Humza won’t U-turn on hate crime despite fierce backlash
HUMZA Yousaf has insisted he won’t U-turn on his controversial hate crime law despite police still being bombarded with more than 260 complaints a day.
Figures showed there were 1,832 online reports of hate crime in the second week of the legislation, from April 8-14.
It was a decline of 74.4 per cent compared to the first week, but still amounted to 262 complaints per day.
The First Minister yesterday declared he won’t back down ahead of a vote in the Scottish parliament today on the repeal of the legislation, which he introduced as justice secretary in 2021. Scottish Conservative deputy leader Meghan Gallacher said: ‘He was warned his flawed law would lead to a deluge of complaints.
‘Not only did he ignore the warnings, his SNP Government launched a £400,000 publicity campaign urging people to report incidents to the police. Now he has the cheek to wring his hands at the ensuing shambles.
‘Humza Yousaf should be scrapping this law, rather than doubling down on it.’
The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act creates new offences for threatening or abusive behaviour intended to stir up hatred.
Offences are considered aggravated if they involve prejudice towards characteristics including age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity and variations in sex characteristics. In the week after the law came into force on April 1, Police Scotland was flooded with 7,152 online reports.
Figures released yesterday showed a further 1,832 online reports in the second week as well as 13 telephone calls and 39 emails.
Of these allegations, police recorded 213 hate crimes, in addition to the 445 the previous week, and also 25 non-crime incidents.
It was also confirmed that 15.5 per cent of police officers have still not completed hate crime training.
Asked on BBC Good Morning Scotland if it is time to reverse the legislation, Mr Yousaf said: ‘Not at all. What we have seen with the introduction of the Hate Crime Act in the first week, in the first few days in particular, was a series of bad faith actors who decided to put in a number of vexatious complaints in order to waste police time, which is a pretty serious matter.’
Addressing the Scottish Trades Union Congress in Dundee later, Mr Yousaf said ‘very deliberate misinformation’ had been spread.
With opposition from high-profile figures such as Harry Potter author JK Rowling, the First Minister said there had been not ‘so much airtime’ given to the ‘everyday victims of hate crime’.
He added: ‘We’ve heard virtually nothing about the people who experience hate whilst at work – frontline workers who, just for doing their job, sometimes suffer disgraceful discrimination, abuse and threats.’
Scottish Tory justice spokesman Russell Findlay said: ‘The vast majority of these 9,000 reports are not crimes. Despite the SNP’s best efforts, Scotland is not suffering from a hate epidemic; it is suffering from bad SNP legislation.’