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World News See other World News Articles Title: Ireland’s controversial hate speech law paves the way for an Orwellian future A new hate speech bill is being pushed through the Irish parliament despite an initial public consultation revealing an overwhelming number of Irish citizens oppose the controversial reforms to free speech. Passed through the Dáil, the country’s lower parliamentary chamber last month, the Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill 2022 was roundly endorsed across the political spectrum. Parties including Sinn Fein, Labour, the Green Party, Fianna Fáil, and Irish leader Leo Varadkar’s Fine Gael all backed the bill, as it received 110 votes in favor to just 14 against. However, as is often the case, the popular legislation among politicians is less admired by the electorate and has been widely criticized by huge swathes of the Irish public and free speech advocates. The bill has also received international condemnation with high-profile opponents including Elon Musk; Donald Trump Jr.; and Canadian scholar Jordan Peterson, a former Harvard University professor. Why is the bill controversial? The new hate speech bill will see transgressors sentenced to prison for up to a maximum of five years for falling on the wrong side of a rather subjective line. The bill intends to “amend the law relating to the prohibition of incitement to violence or hatred against a person, or a group of persons, on account of certain characteristics of the person, or the group,” and labels these protected characteristics as race, color, nationality, religion, national or ethnic origin, descent, gender, sex characteristics, sexual orientation, and disability. The bill contains several problematic definitions and clauses, not least how it defines gender: “The gender which a person expresses as the person’s preferred gender, or with which the person identifies, and includes transgender, and a gender other than those of male and female.” Section 7 of the bill makes it a crime to communicate material to a section of the public or behave in a public place in a manner that is likely to incite violence or hatred against a person or a group of persons on account of their protected characteristics. One need not intend to incite violence or hatred, but must simply have been “reckless as to whether such violence of hatred is incited.” Under such a law, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that those debating contemporary issues, such as transgender athletes participating in women’s sporting events or pre-op men serving time in women’s prisons, could be deemed by often militant activists to be inciting hatred towards the transgender community. The bill provides a defense should the publication represent “a reasonable and genuine contribution to literary, artistic, political, scientific, religious or academic discourse.” However, the burden is on the defendant to prove this and is wholly insufficient, as someone making an important but controversial contribution to a sensitive debate could be dragged through the mud for months and already convicted in the court of public opinion long before being acquitted using such a defense. Section 10 of the bill is equally problematic. It states a crime will be committed when someone “possesses material that is likely to incite violence or hatred against a person or a group of persons” and it is reasonably assumed that the material was intended to be communicated to the public. So, even if someone possesses material that hasn’t been published or caused any offense, they can still be sentenced to up to two years imprisonment for holding the material. Again, a defense that the material was intended for personal use is provided in the legislation; however, once again the burden of proof is on the defendant to show they had no intention of publishing the material and not on the prosecution to show beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant did intend to publish. How has the Irish public reacted? Quite understandably, Irish citizens are unimpressed with the legislative reform, to put it mildly. The Department of Justice launched a public consultation into the plans way back in 2019, which received around 3,600 responses. Irish news outlet Gript looked through all but three of the submissions and reported last week that 73 percent of the responses to the public consultation were negative, some 2,627 submissions. Poster Comment: The Totalitarians around the world are psychotic Sh!#heads! Trangenders, whom I pity, do have the same human rights as any other citizen. That does not mean that we must respect or coddle their psychoses. This is all a continuing psyop to disrupt our society and the cure is to begin removing heads. VIVA La Révolution! Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
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