Incitement of hatred law should not curtail free speech, says Evangelical Alliance

Any new incitement to hatred law should be written with care to avoid intolerance of free speech, the Evangelical Alliance has said following Government proposals this week.

10 October 2007

Any new incitement to hatred law should be written with care to avoid intolerance of free speech, the Evangelical Alliance has said following Government proposals this week.

The Alliance, which reiterated its opposition to incitement of homophobic or other forms of hatred, says it is hopeful the Government will consult carefully if it decides to go ahead with banning incitement on grounds of sexuality in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill.

Evangelical Alliance head of public affairs Dr Don Horrocks said: “We support legislation that seeks effectively to prevent the stirring up of hatred, but our view remains that the existing law was adequate to deal with offences relating both to religion and sexuality.

“The obvious difficulty in attempting to legislate in this area is that there is a real risk of free speech being severely curtailed and people consequently feeling afraid to engage in legitimate debate, unless the law is clearly defined.

“If the Government feels it is necessary to bring in further legislation, it is important that the Racial and Religious Hatred Act is used as the benchmark, since this recently-enacted law against incitement of hatred on grounds of religion and belief represents the best legal precedent we have.

“It is widely considered that the religious hatred provisions struck the right balance between outlawing incitement of hatred and retaining freedom of speech by ensuring that offences must be intentional and covering only language that is threatening.

“We look forward to discussing the as yet unformulated proposals with Government and, as in the case of the Racial and Religious Hatred Act, shall be looking to see appropriate definitions built into any proposed legislation to make it absolutely clear what constitutes acceptable and unacceptable speech.”