£390,000 on adverts to push ‘dangerous’ policy
THE Scottish Government has spent almost £390,000 on a media campaign to promote its controversial hate crime crackdown, it has emerged.
Community safety minister Siobhian Brown said the ‘Hate Hurts’ adverts would run until March 31 across Scottish Government social media channels, TV and outdoor billboards and encourage ‘those who have witnessed or experienced a hate crime to come forward’.
The Scottish Government confirmed the campaign has cost £389,736 ‘including creative development, production and media spend’.
Scottish Conservative deputy justice
‘Scots will wonder why this is a priority’
spokesman Sharon Dowey said: ‘The SNP appear hellbent to squander scarce resources on promoting Humza Yousaf’s dangerous Hate Crime Act, rather than diverting funds to frontline policing.
‘Scots who have seen communities lose their police presence will wonder why this is a priority, when this threatens freedom of speech.
‘This money could have helped police investigate crimes, rather than savage SNP cuts forcing them to surrender to criminals. We would scrap Humza Yousaf’s flawed legislation and consign it to history.’
The Scottish Government said: ‘The impact on those at the receiving end of physical, verbal or online attacks can be traumatic and life changing.
‘The Hate Hurts campaign shows the impact of hate crime and encourages those who have witnessed or experienced a hate crime to come forward.’
According to its latest data, Police Scotland has already logged 10,518 hate crimes and non-crime hate incidents in the past year. Officers recorded 5,587 non-crime hate incidents – where no actual offence took place – and 4,931 hate crimes.
The huge number of reports has fuelled fears Police Scotland – already at the centre of claims it is ‘surrendering to criminals’ by refusing to investigate lowlevel crimes – is spending too much time policing free speech and Twitter spats and not enough on fighting real crime.