Scottish police are being instructed to target actors and comedians under new ‘hate crime’ laws. According to leaked police training documents, the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) law suggests that “threatening and abusive” material can be communicated “through public performance of a play.”
The new law consolidates several existing laws and creates a new offense — stirring up hatred against protected characteristics. These include age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, and transgender identity.
The leaked training documents focus on “how might threatening and or abusive material be communicated.” These are “by: displaying, publishing or distributing the material, for example on a sign, on the internet through websites, blogs, podcasts, social media etc, either directly, or by forwarding or repeating material that originates from a third party, through printed media such as magazine publications or leaflets.”
The document states that “giving, sending, showing or playing the material to another person” can be done “through online streaming, by email, playing a video, through public performance of a play.”
