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.'

It is. And in respect of “insult” at that.

The other elements of the offences are really just padding. If a court is willing to accept that a communication is insulting, finding that a “reasonable person” would regard the insulting communication as likely to stir up hatred (not that there was any such intention or that there was any evidence of hatred actually having been “stirred up”) is no leap. So the offence is made out.

The wording of having particular regard to Article 10 rights was used in the HRA about injunctions against speech. It was held to have no special effect. Other Articles - 8 and 14 probably - will just be argued the other way.

I think I remember reading that the Act requires stats on its usage to be collated/reported at the end of each 'reporting period'. I'm not sure what that means.

It was either in the Act itself or in the police guidance. I can't remember which.

Here:

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2021/14/section/14/enacted

14 Publication of reports on hate crime convictions

(1)The Scottish Ministers must, as soon as reasonably practicable after the end of each reporting year, publish a report on convictions during that reporting year for—

(a)offences aggravated by prejudice within the meaning of section 1, and

(b)offences under this Act.

(2)The Scottish Ministers must provide information about the groups to which the offences relate by including in the report—

(a)information about convictions for offences which, by virtue of being offences under section 3 or 4(1), relate to groups defined by reference to race, colour, nationality (including citizenship), or ethnic or national origins,

(b)in respect of each conviction for an offence aggravated by prejudice within the meaning of section 1, information about the type of prejudice by which the offence was aggravated (by reference to one or more of the characteristics mentioned in section 1(2)), and

(c)in respect of each conviction for an offence under section 4(2), information about the characteristic to which the offence relates (by reference to one or more of the characteristics mentioned in section 4(3)).

(3)The Scottish Ministers must—

(a)take reasonable steps to establish whether the information provided under subsection (2) about the groups to which the offences relate may be supplemented by information about any subgroups to which the offences relate, including (in particular) where a conviction is for an offence relating to a group defined by reference to—

(i)age, the particular age or age range to which the offence relates,

(ii)disability, the particular type of disability to which the offence relates, including whether it is a physical impairment or a mental impairment,

(iii)race, colour, nationality (including citizenship), or ethnic or national origins, the particular race, colour, nationality (including citizenship), or ethnic or national origins to which the offence relates,

(iv)religion or, in the case of a social or cultural group, perceived religious affiliation, the particular religion (including lack of religious belief) or religious affiliation to which the offence relates,

(v)sexual orientation, whether the offence relates to sexual orientation towards persons of the same sex, towards persons of a different sex, or towards both persons of the same sex and persons of a different sex,

(vi)transgender identity, whether the offence relates to identity as a female-to-male transgender person, as a male-to-female transgender person, as a non-binary person, or as a person who cross-dresses, and

(b)if they establish that the information provided under subsection (2) may be so supplemented, take reasonable steps to obtain that supplementary information and include it in the report.

(4)The report must not include information in respect of any conviction—

(a)which identifies any individual, or

(b)from which the identity of any individual may be ascertained.

(5)The report may be in any form that the Scottish Ministers consider appropriate and (in particular) may be part of another document.

(6)In this section, “reporting year” means a period of one year ending on 31 March.

I’d rather the amendments were there than not. But I doubt they’ll do very much. If a communication is held at least insulting, I can’t see that reasonableness will run very far. It’s not obvious how you can reasonably insult someone for being within one of the protected characteristics.

As for Article 10, see my comment above.

This is a truly stupid and unpleasant piece of legislation.

What we are already seeing is questions about the decision making by the censors (the police) and a lack of transparency.

The SNP literally have said it's up the the police to decide when it should have been clearly laid out in the legislation to avoid arbitrary, inconsistent and frankly unlawful interpretations which don't treat the public equally. That's a dereliction of duty.

The power of the censors and who monitors the censors is always the question you ask first when talking about censorship. And when asked in 1997/8 whether I believed in censorship after this point being made to me, I struggled to come up with a good argument for censorship. And I've progressed no further in the years since. This doesn't stop me being horrified by some comments but I also believe that issues are largely covered by other existing laws which are much better defined and easy to identify but are not enforced - like harassment.

When this question about censorship was put to me, I was heavily involved in early social media and wanted various comments removed. I was fundamentally wrong and this lecture really did make me sit up and consider the reality more.

Police Scotland have been dealt a duff hand here because they can only police by consensus and can not police reality or in the face of mass rebellion. Cos it's unworkable. And that's what the Scottish Government should have prevented happening.

And in respect of “insult” at that.

Remember that in the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021, "insulting" is relevant in respect of the stirring up racial hatred offence but is not relevant for the offence associated with transgender identity.

Thank you. Yes, you’re right. The altogether different and sooo much higher test is “abusive”. Which must be different to “threatening” because both terms are used.

And in fact it also seems that intention to stir up hatred would be required.

So what I’ve said above needs re-casting to say that this law is similarly stupid and unpleasant because if a court accepts that a communication is abusive, it is no great difficulty for the court to then accept that causing hatred was intended.

I can’t see that the defences would be any more effective in those circumstances.

It does require a close reading. It's threatening or abusive which means that the baseline in respect of the 6 characteristics including "transgender identity" is someone communicating abusive material where they intend to stir up hatred against a group.

The defences are illusory. By the time they can be used in court, the punishment will have been ongoing for ages.

Really a satire?

Indeed. Whatever the arguments about abusiveness, intention, reasonableness and Article 10, the defendant will have been through the prolonged misery of prosecution and probably greatly out of pocket. Without any social benefit at all from curtailing the expression of mainstream views on transgender identity.

Nope! It totally ruined what had been a fantastic series up until that final bathetic denouement.

Yes totally legit to do a FoI request about this type of thing.

But they probably will take a while for a charge / conviction to go through the process as its such a new law.

:)

Gobbledegook from NZ. The country that is having an Olympics with just 2 categories. Open and ‘anyone who identifies as a woman’ (I paraphrase).

https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/04/04/for-jk-rowlings-critics-an-arrest-wouldnt-reduce-the-harm-of-her-anti-trans-comments/

https://open.substack.com/pub/alexmassie/p/the-most-hate-filled-country-in-the

What is the difference between "open" and "anyone who identifies as a woman"?

Is it just saying you identify as a woman?

Does Hamza, as a practising Muslim man, do his namaaz in mixed-sex groups? If not, why not?

Both categories are "open" to anyone who wants. They are almost the same.....
Men will be in the open category.
Men who want to compete against women to get better results will be in the identifies as women category.

Yep

Does Humza believe in equality of sexes? Does he believe in gay marriage? Does he think men can become women? How do these things relate to his religious beliefs? What a lot of crock 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

For some reason it’s ok for Humza to potentially hold unpalatable religious views and not be continually questioned about his position. I wonder why?

Well guess who's just got himself a whole bunch of new hate crime reports, yep it's humza🤭
He went on the BBC and said that anyone who objected to his white speach were the "fat right" triggering the new reports 🤣

https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/humza-yousaf-claims-anyone-who-32548940?utm_source=linkCopy&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar

I love the way autocarrot changed 'far right' into 'fat right'.

The funny thing is that Humza only became leader (by a whisker) after the media had done a hit job on Kate Forbes for her religious beliefs.

If there are any rational people left in the SNP, this would be a good time to think about how you get rid of this clown and make Forbes leader. It says a lot that one of the few people in Scottish politics with a reputation for being honest and competent is exiled to the backbenches.