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Showing posts with label Hate speech bill. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hate speech bill. Show all posts
Gearóid Ó Loingsigh ☭ writing in Socialist Democracy looks at the boomerang effect of the Hate Speech bill. 

A Palestinian woman stands in front of Israeli soldiers.

Paul Murphy has saw fit to complain about hate speech again. This time he is not complaining about what he considers hate speech but rather some of the things he says that others might consider to be hate speech.(1)

Paul and others in People Before Profit (yeah, it is ironic he doesn’t seem to consider women to be people, just an idea) have repeatedly called for women to be pushed aside to make way for men who identify as women. They have described such women as fascists, transphobes and engaged in hate speech. They are not opposed to the hate speech bill that was presented to the Dáil (Irish Parliament), though they had some misgivings about the lack of clarity on what constituted hate speech. But “misgendering”, refusing to accept men can become women, or that lesbians have penises could all constitute hate, not only in the law makers minds, but in the fevered imagination of the misogynists of People Before Profit.

To be clear none of these are examples of hate, rather they are common sense. Ten years ago, the men in white would have carted you off had you stated lesbians have penises. However, as it is the perception of the offended party that counts in hate speech legislation, who knows whether legally speaking all of these will actually be considered as such in Irish legislation. The odds do not look good and we will have to deny reality.

Now however, PbP find themselves in the firing line of hate speech legislation. This time it is on the issue of Palestine. The reaction to what happened in Gaza has been a mixture of genuine concern from some feminists, nauseating hypocrisy and the wilful ignorance of history by others. Some reacted, as if this was the first- and only-time rape and sexual abuse have been used as weapons of war in Palestine. It is just simply not true. It is beyond the scope of this article to deal with the history of the conflict and Israeli sexual abuse and rape of Palestinian women. Some feminists reacted angrily to the rapes by Hamas and this reaction is justified. What is not justified is to pretend this was the first time ever, nor for Zionists to claim they are concerned about rape as a weapon of war, when they are clearly not. Leading feminists with a track record of either being Zionists or ignoring Zionist violence, including sexual violence jumped on the bandwagon.

Figures for 2020 released in 2022 by the Israeli Defence Forces showed that “Out of 1,542 IDF sexual assault complaints, just 31 indictments [were] filed.”(2) Abuse is also rife within the Israeli forces themselves with one official report pointing out that one in four female recruits in the Police and Shin Bet had been the victims of sexual assault.(3)

Violence is not limited to sexual violence either. The Breaking the Silence report from IDF veterans details the abuse and torture of Palestinians by the Israelis. Even The Guardian, a cheerleader for Zionists had to acknowledge that “Some of the hardest testimony comes about the abuse of children and the torture of detainees.”(4) The abuse by Hamas of children is also something that was raised in the press by right wingers who had suddenly discovered Palestine and the sexual abuse of women and children there. Any attempts to point out that they weren’t really concerned about women or children, just Israeli women and children, was met with claims that people were trying to justify rape or whataboutery. It wasn’t it was just pointing out the hypocrisy of those who have chosen this one occasion to talk about such matters, not to protect women and children but to further the Zionist agenda which includes the bombing of women and children. Which brings us back to Paul Murphy and PbP.

The letter he complains about is from the British Home Office to the Chief Constables and warns about suspicious activities.

• wear clothing or carry articles in public which arouse reasonable suspicion that an individual is a member or supporter of Hamas;
• or publish an image of an article such as a flag or logo in the same circumstances(5)It goes on to state:

I would encourage police to consider whether chants such as "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" should be understood as an expression of a violent desire to see Israel erased from the world, and whether its use in certain contexts may amount to a racially aggravated section 5 public order offence.(6)

The fact that Israeli supporters in New York changed that slogan to From the Land to the Sea, Palestine will be Deceased in calls for genocide,(7) a call that has been made by leading Israeli politicians on repeated occasions. One such politician being Ayelet Shaked, who became Justice Minister in 2015. She was not alone in that. Even the conservative journal Foreign Policy, which can be relied upon to support the broad aims of the US government stated in recent days in an article penned by the head of the Palestine / Israel program at the Arab Center Washington DC in relation to the Israeli onslaught that “Washington is not merely abdicating official and moral responsibility but enabling mass atrocities at a time when all the red flags for genocide are up.”(8)

Nonetheless, Hamas’ atrocities have helped the right-wing press and others to create an atmosphere in which any support for basic political demands in Palestine is seen as supporting rape, which is not the case, and also tantamount to hate speech. Calls by Israelis for genocide are not considered to be hate speech, because they are on the side of the powerful.

