabella - I love a bloke in a kilt, me)

Bonus points for the Elvis version in there, though!

Yeah their national anthem is only one step away from "we're gonna come and murder you and take all your stuff", which seems to have been their foreign policy for many decades.

https://twitter.com/NoXYinXXprisons/status/1775500089533874627

Our letter sent to@scottishprisons
& all members of the@SP_Justice
seeking assurances that women in prison will be as free to exercise their right to accurately refer to the sex registered at birth of individuals as@jk_rowling
is.

From Keep Prisons Single Sex.

My shit local team played Uxbridge a couple of years back, so as away fans we just chanted "your MP's Boris Johnson ha ha ha!" which wasn't clever or ornate. Felt a bit harsh actually; they didn't have any comeback...

As an east London girl I grew up in the shadow of Upton Park and remember finding match days a combination of exciting and intimidating as a kid.

As I got older it became a case of if you can’t beat em join em and the local pubs after a match could be a great laugh.

I love the football chants and the ability fans have to give a new player his own theme tune within minutes of signing.

The fact we won a European trophy last year for first time in 40 years and in true football fan style the winning goal scorer was immortalised to the tune of Freed from desire with lyrics ‘Bowens on fire and he’s shagging Dani Dyer’ - truly bought a tear to a glass eye with its poetry 🤣

A couple of good articles on this by the Spectator
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/four-groups-keeping-quiet-on-the-snps-hate-crime-act/
And
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/dont-feel-too-encouraged-by-police-leniency-with-jk-rowling/

Some would argue that's the height of hate and offensiveness to remind people that they voted Johnson or live amongst so many people who did.

I rewatched it just last week. Great show, gone too soon

Haha, is that the best the Hammers fans can do? Hull City fans honoured him with “There’s a star man playing on the right, his name is Jarod Bowen and he’s fucking dynamite”. Took me a while to twig why Bowen was granted a Bowie tune mind you.

From the 1st Spec article:

'the groups that have chosen to stay quiet on the issue — and exactly why that might be…

Scottish Labour
15 Scottish Labour MSPs voted for Yousaf’s hate bill in 2021, which might explain why the party has kept a fairly low profile of late. Its current leader, Anas Sarwar, was a proponent of the bill at the time, voting in favour of it. But rather than explain why Scottish Labour’s politicians had supported such a controversial policy, a curious quiet from the Scottish Labour camp extended into Monday, the bill’s implementation date, before Sarwar <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.is/o/mf0ui/www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/misogyny-should-included-new-hate-32486632" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">broke his silence.'

Scottish Liberal Democrats
All five Scottish Lib Dems voted in favour of the hate crime legislation in 2021, but the party has not managed to find its voice on the issue lately.

Liberty
Formerly the National Council for Civil Liberties, ‘Liberty’ appears to have forgotten its founding purpose and indeed the very meaning of its name. While the organisation’s slogan insists that it will ‘defend freedom’, Liberty has not put out a single comment or article about Scotland’s new Hate Crime Act which, er, is a cause for concern for anyone who is remotely interested in freedom of speech.

Index on Censorship
Another prominent organisation that was set up to campaign for freedom of expression — by esteemed journalists no less — has been strangely quiet as Humza’s hate bill came into force. Back in February 2021, the Index <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.is/o/mf0ui/www.indexoncensorship.org/2021/02/letter-to-msps-on-scotlands-hate-crime-and-public-order-bill/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">published an open letter to MSPs about its ‘serious concerns’ about the Hate Crime Act. It criticised Yousaf’s decision to withdraw amendments that would have ensure further protections for free speech ahead of the second stage of the bill:
“
The Cabinet Secretary decided to withdraw amendments on freedom of expression at the eleventh hour… This move has, in our view, undermined the whole process of scrutiny to date… We strongly believe that producing workable provisions on the stirring up of hatred in this parliament is now entirely impracticable. These provisions could impact upon the most precious liberties in any democratic society: freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of conscience and religion. They must be handled with the utmost care.Index on Censorship has also been active in the past for <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.is/o/mf0ui/www.thetimes.co.uk/article/index-on-censorship-freedom-of-expression-under-threat-from-police-0cz8mcfwx" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">condemning Police Scotland for stifling ‘robust debate’ by focusing on ‘non-crime hate incidents’ at the start of last year — after it emerged the force had logged over 900 incidents of ‘malice and ill will’ without criminality in 2021. But despite the previous action taken by the Index, Mr S is a little baffled as to why the free speech organisation has kept so quiet of late.'

