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Summary A legal shake-up aimed at protecting minorities angers high-profile opponents on freedom of speech grounds.

Content <p>LONDON — It was no April Fool&#8217;s joke.</p> <p>Harry Potter author-turned culture warrior J.K. Rowling kicked off the month with <a href="https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1774749954629652873" target="_blank">an 11-tweet social media thread</a> in which she deliberately misgendered 10 transgender women — and dared Scottish police to arrest her.</p> <p>Rowling’s intervention came as a controversial new Scottish government law, aimed at protecting minority groups from hate crimes, took effect. And it landed amid a fierce debate over both the legal status of transgender people in Scotland and over what actually constitutes a hate crime.</p> <p>Already the law has generated far more international buzz than is normal for legislation passed by a small nation&#8217;s devolved parliament.</p> <p>U.S. podcaster Joe Rogan and X owner Elon Musk — who boasts more followers on his platform than there are people living in Scotland — are among those to have waded in alongside Rowling.</p> <p>The row, Musk said, is &#8220;example of why it is so important to preserve freedom of speech.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;This bill is about protecting people against a rising tide of hatred we see far too prevalently in our society,&#8221; Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf countered Wednesday. </p> <h3 class="wp-block-heading">&#8216;Stirring up hatred&#8217;</h3> <p>Laws meant to protect Scots from hate crimes on grounds of race, disability, religion, sexual orientation and transgender identity already exist.</p> <p>But the Scottish government, led by the pro-independence Scottish National Party, argues they don&#8217;t go far enough. </p> <p>The law adds a new crime of “stirring up hatred&#8221; against groups with protected characteristics, including on the grounds of age — and echoes an offense that already exists in a law on racial hatred in place since 1965.</p> <p>Under the bill, someone behaving toward, or communicating material to, an individual in a way that could be considered, by a &#8220;reasonable person,&#8221; to be “threatening or abusive&#8221; could face a maximum penalty of seven years in prison — but only if it&#8217;s found they intended to “stir up hatred” against a protected group. </p> <p>Backers say that&#8217;s a bar even higher than the 1965 racism law, which already sees few prosecutions.</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-resized"><img decoding="async" fetchpriority="high" width="1024" height="683" src="https://www.politico.eu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/03/GettyImages-1473559342-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-4536516" style="aspect-ratio:1.499267935578331;width:792px;height:auto" srcset="https://www.politico.eu/cdn-cgi/image/width=1024,quality=80,onerror=redirect,format=auto/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/03/GettyImages-1473559342.jpg 1024w, https://www.politico.eu/cdn-cgi/image/width=300,quality=80,onerror=redirect,format=auto/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/03/GettyImages-1473559342.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">The Harry Potter author tested the fences by describing several transgender women — including prominent activists, public figures and some convicted sex offenders who self-identified as women — as men. | Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images</figcaption></figure> <p>Yet the law&#8217;s detractors argue forcefully that the law could stifle free speech and force Scotland&#8217;s already-stretched police to deal with a deluge of reports on a new offense.</p> <p>The inclusion of transgender identity under the new rules sparked the ire of activists already angry with the Scottish government&#8217;s separate, and ill-fated, bid to make it easier for people to legally change their gender through self-identification. </p> <p>They point out that women are not listed as a protected group, although the Scottish government has promised a separate law on misogyny in the future.</p> <p>And that&#8217;s where Rowling comes in. The Harry Potter author tested the fences by describing several transgender women — including prominent activists, public figures and some convicted sex offenders who self-identified as women — as men.&nbsp;</p> <p>“Freedom of speech and belief are at an end in Scotland if the accurate description of biological sex is deemed criminal,” Rowling warned. </p> <p>“I’m currently out of the country, but if what I&#8217;ve written here qualifies as an offense under the terms of the new act, I look forward to being arrested when I return to the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment,&#8221; she added.</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" width="1024" height="683" src="https://www.politico.eu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/03/GettyImages-1193618855-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-4536546" srcset="https://www.politico.eu/cdn-cgi/image/width=1024,quality=80,onerror=redirect,format=auto/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/03/GettyImages-1193618855.jpg 1024w, https://www.politico.eu/cdn-cgi/image/width=300,quality=80,onerror=redirect,format=auto/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/03/GettyImages-1193618855.