Wings Over Scotland

So here’s a thing.

But that’s not how the Hate Crime Act is supposed to work.

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This is from the Financial Memorandum prepared by the Scottish Government for the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021.

And here’s the reality after ONE DAY.

So that went well.

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Thanks to the dedication of our legal team in working over the Easter holiday, Wings has unexpectedly received the formal Opinion of legal counsel (hereafter called “the Opinion”, capitalised to avoid confusion with the ordinary use of the word in the article) with regard to the standing of the site in the light of the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021, which comes into force tomorrow.

We publish the Opinion below, partly to assist those worried about the Act’s impact on them but unable to afford their own legal advice.

But we also do so to place Police Scotland on notice that anything published by Wings Over Scotland is done in the light of the greatest possible care having been taken to ensure compliance with the law, and that in such a context any future attempt/s to improperly interfere with our rights of free expression under Article 10 of the European Convention On Human Rights (ECHR) will be viewed with regard to pursuing the maximum available recourse for wrongful restriction of our lawful activities.

We have both funds and the will to pursue such action.

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Bookmark the links in this article, readers, because Wings might not be here tomorrow and it’s important. According to the Scottish Government, our beloved country is in the grip of a terrible epidemic of hatred. That’s plainly an unacceptable – one could also say intolerable – situation, and every last one of us must play our part to end it.

Even if that causes some administrative difficulties.

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The video below, which we just found today, is taken from a promo by the American news channel CNN in 2017. It’s deeply ironic now, because CNN has been thoroughly captured by gender ideology. But it’s the reason Wings Over Scotland won’t change what or how we write, even if it means we have to shut our doors.

The truth is everything. Non-negotiable. No matter what. It’s as simple as that.

So, it being Good Friday, we’re definitely not going to receive our legal opinion before Monday now, so Wings Over Scotland will be shutting down, at least temporarily, on Sunday evening. No posts will be visible on the site and our Twitter account will be either locked down or deactivated while we await advice on whether either can return.

In the meantime you can hear of any developments, or get in touch, on my personal account @RevStu or on @TheGhostOfWings, both of which have had, or are about to have, all their old tweets wiped.

We’re not going to overdramatise, because we hope this is only for a few days. We’re optimistic that the Scottish Government’s abysmal, sinister and totalitarian Hate Crime Act, opposed across every sector of Scottish society and even by the police charged with implementing it, will not put an end to 12 and a half years of political journalism.

But you can’t write or tweet from a prison cell.

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Welcome, readers, to what may be the final week of Wings Over Scotland.

We’ve been covering the Scottish Government’s horrific, draconian Hate Crime Act for almost four years now. But until this month, we hadn’t felt directly under threat by it. Wings is – sorry if this comes as a shock to anyone – based in Bath, in England, and we couldn’t see how the Scottish police could come after us.

And then we read this.

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I make no apology for what I am about to write because while I’ve said it before, the time to do so is running out.

In a couple of weeks, the Scottish Government’s Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 will come into effect and my world, and that of women up and down Scotland will enter a very dark place.

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We’ve just submitted this Freedom Of Information request to Police Scotland:

I seek the following information with regard to Police Scotland’s programme of materials surrounding the implementation of the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021:

(1) What was the total cost of the “Hate Monster” campaign?

(2) Of that, how much was spent on the production of the “Have you met the Hate Monster?” video (below)?

(3) Which pronouns should be used when referring to the Hate Monster in reporting of the campaign? Does the Hate Monster have a sex and/or gender? Were any full-body images of the Hate Monster commissioned, or only its upper body? If the former, please supply any such images held by Police Scotland.

(4) Would the reference on this page to “young men aged 18-30 […] with ideas about white-male entitlement” constitute a possible hate crime or hate incident, under the protected characteristic of race, since it seems likely to stir up hatred of young white men as being disproportionately bigoted and violent on the basis of their colour and lead to their victimisation?

(5) If so, is there a particular third party (such as a sex shop or mushroom farm) to whom this crime/incident should be reported, as when the alleged offender was the police a person might for obvious reasons not “feel comfortable reporting the incident to the police”, as noted on the campaign website?

(6) Which organisations, if any, were employed to provide suitable training to the staff of Third Party Reporting Centres and how much, if anything, were they paid?

(7) Are Third Party Reporting Centres required to accept any report, or can they use their discretion to refuse some reports if they find them objectionable or offensive?

(8) Are there circumstances whereby a report of a hate crime/hate incident could itself constitute a hate crime/hate incident?

Rev. Stuart Campbell
Editor
Wings Over Scotland

We’ll keep you updated with developments as they occur.

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