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This might be of interest: The UK Crown Prosecution Service uses " definitions agreed with the National Police Chiefs' Council to identify racist or religious i

This might be of interest: The UK Crown Prosecution Service uses " definitions agreed with the National Police Chiefs' Council to identify racist or religious incidents/crimes and to monitor the decisions and outcomes: "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." https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/racist-and-religious-hate-crime-prosecution-guidance https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/racist-and-religious-h...

deleted 9y ago
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TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
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."
- bergoid 9y ago
  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.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - orf 9y ago
    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.
    - hailk 9y ago
      I'm unclear about lawful differentiation between both sentences that makes one hate speech and other not. Or is it the manner of delivery?
      - orf 9y ago
        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. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_the_Unit...
        bergoid 9y ago
        > "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. A stark warning that this concern is not a sterile theoretical exercise came in August this year, when James Damore was fired from Google: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%27s_Ideological_Echo_Chamber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%27s_Ideological_Echo_Ch... 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.
  - otakucode 9y ago
    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.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago

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."

bergoid 9y ago
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.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- orf 9y ago
  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.
  - hailk 9y ago
    I'm unclear about lawful differentiation between both sentences that makes one hate speech and other not. Or is it the manner of delivery?
    - orf 9y ago
      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. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_the_Unit...
      - bergoid 9y ago
        > "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. A stark warning that this concern is not a sterile theoretical exercise came in August this year, when James Damore was fired from Google: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%27s_Ideological_Echo_Chamber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%27s_Ideological_Echo_Ch... 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.
- otakucode 9y ago
  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.