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Rowling was in part responding to the Scottish government minister Siobhan Brown, who <a href="https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/scots-could-investigated-misgendering-someone-32485281" target="_blank">told the BBC</a> it would be a &#8220;police matter&#8221; to assess if misgendering someone on the internet was a crime. | Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images</figcaption></figure> <p>Rowling was in part responding to the Scottish government minister Siobhan Brown, who <a href="https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/scots-could-investigated-misgendering-someone-32485281" target="_blank">told the BBC</a> it would be a &#8220;police matter&#8221; to assess if misgendering someone on the internet was a crime. </p> <p>Police Scotland confirmed the next day that no action would be taken against the author, despite complaints.</p> <h3 class="wp-block-heading">Free speech warriors</h3> <p>Regardless, the law has fast become a lightning rod for some of the world&#8217;s best-known free speech warriors.</p> <p>&#8220;You see that wild shit in Scotland where they&#8217;re targeting comedians with hate crime laws?&#8221; Joe Rogan, the world&#8217;s most popular podcaster, asked his guests in a recent episode, as he seized on claims — swiftly denied by Police Scotland — that officers would be monitoring for hate speech “through public performance of a play.”</p> <p>Musk approvingly shared a post from Malaysian right-wing influencer Ian Miles Cheong who claimed the law would see people who &#8220;show someone a spicy meme&#8221; on transgender people or &#8220;mass migration&#8221; locked up.</p> <p>Closer to home, the footballer-turned pundit Ally McCoist railed against the legislation too —arguing he and 48,000 other fans would likely be breaching the law while watching his beloved Rangers take on arch-rivals Celtic this Sunday. Scottish football — and the rivalry between Celtic and Rangers in particular — has long been plagued by sectarian hatred, which the Scottish government has tried to combat with previous legislation.</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" width="1024" height="683" src="https://www.politico.eu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/03/GettyImages-2074363200-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-4536555" srcset="https://www.politico.eu/cdn-cgi/image/width=1024,quality=80,onerror=redirect,format=auto/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/03/GettyImages-2074363200.jpg 1024w, https://www.politico.eu/cdn-cgi/image/width=300,quality=80,onerror=redirect,format=auto/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/03/GettyImages-2074363200.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">U.K. Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak rowed in behind Rowling this week, talking up Britain&#8217;s &#8220;proud tradition of free speech.&#8221; | Daniel Leal/AFP via Getty Images</figcaption></figure> <p>Always keen to try and give the SNP-Scottish government a bloody nose, U.K. Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak rowed in behind Rowling this week, talking up Britain&#8217;s &#8220;proud tradition of free speech.&#8221; His Westminster government <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/scotland-westminster-dispute-court-transgender-rights/">has long battled</a> the Scottish administration over protections for transgender people.</p> <h3 class="wp-block-heading">&#8216;Protecting people&#8217;</h3> <p>The law poses a real test for Scotland&#8217;s First Minister Yousaf, who served as justice secretary when it first passed in 2021 and now presides over its coming into force. </p> <p>Though a majority of lawmakers from all Holyrood parties except for the Scottish Conservatives backed the bill at the time, it had a rocky path to becoming law, and was amended in the process to toughen its freedom of speech provisions following a backlash. </p> <p>Yousaf has spent the week giving the plan the hard sell — and was himself targeted Tuesday by racist graffiti <a href="https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/dundee/4937413/racist-graffiti-humza-yousaf-broughty-ferry/" target="_blank">near his home</a>.</p> <p>Other Scottish government ministers have decried &#8220;misinformation&#8221; around the bill, taking aim at Musk and Rogan. Supporters <a href="https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/viewpoint/24190927.scotlands-hate-crime-act-plenty-safeguards/" target="_blank">say the law is unlikely</a> to lead to many new prosecutions, except for the most serious cases, due to its high bar for criminality.</p> <p>For her part, Rowling&#8217;s welcomed the decision not to prosecute her — sparing the Scottish police one hell of a test case.</p> <p>But she&#8217;s unlikely to keep quiet, and is already warning that others who share her views must be &#8220;treated equally under the law&#8221; — even if they lack the <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/jk-rowling-net-worth-sunday-times-rich-list-0h5rmf2hh" target="_blank">multi-millionaire&#8217;s</a> cultural or financial clout.</p>

