Background to Racial and Religious Hatred Bill

Introduction

The Racial and Religious Hatred Bill intends to create a new offence of Incitement to Religious Hatred to cover individuals currently not protected by existing law.

It defines 'incitement to religious hatred', the implications for free speech, and how any eventual legislation may be enforced.

The Bill is intended to prevent extremist groups from targeting and stirring up hatred against people, using religious/non-religious beliefs as the main factor and basis for their behaviour.

A date for it becoming law has not been set, as it must go through a third reading in the House of Commons, where MP’s can comment further and decide whether it should be passed and receive Royal Assent.

Proposals

The Government is proposing to extend the existing criminal offence of incitement to racial hatred contained in the Public Order Act 1986 to create a new offence of incitement to religious hatred.

The proposals do not define ‘religion’. It is for the criminal courts to decide whether a particular group of people is protected.

The new legislation is designed to protect people of all religious beliefs/no belief. It applies equally to any religious group and will also protect people targeted because of their lack of religious beliefs such as atheists, humanists and agnostics.

It will make it an offence to use words, behaviour, or display written material that is threatening, abusive or insulting with the intention or likely effect that hatred will be stirred up against a group of people targeted because of their religious beliefs or lack of religious beliefs eg by right-wing parties, religious groups.

The Bill is aiming to ensure freedom of speech and the right to practise religion without fear are protected by maintaining the right to engage in debate about religion and providing a clear difference between criticism of a religion and the criminal act of inciting hatred against person(s) on the basis of their religion.

The legislation will not prevent people telling jokes about or making fun of religions, causing offence to followers of a religion, trying to convert somebody to one’s own religion or urging followers of a different religion to cease practising theirs or expressing antipathy or dislike of particular religions or their followers.

Implications for Plymouth City Council

This is criminal legislation and its enforcement is therefore not in the Commission for Racial equalities remit. It is a matter for the Criminal Justice System.

• Stirring up hatred against people because of their religious beliefs (or lack of them) can lead to criminal acts, abuse, discrimination, fear and disorder, eg distribution of inaccurate written information about practices of a faith, stating unfounded links to issues like terrorism and abuse of women.
• In Plymouth, there could be implications for all of our faith communities, like Christian, Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Islamic, Jewish, Taoist, Buddhist, Sikh and Hindu, from what the Bill is designed to cover. This could test the Council’s community leadership role and relationships between inter-faith support networks in the city eg quality of engagement between the Council and faith communities to reflect what is happening regionally and nationally.
• The proposed law is not meant to limit in any way the freedom to criticise, make fun of or make offensive comments about religion. However in light of this there may be issues for our Trading Standards/Licensing services to think about particularly on staging high publicity events eg Jerry Springer the Opera, which was shown nationally on stage and television and its content according to some groups mocked the Christian belief and the status of Jesus Christ.
• Plymouth City Council Corporate Communications to be pro-actively engaged in the reporting of events (like Jerry Springer) for Plymouth City Council employee information and maintain a link to local press to ensure accurate reporting.
• Social Inclusion Officer for Community Safety to work closely with the police to incorporate implications of the Bill into the reporting process for hate/racist incidents.
• In line with the regional community cohesion agenda Government of the South West to provide a steer for actions from central government relating to the Bill and Plymouth City Council to develop action planning at a local level that feeds into the Social Inclusion Unit and Corporate Equalities Group Work plan. This should happen in consultation with Plymouth Race Equality Council, Multi-Faith Forum, Community Safety Unit and other partners.

The implications from the Bill should sit within the Community Tensions arena, bearing in mind the nature of activity that constitutes a basis for prosecution under the Bill, and the benefits of sharing local regional good practice.

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