Scotland's government has joined the ranks of many others around the world who are actively working on constraining free speech by amending existing laws to make them even more oppressive than before.
The current law restricting 'hate crimes' is
similar to that in England and Wales, covering threats, abuse, and insults.
But based on what's described as a hard-line report from 2018, Scotland's upgraded Hate Crime and Public Order Bill proposed by parliament now looks to change that and
introduce three new offences,
The first will enable for prosecution of doing anything, or communicating any material, which is threatening or abusive and is intended or likely to engender hatred based on age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender or intersex
identity.
Secondly having material of this kind in one's possession meant to be in any way communicated to others will in itself now be a crime,
and thirdly, managers in organizations of any type not acting to prevent the new set of
criminalized behaviours will be criminalized themselves.
The proposals' critics say it is anti-liberal and must not be allowed to pass, pointing out that the bill takes the focus away from punishing acts of hostility based on their gravity regardless of who they target, and instead introduces a tiered
approach, depending on groups that are designated as considered more 'worthy' of the victimhood status.
Update: Scotland's new hate speech law will be too censorious
Scotland's justice secretary Humza Yousaf said the blasphemy law in Scotland would be modernised to cover discrimination against religion. Yousaf said the law would also cover discrimination against age, disability, race and sexual orientation. He said:
By creating robust laws for the justice system, parliament will send a strong message to victims, perpetrators, communities and to wider society that offences motivated by prejudice will be treated seriously and will not
be tolerated.
Blasphemy laws were repealed in England and Wales in 2008.