THE comments posted online under Joanna Cherry’s Friday article (Women have every right to be concerned about Hate Crime, Mar 22) plainly illustrate the kind of issues Joanna Cherry is raising. They wilfully ignore her main points, instead enjoying a bit of KC-bashing – especially pleasant when that KC is a woman with a big personality and a strong mind.
I will not paraphrase Joanna but will highlight the practical implications of the Hate Crime Bill.
One of the points she mentions is the subjective nature of the reporting of a hate crime.
READ MORE: The Hate Crime Act tries to match human complexity and comedy
Someone finds a statement hateful or hurtful, reports it to the police, anonymously or not. That someone may also report it to one of the third-party centres staffed by god knows who and trained by god knows who and paid or not, no-one knows (these include a sex shop or a mushroom farm, why not?) and hey presto, the police will investigate. They will record it as a hate incident, even if they do not pursue the matter. A record that will be kept indefinitely, as far as we know.
The other main point made is “the process is the punishment”.
A woman says she believes sex is immutable, or women do not have penises (well, duh…) and hop, she’s reported, the police investigate, may take all her devices – laptop, phone, iPad – which may not be returned for months. In the meantime her work suffers, her family suffers, she suffers anxiety at the prospect of a court case, may have to spend money she doesn’t have to get legal advice. It takes months for the police to say there is no case, but hey, she has a record somewhere that says she was involved in a hate incident.
Other women might hold their tongue because they can’t afford all of the above: that’s the chilling effect on freedom of speech, and that is exactly the intended consequence of those who fabricated this piece of bad law.
Don’t you see? Can you NOT see it?
Dr Mireille Pouget
Dollar
PERHAPS it is because recent events show that the Tories appear to have a much more relaxed attitude than most on what is acceptable language that Douglas Ross is unclear on what is already classed as hate crime and already being dealt with on a regular basis by the police.
The first part of the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act consolidates all of the existing legislation that has evolved over time into one act.
READ MORE: 'Get your house in order': Humza Yousaf and Douglas Ross clash on Hate Crime Act
A few groups that were previously not protected are then added, and most of the remainder of the legislation is devoted to explaining and clarifying possible issues.
The fact that the police have decided that a two-hour refresher course is all the additional training that is required indicates that they are already well versed in dealing with the subject of this act.
Douglas Ross should ask his police officer wife if she can get agreement for him to sit in on her two-hour training session. The experience might provide much-needed clarification for him before he returns to the subject after the act comes into effect in April.
John Jamieson
South Queensferry
I CAN’T help wondering what the back page, and probably also the front page, of The National might have looked like if the Scotland men’s team in the Six Nations rugby, as opposed to the women’s team, had recorded their first ever win in a country (in this case Wales) and a seventh consecutive win, another first.
The Scottish women’s team, unlike their male counterparts, played for 80 minutes in a very, very tight encounter, They fought throughout.
As a retired international coach I have always struggled to understand why, when a match is 80 minutes long, members of our men’s squad, and their coaches, say they have to play for 80 minutes! Hello?!
Much as I enjoyed the all-women’s edition of The National on International Women’s Day, for me it would mean so much more if equality, fairness even, were afforded to out national teams, regardless of their gender. How much more would it do for the ongoing quest for due recognition of women if this was a regular occurrence, not one just highlighted on March 8 every year?
I yearn for that day, and meanwhile yesterday had to take solace in looking at the photos and headlines appropriate to this historic victory on the front of Unionist papers.
Come on The National. You lead the way in so much, not least Gaza. Why not women’s sport?
Jenny Pearson
Edinburgh
AMID the furore about the colour of the St George’s Cross I have to ask where the English football team gets the blue on its strips? I can only presume that it comes from the Union flag. The flag cannot represent us in Scotland if it belongs to them, unless of course England reinvents itself as “Southern Britain”. However, I will still remain forever Scottish, never British/English.
Ni Holmes
St Andrews
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