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Hidden blurb --- !ruby/object:Feedjira::Parser::RSSEntry published: 2024-04-04 02:00:00.000000000 Z carlessian_info: news_filer_version: 2 newspaper: Politico EU macro_region: Europe entry_id: !ruby/object:Feedjira::Parser::GloballyUniqueIdentifier is_perma_link: 'false' guid: https://www.politico.eu/?post_type=article&p=4533717 title: How Scotland’s controversial hate crime law triggered JK Rowling, Joe Rogan and Elon Musk categories: - Apps - Courts - Hate crime - Major and chronic diseases - Media - Misinformation - Parliament - Religion - Rights - Social Media - Society and culture - Politics content: |2 <p>LONDON — It was no April Fool&#8217;s joke.</p> <p>Harry Potter author-turned culture warrior J.K. Rowling kicked off the month with <a href="https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1774749954629652873" target="_blank">an 11-tweet social media thread</a> in which she deliberately misgendered 10 transgender women — and dared Scottish police to arrest her.</p> <p>Rowling’s intervention came as a controversial new Scottish government law, aimed at protecting minority groups from hate crimes, took effect. And it landed amid a fierce debate over both the legal status of transgender people in Scotland and over what actually constitutes a hate crime.</p> <p>Already the law has generated far more international buzz than is normal for legislation passed by a small nation&#8217;s devolved parliament.</p> <p>U.S. podcaster Joe Rogan and X owner Elon Musk — who boasts more followers on his platform than there are people living in Scotland — are among those to have waded in alongside Rowling.</p> <p>The row, Musk said, is &#8220;example of why it is so important to preserve freedom of speech.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;This bill is about protecting people against a rising tide of hatred we see far too prevalently in our society,&#8221; Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf countered Wednesday. </p> <h3 class="wp-block-heading">&#8216;Stirring up hatred&#8217;</h3> <p>Laws meant to protect Scots from hate crimes on grounds of race, disability, religion, sexual orientation and transgender identity already exist.</p> <p>But the Scottish government, led by the pro-independence Scottish National Party, argues they don&#8217;t go far enough. </p> <p>The law adds a new crime of “stirring up hatred&#8221; against groups with protected characteristics, including on the grounds of age — and echoes an offense that already exists in a law on racial hatred in place since 1965.</p> <p>Under the bill, someone behaving toward, or communicating material to, an individual in a way that could be considered, by a &#8220;reasonable person,&#8221; to be “threatening or abusive&#8221; could face a maximum penalty of seven years in prison — but only if it&#8217;s found they intended to “stir up hatred” against a protected group. </p> <p>Backers say that&#8217;s a bar even higher than the 1965 racism law, which already sees few prosecutions.</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-resized"><img decoding="async" fetchpriority="high" width="1024" height="683" src="https://www.politico.eu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/03/GettyImages-1473559342-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-4536516" style="aspect-ratio:1.499267935578331;width:792px;height:auto" srcset="https://www.politico.eu/cdn-cgi/image/width=1024,quality=80,onerror=redirect,format=auto/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/03/GettyImages-1473559342.jpg 1024w, https://www.politico.eu/cdn-cgi/image/width=300,quality=80,onerror=redirect,format=auto/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/03/GettyImages-1473559342.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">The Harry Potter author tested the fences by describing several transgender women — including prominent activists, public figures and some convicted sex offenders who self-identified as women — as men. | Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images</figcaption></figure> <p>Yet the law&#8217;s detractors argue forcefully that the law could stifle free speech and force Scotland&#8217;s already-stretched police to deal with a deluge of reports on a new offense.</p> <p>The inclusion of transgender identity under the new rules sparked the ire of activists already angry with the Scottish government&#8217;s separate, and ill-fated, bid to make it easier for people to legally change their gender through self-identification. </p> <p>They point out that women are not listed as a protected group, although the Scottish government has promised a separate law on misogyny in the future.</p> <p>And that&#8217;s where Rowling comes in. The Harry Potter author tested the fences by describing several transgender women — including prominent activists, public figures and some convicted sex offenders who self-identified as women — as men.&nbsp;</p> <p>“Freedom of speech and belief are at an end in Scotland if the accurate description of biological sex is deemed criminal,” Rowling warned. </p> <p>“I’m currently out of the country, but if what I&#8217;ve written here qualifies as an offense under the terms of the new act, I look forward to being arrested when I return to the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment,&#8221; she added.</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" width="1024" height="683" src="https://www.politico.eu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/03/GettyImages-1193618855-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-4536546" srcset="https://www.politico.eu/cdn-cgi/image/width=1024,quality=80,onerror=redirect,format=auto/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/03/GettyImages-1193618855.jpg 1024w, https://www.politico.eu/cdn-cgi/image/width=300,quality=80,onerror=redirect,format=auto/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/03/GettyImages-1193618855.