First minister calls for end to vexatious reports after far-right agitators attempt to ‘overwhelm’ official systems
Neo-Nazi and far-right agitators are exploiting Scotland’s new hate crime law to make vexatious complaints en masse in an attempt to “overwhelm” police systems.
A prominent figure in England’s white nationalist movement is among those urging followers to spam Police Scotland with anonymous online reports, the Observer has found.
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: Scotland’s new Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act was supposed to protect its most vulnerable communities. Instead, it’s served only to create even bigger divides
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I should be broadcasting to Australia right now, but I politely declined the request so I could write to you instead. I love my job as Scotland correspondent and, of course, lots of the topics I report on have global relevance. But it’s not every week that I’m fielding calls from international newsrooms desperate for me to explain the technicalities of the latest Holyrood parliament legislation.
So it was this week. The Scottish government’s new hate crime law is supposed to protect vulnerable communities from abuse. Instead, it has resulted in an almighty omnishambles that has dominated the headlines at home and abroad, with fierce arguments about the limits of free speech, police officers overwhelmed by thousands of potentially vexatious complaints and, most critically, the groups it was seeking to protect warning that the debate has veered too far from the reality of hate crime they experience on the streets of Scotland every day. I’ll explain what the law was designed to do and why it has proved so controversial after this morning’s headlines.
Gaza | Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has said Israel will increase the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza, including the temporary reopening of a key crossing that was destroyed in the 7 October Hamas attack. The move came after Joe Biden said future US support for Israel will depend on it taking concrete action to protect civilians and aid workers.
Garrick Club | The men-only Garrick Club has moved closer to admitting female members, after an emergency committee meeting acknowledged there was nothing in the rules to prevent them from joining. The late-night vote means women could become members within months, 193 years after the club was founded, sources said.
Politics | Leaked documents show Tory executives discussed exploiting Conservative party members’ personal data to build a mobile phone app that could track users’ locations and allow big brands to advertise to Conservative supporters. The party would then take a cut of sales.
Crime | A senior Conservative MP has reportedly admitted giving out the personal phone numbers of colleagues to a person he met on a dating app. William Wragg told the Times he gave the information after he had sent intimate pictures of himself, saying he was “scared” and “mortified”. Police are investigating after MPs were apparently targeted in a “spear-phishing” attack, in what security experts believe could be an attempt to compromise parliament.
Journalism | Hella Pick, the Guardian’s pioneering former foreign correspondent and diplomatic editor, has died at the age of 96. Her career spanned more than seven decades, covering geopolitical upheavals and tectonic shifts in global power. Her last article, on the war in Gaza, was published in January.
Continue reading...Suella Braverman will meet police and national security officials at No 10 to discuss ‘accelerated’ risk
UK ministers will hold an emergency meeting of its Cobra committee amid concerns that the Israel-Gaza conflict has raised the possibility of a domestic terrorist incident.
The home secretary, Suella Braverman, will meet national security officials and police at No 10 on Monday to assess the security risk after the deadly Hamas attack on Israel more than three weeks ago.
Continue reading...There has been a 1,350% increase in hate crimes against Jewish people in London, according to the Metropolitan police
On 7 October, Dave Rich and his team of volunteers at the Community Security Trust were doing what they always do on Jewish festivals: organising security.
‘That weekend was a Jewish festival, supposed to be a very happy, celebratory time for Jewish people,’ David tells Nosheen Iqbal. ‘This meant that we at CST had a security operation in place for that weekend anyway, because there is an ongoing, very longstanding threat of terrorism that Jewish communities around the world face.’
Continue reading...Robert Jenrick says process of revoking visas of foreign nationals who spread ‘hate and division’ has already begun
The UK immigration minister, Robert Jenrick, has suggested that visitors to the country will be removed if they incite antisemitism, even if their conduct falls “below the criminal standard”.
Jenrick said he could not get into “specific cases” of visa-holders whose conduct is being reviewed, saying there was a “legal process that must be followed properly”, but noted some people had been seen “glorifying” terror activities and “praising Hamas”.
Continue reading...As family and friends attended the six-year-old’s funeral, elected officials, including Joe Biden, condemned the brutal attack
Crowds of mourners in a Palestinian Chicago suburb paid respects on Monday to a six-year-old Muslim boy killed in an alleged anti-Islamic hate crime, hours after authorities revealed new details about the evidence used to charge the family’s landlord with stabbing the child and his mother.
Wadea Al-Fayoume, who had recently had a birthday, died on Saturday after being stabbed dozens of times in a brutal attack that drew condemnation from local elected officials to the White House. Authorities said the family’s landlord, Joseph Czuba, was upset over the Israel-Hamas war and attacked them after the boy’s mother proposed they “pray for peace”.
Continue reading...New statistics for 2022 show decrease in violent offenses and rise in hate crime incidents, a majority of which targeted Black people
Data from the FBI’s annual crime report shows an overall dip in US violent crime, but a stark increase in hate crimes.
The new statistics from the federal agency, released on Monday, show that in 2022, violent offenses decreased to pre-pandemic levels.
Continue reading...Joseph Czuba, 71, charged with murder after stabbing tenants over a dozen times, was reportedly fueled by Israel-Hamas war
A 71-year-old man in Plainfield, Illinois, has been charged with murder and a hate crime after stabbing a child and his mother because they were Muslims.
“Detectives were able to determine that both victims in this brutal attack were targeted by the suspect due to them being Muslim and the ongoing Middle Eastern conflict involving Hamas and the Israelis,” the Will county sheriff’s office said.