PbP apparently never thought that they might be on the end of hate speech legislation and find themselves in an unusual position of being the victims of legislation they have stupidly supported on the altar the men’s rights movement that is Gender Ideology. They decided to support a movement backed by Biden, Zuckerberg, lots of right-wing governments in Europe, including the Irish one and further demanded the suppression of feminist voices. It is hardly surprising that few of the new generation of feminists are willing to listen to them on Palestine and swallow the rubbish from the right-wing media on Palestine, when PbP has actually backed violence against women and censorship.

Women look at the PbP misogyny and easily come to the conclusion that they support or are not concerned about the rapes. Now Murphy complains. Socialists have long argued against censorship and suppression of freedoms on the grounds that they will inevitably be used against progressive causes. It is not a new idea. Marx argued against censorship in his day as did Trotsky, both of whom are supposed reference points for Murphy and PbP, though in reality, they put both of them aside a long time ago.

PbP turned their backs on women a long time ago. They turned their backs on freedom of assembly by backing male thugs attacking women’s rallies. They lined up with the right-wing government of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to attack freedom of speech, thinking that as they were the nice “socialists” who went along meekly and nicely with their masters diktats, that Varadkar and Martin would be nice to them as well and in Britain their counterparts did the same with the Labour right and the Tories and now, lo and behold the same repressive legislation and concepts they have argued for have come back to bite them.

Attempts are being made to undermine solidarity with Palestine. PbP bear part of the blame for that. They paved the way for thought crimes and they actively encouraged attacks on women’s rights. Arguing for rapists to be housed in women’s spaces and then expecting to be believed over atrocities against women in a conflict is cynical at best. Standing up for Palestine means standing up for women, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly. Consistency and coherence are key.

Free Palestine!

Notes

(1) See Paul Murphy 

(2) The Jerusalem Post (05/01/2022) Out of 1,542 IDF sexual assault complaints, just 31 indictments filed. Anna Ahronheim. 

(3) Ynet News (28/11/2022) IDF soldier's rape in prison 'only tip of iceberg', says state comptroller 

(4) The Guardian (15/12/2022) ‘I became more and more violent’: shocking testimonies of abuse from IDF veterans. Chris McGreal. 

(5) Paul Murphy Op. Cit.

(6) Ibíd.

(7)  Twitter.

(8) Foreign Press (09/10/2023) Laying Siege to Gaza Is No Solution. Yousef Munayyer. 

⏩ Gearóid Ó Loingsigh is a political and human rights activist with extensive experience in Latin America.

Women, Palestine And Freedom Of Speech

Freddie Attenborough writing in The Critic  ✏ The radical subjectivism of the Irish hate speech bill. Recommended by Christopher Owens. 

How is it that Ireland can have witnessed a sharp rise in the reporting of hate crime and hate-related incidents just as the Irish Government’s own survey data indicates the country is becoming an increasingly tolerant country, where eight in 10 people feel “very comfortable” living next door to people with different nationalities, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, disabilities, religious beliefs (or lack thereof) and marital statuses?

As the Irish journalist Ben Scallan points out in an article that caught Elon Musk’s eye this week, a clue lies in the fact that an increase in “reporting” is not the same thing as an increase in actual hatred.

All that’s required for the Garda to log a reported hate crime (a crime motivated by hatred), or non-crime hate incident (behaviour motivated by hatred), is that the “victim” — or any other person who witnessed the incident — perceives that the “perpetrator” was motivated by hostility or prejudice towards one or more of the victim’s protected characteristics.

The distinction between perceived and actual hatred is deliberately glossed over by the identikit woke graduates with degrees in all sorts of ghastly sounding subjects . . .

Continue reading @ The Critic. 

The State Of Hate

Matt Treacy ✍ It is not every day that Sinn Féin pays homage to someone who has worked for the British Home Office (stop sniggering down the back ….)


But one such former servant of Whitehall and leading anti-racism guru, Dr. Lucy Michael, managed to get name checked on several occasions in contributions made by Sinn Féin TDs to the love in on the proposed “hate speech” Bill.

I say TDs advisedly as very few TDs write their own Dáil speeches and Sinn Féin is now top heavy with left activists on one part of the NGO circuit. The left- liberal NGO business is to the post bellum post-nationalist Sinn Féin what the ITGWU once was to the Workers Party. Which explains the Shinners’ almost total surrender of policymaking in key areas to “advocacy” companies, and the clear lack of historical self-knowledge on the part of the staffers.

No better illustrated than by the fact that it was left to Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín to point out the total incongruity of a party that was once banned under Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act now indicating that it is supporting a Bill that “will encroach on people’s ability to speak freely and respectfully about issues of real importance.”

 

Now, others might claim that Section 31 was required because Sinn Féin at the time it was in force supported the Provisional IRA before it surrendered as part of Sinn Féin’s house training. However, as was pointed out by other opponents of Section 31, the atmosphere put in place by such state censorship – backed by the sacking of the RTÉ authority in 1972 following an interview with IRA Chief of Staff Seán Mac Stiofáin – led to much wider restrictions.

