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00:05 Hello, I'm Alistair Grant, the Political Editor of The Scotsman and I'm here outside the Scottish
00:08 Parliament in Edinburgh where people have gathered to protest against the new Hate Crime
00:13 Act. This is a legislation that has come into force today on Monday April 1st, been generating
00:19 a lot of controversy in Scotland. It essentially consolidates existing hate crime law but crucially
00:25 also creates a new offence of stirring up hatred against protected characteristics including
00:30 age, sexual orientation and transgender identity. A stirring up offence against racial hatred
00:37 has been on the statute book in Scotland since 1986 but the new legislation has raised concerns
00:43 about a potential chilling effect on free speech. Linked to that there's also concerns
00:49 about how the police might implement this, how they might go about enforcing this law.
00:55 There's also concerns that the police could face a flood of complaints relating to comments
00:58 made on social media. There's concerns as well raised by the Scottish Police Federation
01:04 about the training that's been given to officers. High profile critics of the Hate Crime Act
01:09 include J.K. Rowling who launched an attack on the legislation this morning on social
01:14 media. She said it's wide open to abuse and she also said "I'm currently out of the country
01:19 but what I've written here qualifies as an offence under the terms of the new Act. I
01:25 look forward to being arrested when I return to the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment."
01:29 So quite strong comments from J.K. Rowling and as you can see there's quite a lot of
01:32 people gathered behind me outside the Scottish Parliament to protest against this Act. It's
01:36 a protest that was co-organised by the Glasgow Cabbie aka Steph Shaw. Also quite a lot, a
01:43 strong involvement on the stage from the Scottish Family Party, the socially conservative party.
01:49 Well it's a protest against Humza Yousaf, the SNP and Scottish Greens, hate crime laws
01:55 here in Scotland which are draconian and could decent people, decent good people, set them
02:02 back in terms of employment and various other things because you go into a database if somebody
02:07 is perceiving that you have been a naughty boy or a naughty girl and report you to Police
02:13 Scotland. Well this is based on perception and it's wrong to base a crime on perception.
02:20 The other thing is that in actual crimes that are happening, smaller, minor crimes that
02:24 are happening such as burglaries, it could be breach of the peace. Police are now ignoring
02:30 them to say that they will investigate every hate crime complaint in the country. We campaigned
02:38 against the gender reforms and they collapsed and Nicola Sturgeon resigned only five weeks
02:43 later. Let's hope the same thing happens here.
02:46 [Music]
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