Scottish Police Flooded With Complaints During First 24 Hours of ‘Hate Crime’ Law

Almost 4,000 ‘hate crime’ complaints were made to Police Scotland in the 24 hours after the country’s new public order act came into effect.

Calum Steele, the former general secretary of the Scottish Police Federation, said it was his “understanding” that the figure stood at around 3,800, suggesting many people are all too happy to make use of the anti-free speech legislation despite the rightful criticism it has received in the media.

The news has prompted critics of the hard-left Scottish National Party government to warn of police officers being overstretched. Conservative Member of the Scottish Parliament Rachael Hamilton said that because of the law,

Many thousands of minor crime incidents will not be investigated and serious crime will bear the brunt of an already strained [police] service.

Hamilton added that “the Act must be repealed.”

The Hate Crime and Public Order Act, which came into force on Monday, makes a new crime of “stirring up hatred” based on protected characteristics, including age, disability, faith, sexual orientation, transgender identity, or being intersex. 

The legislation is not, however, designed to protect women—for instance, as Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling pointed out, those who speak out in favour of single-sex spaces for women and girls, which could be deemed ‘hateful’ by protected trans individuals.

On Monday, Rowling described a list of transgender individuals as men and invited Police Scotland to “arrest me.” Officers later said that it had received complaints about her online post but that they did not view it as criminal. The author responded:

I hope every woman in Scotland who wishes to speak up for the reality and importance of biological sex will be reassured by this announcement, and I trust that all women—irrespective of profile or financial means—will be treated equally under the law.

Journalist Charlotte Gill was impressed by Rowling’s stand for free speech, but is concerned that the author is something of a lone voice among cultural circles. Gill wrote: “There’s a shameful lack of artists speaking out against Scotland’s tyrannical hate crime act. How can J.K. Rowling be one of the few authors to challenge it? How did it suddenly become uncool to like free speech?!”

While Rowling avoided criminal action against her social media posts on Monday, she has stressedthat if the police “go after any woman for simply calling a man a man, I’ll repeat that woman’s words and they can charge us both at once.”

One of the transgender individuals named in Rowling’s first hate crime-critical post—Katie Neeves, who was appointed a UN Women UK delegate—voiced strong disappointment at Police Scotland for failing to act.

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