Continue reading...Scientists logged rises of up to 22% in racist and misogynist tweets when temperatures rose above 42C
Hateful tweets multiply dramatically as temperatures become more extreme, an analysis of 4bn geo-located tweets in the US has found.
Scientists logged rises of up to 22% in racist, misogynist and homophobic tweets when temperatures rose above 42C, and increases of up to 12% when the mercury fell below -3C, according to a study by The Lancet Planetary Health.
Continue reading...Study shows female Euro players got 125 positive posts for each hate one – in contrast to abuse directed at England men
The vast majority of social media posts directed at England women’s triumphant Euro 2022 football players across a three-month period were positive, research has found.
The study of 78,141 posts on Twitter, Reddit and the imageboard website 4chan identified more than 50,000 positive posts – roughly one “hate” post for every 125 “hope” ones.
Continue reading...David Wenwei Chou, 68, is accused of opening fire on a gathering at the Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian church and killing one person
Authorities in California have added hate crime allegations to attempted murder charges filed against a 68-year-old who opened fire at a Taiwanese American church luncheon last month, killing one person and wounding five.
The gunman, David Wenwei Chou, is accused of attacking a gathering of members of the Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian church in Laguna Woods in May. A 52-year-old doctor who took his mother to the event was killed.
Continue reading...Ex-Empire actor is accused of hiring two men to fake an attack in Chicago but new evidence could support Smollett’s defense
Jussie Smollett “is a real victim” of a “real crime,” his attorney said in opening statements at the ex-Empire actor’s trial Monday, rejecting prosecutors’ allegation that he staged a homophobic and racist attack in Chicago.
Defense attorney Nenye Uche said two brothers attacked Smollett in January 2019 because they didn’t like him, and that a $3,500 check the actor paid the men was for training so he could prepare for an upcoming music video, not as payment for staging a hate crime, as prosecutors allege. Uche also suggested a third attacker was involved and told jurors there is not a “shred” of physical and forensic evidence linking Smollett to the crime prosecutors allege.
Continue reading...Posters in Liverpool were destroyed after going on display in Homotopia festival’s Queer the City exhibition
Detectives are investigating after two artworks, commissioned in response to a series of homophobic and transphobic attacks in Liverpool, were destroyed. Merseyside police said they are treating the incidents as hate crime.
The artworks were vandalised within days of going on display as part of Homotopia festival’s Queer the City outdoor exhibition.
Continue reading...Activists fear that an increase in attacks on the country’s LBGT community is fuelled by a culture of homophobia at the very top
An act of “barbaric” violence where a 22-year-old gay man was gang-raped and tortured has prompted fierce reaction in Brazil and is evidence of a growing tide of hate crime in the country, according to human rights campaigners.
The man, who has not been named, was attacked last week in Florianópolis by three armed men who used sharp objects during the assault and forced him to carve homophobic slurs into his legs, said activists.
Continue reading...Exclusive: public figures considered to be permissible targets for otherwise-banned abuse, leaked moderator guidelines show
Facebook’s bullying and harassment policy explicitly allows for “public figures” to be targeted in ways otherwise banned on the site, including “calls for [their] death”, according to a tranche of internal moderator guidelines leaked to the Guardian.
Public figures are defined by Facebook to include people whose claim to fame may be simply a large social media following or infrequent coverage in local newspapers.
Continue reading...Discovery of remains in search for Sarah Everard causes outpouring of anger as female MPs calls for tougher action
Boris Johnson came under concerted pressure to take action to tackle male violence and misogyny and make the UK safer for women, as the discovery of human remains in the search for Sarah Everard caused an outpouring of anger.
The inquiry into the disappearance of the 33-year-old marketing executive added poignancy to the annual International Women’s Day debate in the House of Commons as dozens of female MPs told moving and angry stories of the harassment they had been subjected to.
Continue reading...Stuart Ward of West Midlands police aims to stamp out racist abuse in grounds and online to bring back community spirit
Since starting his role as the UK’s first football hate crime officer earlier this month, PC Stuart Ward has been busier than expected, considering football fans are banned from stadiums as part of the coronavirus lockdown.
Instead of jibes from the stands, players are now fielding more abuse on social media – just the other week, in Ward’s biggest case to date, West Midlands police arrested a man suspected of racially abusing West Bromwich Albion footballer Romaine Sawyers online.
Continue reading...Bill now needs approval from upper house before becoming law
Activists in Italy have hailed a vote in the lower house of parliament to pass a bill that would make violence against LGBT people and disabled people, as well as misogyny, a hate crime.
The bill, which passed successfully despite months of protests from far-right and Catholic groups, now needs approval from the upper house, where it is backed by the ruling coalition parties, before becoming law.
Continue reading...Ephraim Mirvis joins 48-hour boycott after grime musician Wiley’s antisemitic tirade
The UK’s chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, has accused Facebook and Twitter of complicity in antisemitism through inaction as he urged both platforms to do more to tackle hate speech after an antisemitic tirade last week from the grime musician Wiley.
In a letter to the technology companies’ chief executives, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Jack Dorsey of Twitter, Mirvis said “the woeful lack of responsible leadership … cannot be allowed to stand.
Continue reading...Debate on long-awaited bill that would punish discrimination and hate crimes towards LGBT people opens on Monday
For 15 years, Marco and his boyfriend had lived together fairly peacefully in a town outside Rome. Then, in early June, a neighbour started harassing them.
“It began quite lightly, with him being provocative whenever we met in the street,” the 38-year-old said. “Then he came to our home and forced his way in, calling us ‘dirty faggots’. My boyfriend managed to get rid of him but he returned with a baton and threw himself against the door, repeating the same insults and threatening to set us alight when we were asleep.”
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