Up to Dhs1m fine, a year’s imprisonment for hate speech

ABU DHABI: In a video posted on its social media accounts, the Criminal Media Centre of the Public Prosecution “WA’I” (Awareness) clarified the punishment for hatred speech.

The Criminal Media Centre defined hatred speech as that everything or act that would incite discord, strife or discrimination amongst individuals or groups, according to the Article No.7 of the Federal Decree-law No.34 of 2023 on Combating Discrimination, Hatred and Extremism.

It explained that whoever commits and act that would incite hatred speech by a means of expression or any other means, shall be sentenced to imprisonment for duration of not less than one year and/or fined a monetary penalty of not less than Dhs500,000 and not more than Dhs1 million.

The Public Prosecution is disseminating this information as part of its ongoing campaign to promote legal culture among society members. The Criminal Media Centre ‘Awareness’ is the trusted source for disseminating all new and updated legislation in the country. The aim is to confidently raise public awareness of the law and spread the culture of law as a way of life.

Recently, the Abu Dhabi Public Prosecution (PP) had ordered the imprisonment of a woman of Arab nationality, in connection with the investigation initiated into the publication by the accused of a video on social media likely to incite hate speech, and which constitutes an affront to men and domestic workers, in violation of general customs and ethics.

The UAE Public Prosecution had completed its ambitious project, “Classification of Crimes and the Digitisation of Criminal Legislation in the Criminal Case Management System.”

Under the project, legal texts have been transformed into a digital format that is comprehensible and executable by information systems, employing advanced artificial intelligence techniques.

The project is designed to support the vision and directives of wise leadership, aimed at leveraging all human and institutional capabilities to secure a leading position in digital transformation.

According to the Public Prosecution, specialised teams comprising 30 prosecutors and seven technicians from the Information Technology Department played a pivotal role in this initiative. The teams have dedicated a colossal total of 3,821 working hours to scrutinise, individualise, and encode the laws into the newly developed system.

This rigorous process has culminated in the digitisations of over 17 federal laws and the detailed classification of 32,000 criminal charges, which encompass a comprehensive spectrum of acts, penalties, and varying legal circumstances.