2024-04-02 16:33:59
The Law on Hate Crimes and Public Order, which consolidates the existing norms on hate crimes, as well as defines a new type of offense, was adopted by the Scottish legislators in 2021, but it has come into force now.
As the Scottish Government has explained, the law is a response to an independent review of hate crime laws and ensures that protection is “fit for the 21st century”.
Characteristics protected under the new law include age, disability, race, religion and sexual orientation, as well as gender identity.
However, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said that no one should be punished for “stating the simple facts of biology”.
“We believe in freedom of speech in this country, and the Conservatives will always defend it,” the Prime Minister emphasized in a statement to the Daily Telegraph.
The writer J. expressed her disapproval of the new law. K. Rowling, who has previously had a run-in with transgender rights activists.
The law will be “wide open to abuse by activists who want to silence those of us who speak out against the elimination of single-sex spaces for women and girls,” the writer warned on Platform X.
“I am currently out of the country, but if what I have written here is found to be an offense under the new law, I look forward to being arrested when I return to the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment,” Rowling said.
2024-04-02 16:33:59