Soon it became the norm for RTÉ in particular, pushed by the same type of left activists now behind the current “hate” legislation, to cast suspicion on anything that they considered to be even vaguely nationalist, or reeking of “hush puppy” Provoism. We have exactly the same mentality now deployed against critics of a wide range of establishment holy cows. If this Bill is passed it will have the imprimatur of the state and the enforcing powers of some new form of political policing.

And all enthusiastically backed by Sinn Féin. It would be amusing were it not so pathetic.

Their enthusiasm for censorship is indicated by the fact that of the 13 speakers in the debate, 6 were from Sinn Féin and all basically parroting the same NGO script. Several of said NGOs got a mention including the far-left Far Right Observatory which was referenced as an alleged authority by Kildare SF TD Patricia Ryan.

Ironically, some might say, because it was not that long ago that Deputy Ryan herself was the target of a pile on by similar characters when she referred to a modular housing project for refugees in Newbridge. Indeed, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that had the legislation which is being pushed by the far left and supported by Sinn Féin was in place when she made her remarks that she might even have had her own collar felt by the Diversity Cheka.

Lest I be accused of exaggeration here, Ryan was accused of being one of “those who take advantage of vulnerable people to further their hateful agenda” when she rightly referred to concerns that her constituents had in relation to housing and the seeming priority given to refugee accommodation. Although perhaps after a visit to the FRO Room 101 she is now one of those “susceptible to this hateful messaging” who has taken advantage of the means she now recommends to “educate to prevent reoffending.”

Tóibín also pointed out to the ideological underpinnings of the proposed Bill and that it has specific targets. Not least being that persons who “adhere to the scientific understanding of gender” are potentially targets of this, as they have already been – and he referred to J.K Rowling and to the hysterical backlash against women who recently articulated that view on RTÉ’s Liveline – informally through the left liberal control of much of the means of cancelling dissenters.

He bluntly asked the Minister if she believes, as do many of the supporters of this Bill, that “women saying that a woman is an adult female is transphobic and hate speech?” We shall await her response with interest.

The whole problem with the Bill was similarly illustrated by Minister Helen McEntee in her opening speech. She referred to tackling “crimes motivated by prejudice, hate or bigotry” as the motivation of the Bill. Attacking people is already a crime, as are a whole range of other offences that in many cases are obviously motivated by hate. Presumably most murders, other than those carried out by professional hitmen, are motivated by some degree of antipathy to the victim.

Which leads one to question why there is a need for any other legislation, especially given that many actual crimes go undetected and leniently treated in the view of many, including the victims of such crimes. Would Urantsetseg Tserendorj have been less likely to have been murdered had this legislation been in place? Hardly. The person charged with her murder claimed that his intention was to rob any person he presumably believed to be less likely to be able to defend themselves.

Nor is there any reason why there ought to “protected groups” in Irish society who have their very own laws to protect them. Groups which the Minister defines on the basis of “race, colour, nationality, religion, ethnic or national origin, descent, sexual orientation, gender, including gender expression or gender identity, sex characteristics or disability.”

Pretty much everyone could be included in such a wide ranging definition, but of course they are not. What chances would Enoch Burke have were he to take a case against the avalanche of hate he has been subjected to in many quarters, not least the social media which the left liberal pearl-clutchers are so angsted about, were he to claim he was being hated on for being a white, Irish, heterosexual, Protestant male? None.

The reason being of course is that there is no NGO which has decided to set itself up as the self-appointed defender of such a minority. There is no money in culchie prods with Biblical names. There are hundreds of millions in claiming to be the protector of other minority groups, most of whom probably are not even aware of, and certainly do not benefit from, the existence of some of the groups reverentially referenced by leftie TDs.

The only other TD to place their opposition on the record was Paul Murphy who amidst a ream of slogans and crèche Marxism pliants about racism and fascism and capitalism – all of which are “disgusting” – did at least recognise that sections of the Bill provide the state with potentially sweeping powers to prosecute legitimate forms of protest and expression, including from the left.

Unfortunately, Sinn Féin have so immersed themselves in the Marxoid waters of resentment and victimisation while expelling any remnant of the republican defence of free speech, that they no longer even see that.

As Peadar Tóibín noted republicanism ought to mean that “each individual has and should have an equal right to that articulation of views and the equal articulation of speech.”

Something, of course, which the people who told Peadar to “fuck off out of this office before something happens” have never believed in.

Matt Treacy has published a number of books including histories of 
the Republican Movement and of the Communist Party of Ireland. 

Hate Speech Bill Is Section 31 For Our Times

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