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Rowling was in part responding to the Scottish government minister Siobhan Brown, who <a href="https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/scots-could-investigated-misgendering-someone-32485281" target="_blank">told the BBC</a> it would be a &#8220;police matter&#8221; to assess if misgendering someone on the internet was a crime. | Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images</figcaption></figure> <p>Rowling was in part responding to the Scottish government minister Siobhan Brown, who <a href="https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/scots-could-investigated-misgendering-someone-32485281" target="_blank">told the BBC</a> it would be a &#8220;police matter&#8221; to assess if misgendering someone on the internet was a crime. </p> <p>Police Scotland confirmed the next day that no action would be taken against the author, despite complaints.</p> <h3 class="wp-block-heading">Free speech warriors</h3> <p>Regardless, the law has fast become a lightning rod for some of the world&#8217;s best-known free speech warriors.</p> <p>&#8220;You see that wild shit in Scotland where they&#8217;re targeting comedians with hate crime laws?&#8221; Joe Rogan, the world&#8217;s most popular podcaster, asked his guests in a recent episode, as he seized on claims — swiftly denied by Police Scotland — that officers would be monitoring for hate speech “through public performance of a play.”</p> <p>Musk approvingly shared a post from Malaysian right-wing influencer Ian Miles Cheong who claimed the law would see people who &#8220;show someone a spicy meme&#8221; on transgender people or &#8220;mass migration&#8221; locked up.</p> <p>Closer to home, the footballer-turned pundit Ally McCoist railed against the legislation too —arguing he and 48,000 other fans would likely be breaching the law while watching his beloved Rangers take on arch-rivals Celtic this Sunday. Scottish football — and the rivalry between Celtic and Rangers in particular — has long been plagued by sectarian hatred, which the Scottish government has tried to combat with previous legislation.</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" width="1024" height="683" src="https://www.politico.eu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/03/GettyImages-2074363200-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-4536555" srcset="https://www.politico.eu/cdn-cgi/image/width=1024,quality=80,onerror=redirect,format=auto/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/03/GettyImages-2074363200.jpg 1024w, https://www.politico.eu/cdn-cgi/image/width=300,quality=80,onerror=redirect,format=auto/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/03/GettyImages-2074363200.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">U.K. Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak rowed in behind Rowling this week, talking up Britain&#8217;s &#8220;proud tradition of free speech.&#8221; | Daniel Leal/AFP via Getty Images</figcaption></figure> <p>Always keen to try and give the SNP-Scottish government a bloody nose, U.K. Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak rowed in behind Rowling this week, talking up Britain&#8217;s &#8220;proud tradition of free speech.&#8221; His Westminster government <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/scotland-westminster-dispute-court-transgender-rights/">has long battled</a> the Scottish administration over protections for transgender people.</p> <h3 class="wp-block-heading">&#8216;Protecting people&#8217;</h3> <p>The law poses a real test for Scotland&#8217;s First Minister Yousaf, who served as justice secretary when it first passed in 2021 and now presides over its coming into force. </p> <p>Though a majority of lawmakers from all Holyrood parties except for the Scottish Conservatives backed the bill at the time, it had a rocky path to becoming law, and was amended in the process to toughen its freedom of speech provisions following a backlash. </p> <p>Yousaf has spent the week giving the plan the hard sell — and was himself targeted Tuesday by racist graffiti <a href="https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/dundee/4937413/racist-graffiti-humza-yousaf-broughty-ferry/" target="_blank">near his home</a>.</p> <p>Other Scottish government ministers have decried &#8220;misinformation&#8221; around the bill, taking aim at Musk and Rogan. Supporters <a href="https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/viewpoint/24190927.scotlands-hate-crime-act-plenty-safeguards/" target="_blank">say the law is unlikely</a> to lead to many new prosecutions, except for the most serious cases, due to its high bar for criminality.</p> <p>For her part, Rowling&#8217;s welcomed the decision not to prosecute her — sparing the Scottish police one hell of a test case.</p> <p>But she&#8217;s unlikely to keep quiet, and is already warning that others who share her views must be &#8220;treated equally under the law&#8221; — even if they lack the <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/jk-rowling-net-worth-sunday-times-rich-list-0h5rmf2hh" target="_blank">multi-millionaire&#8217;s</a> cultural or financial clout.</p> summary: 'A legal shake-up aimed at protecting minorities angers high-profile opponents on freedom of speech grounds. ' rss_fields: - title - url - summary - author - categories - published - entry_id - content url: https://www.politico.eu/article/scotlands-controversial-hate-crime-law-triggered-jk-rowling-joe-rogan-elon-musk/?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=RSS_Syndication author: Andrew McDonald

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