https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/08/28/the-dreadful-return-of-the-non-crime-hate-incident/
‘In this country we have never had a Cheka, a Gestapo or a Stasi. We have never lived in an Orwellian society.’
These were the words of the UK High Court judge, Mr Justice Julian Knowles. In 2020, he condemned Humberside Police for turning up at a man’s place of work and previously recording a ‘non-crime hate incident’ (NCHI) against his name. The ‘non-crime’ that brought the police to an innocent man’s door? He had tweeted a limerick poking fun at the trans issue.
Worryingly, the High Court’s stark warning against the Orwellianism of the old NCHI regime seems to have been lost on new home secretary Yvette Cooper. The Telegraph reports today that she is planning to drop the Tories’ guidance and significantly expand police powers to monitor and make records of supposedly hateful speech. Apparently, this is part of a new ‘zero tolerance’ approach to anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.
It is hard to understate just how sinister this plan is – and what a huge threat it poses to free speech. Under the old rules, soon to be revived, NCHIs could be recorded by police whenever someone was accused of showing ‘hostility towards religion, race or transgender identity’. The police did not need any evidence of such hostility before recording an NCHI against your name. What mattered was that someone, somewhere, had perceived another person’s legal speech or non-criminal behaviour as being motivated by hate.
HebrideanUltraTerfHecate /
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2024-08-29 15:17:25
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"content": "https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/08/28/the-dreadful-return-of-the-non-crime-hate-incident/\n\n‘In this country we have never had a Cheka, a Gestapo or a Stasi. We have never lived in an Orwellian society.’\n\nThese were the words of the UK High Court judge, Mr Justice Julian Knowles. In 2020, he condemned Humberside Police for turning up at a man’s place of work and previously recording a ‘non-crime hate incident’ (NCHI) against his name. The ‘non-crime’ that brought the police to an innocent man’s door? He had tweeted a limerick poking fun at the trans issue.\n\nWorryingly, the High Court’s stark warning against the Orwellianism of the old NCHI regime seems to have been lost on new home secretary Yvette Cooper. The Telegraph reports today that she is planning to drop the Tories’ guidance and significantly expand police powers to monitor and make records of supposedly hateful speech. Apparently, this is part of a new ‘zero tolerance’ approach to anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.\n\nIt is hard to understate just how sinister this plan is – and what a huge threat it poses to free speech. Under the old rules, soon to be revived, NCHIs could be recorded by police whenever someone was accused of showing ‘hostility towards religion, race or transgender identity’. The police did not need any evidence of such hostility before recording an NCHI against your name. What mattered was that someone, somewhere, had perceived another person’s legal speech or non-criminal behaviour as being motivated by hate.",
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