Police receive complaints over four-year-old speech by Humza Yousaf as new SNP hate crime laws come into force

Police receive complaints over four-year-old speech by Humza Yousaf as new SNP hate crime laws come into force

WATCH: Former Met Police offer discusses the new SNP laws

GB NEWS
Millie Cooke

By Millie Cooke


Published: 03/04/2024

- 09:11

Updated: 03/04/2024

- 11:24

The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act came into effect on Monday

Police Scotland has recieved complaints over a speech made by Humza Yousaf in parliament four years ago.

The complaints were made in the wake of the introduction of a new law aimed at tackling hate crime.


The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act came into effect on Monday, which creates a new offence of “stirring up of hatred” for protected characteristics.

A 45-second video of a long speech made by the First Minister in June 2020 gained traction online after Elon Musk replied to it saying: "What a blatant racist!"

Humza Yousaf

Police Scotland has recieved complaints over a speech made by Humza Yousaf in parliament four years ago

PA

Yousaf, who was justice secretary at the time, had used the speech to tell MSPs that Scotland must "accept the reality and the evidence that is in front of us, that Scotland has a problem of structural racism".

He added: "In 99 per cent of their meetings I go to, I am the only non-white person in the room".

After the new hate crime legislation came into force on Monday, Police Scotland said they had received a "number of complaints" in relationship to the speech in parliament. But they added that they had previously established no crime had been committed.

A spokesperson for the force said: "We have received a number of complaints in relation to a speech in the Scottish Parliament on June 10, 2020.

"Earlier complaints regarding this matter were assessed at the time and it was established no crime was committed and no further action was required."

At the time, a fact check carried out by the Reuters news agency concluded that the clip misrepresented his comments by suggesting he had claimed Scotland contained too many white people.

Reuters said: "Yousaf’s speech was given as part of a wider discussion about racial injustice and the lack of people of colour in positions of power in the Scottish Parliament and government.

"The speech did not assert that white people make up too large a proportion of Scotland’s overall population."

Yousaf said the new legislation "absolutely protects people in their freedom of expression" while guarding "people from a rising tide of hatred that we’ve seen far too often in our society".

The act was supported by MSPs from Scottish Labour and the Scottish Liberal Democrats, as well as the SNP.

It also creates a new offence of “threatening or abusive behaviour that is intended to stir up hatred” on the grounds of age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity and variations in sex characteristics.

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