Malcolm Clarke AT TwisterFilm
You know the best thing about the Hate Crime Act? Thousands of ordinary Scots who were half-afraid to call hulking blokes in dresses ...MEN....now know it's absolutely fine to do so. Like everything else the SNP does it has had the opposite effect from that intended

It was cruel, yes.

But they voted for him. Actions have consequences.

But if sex offenders aren't "real trans women", what is a real trans woman?

And who do we tell who is a real one and who isn't?

The fact that they call themselves any form of the word "woman" is a dead giveaway, IMO.

They'll be having us clapping our hands to say we believe in fairies next.

(Sorry, Tinkerbelle - you're going down.)

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13271279/police-scotland-hate-crime-law-changes-jk-rowling-tweets.html

TEST CASE INCOMING???!

Conservative MSP Murdo Fraser has accused Police Scotland of 'making it up as they go' as discrepancies emerged in how the country's controversial hate crime laws were being recorded.

AND

Mr Fraser was found to have committed an NCHI in November after he blasted the Scottish government's 'non-binary action plan' and said 'choosing to identify as 'non-binary' is as valid as choosing to identify as a cat.

But Police Scotland said Rowling's comments were assessed but did not reach the threshold for an NCHI.

In response, the bestselling author tweeted: 'Again, I trust everyone will be treated the same way if they express themselves similarly. Nobody should have a 'Hate Incident' logged against them for accurately describing, or asserting the importance and reality, of biological sex. We must all be equal under the law.'

AND

Mr Fraser, who is considering legal action against Police Scotland, claimed the force's decision was politically biased.

Reacting to Mr Yousaf and Ms Rowling's remarks not being recorded as NCHIs, he said: 'This decision means Police Scotland have not only breached their own policy on recording non-crime hate incidents, but now appear to be making it up as they go along.

'They have taken a different approach to comments made by the SNP first minister to those made by an opposition politician. It is hard not to conclude that Police Scotland has been captured by the SNP policy agenda and that this is a decision that reeks of political bias.

'I hope the chief constable will contact me urgently with an immediate apology for recording a hate incident against me and confirming all records in relation to it have been destroyed. They should also ditch their existing unlawful policy — as has been done in England and Wales — which I believe is a clear breach of people's human rights.'

ROFLAMO! What did I say?!

No politician can say that there’s a high threshold, or any other threshold, for the finding of infringement of a statutory offence unless the legislation itself sets out such a threshold, which this Act does not.

It’s for the courts - not politicians, not the police, not the prosecution authorities (CPS, COPFS) - to interpret and apply the law. The problem is that the opportunity to charge for these ill-defined offences has arisen.

What is meant by a high threshold is that it's an arbitrary threshold, decided case by case depending on who the accused is, where those with power, or whom the Police are wary of, will have a high threshold test applied if it suits the Police.

Yes, exactly. There is no inherent high threshold.

A high-profile defendant armed with leading counsel and good solicitors, in a packed courtroom with lots of press present, will get off. An ordinary person, with an appointed solicitor, in front of an overworked court on a wet Wednesday afternoon will get convicted. It happens with other ‘social’ offences all the time.

It is remarkable how they've enacted a law with unequal treatment and injustice baked in as fundamentals.

I'm pretty sure that when the Bill was debated some of the comment was about threshholds and possible examples, but as ever, all were brushed aside.

Thank FUCK we have the amendments that reference freedom of speech and reasonable defences; they weren't in there to begin with!

Yes, I'm betting if it was a woman prisoner who called all the people JKR correctly sexed as men - or even someone like Dolatowski or Bryson in their women's prison intimate spaces (e.g. showers), then THAT woman (without lawyers, without a public platform, without power) would be getting at the very least a NCHI recorded against her if not some made up 'crime' and an extension to her sentence.

We need to be watching very carefully what happens to the most vulnerable, including parents of children who are being socially transitioned by schools and women prisoners.

Is there any way of tracking how many people have been charged or convicted under this legislation? Would it be a legitimate basis for an FoI request, for example?