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Home  Holyrood magazine
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Hate crime anger at Labour |
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Monday, 23 April 2007 |
Labour has come under attack by human rights groups for its refusal to commit to introducing a specific statutory aggravation for hate crimes against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people as well as disabled people if it is re-elected.
The SNP, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens have all pledged to give
attacks on people because of their sexuality or disability equal legal
standing with attacks on people motivated by racial or sectarian
reasons.
The previous Labour-led Executive had promised to institute
aggravations for attacks on LGBT or disabled people in its previous
term, but failed to bring appropriate legislation onto the books in
2006, to the dismay of groups such as Amnesty International and
Stonewall Scotland.
Amnesty International campaigner Naomi McAuliffe attacked the situation
that left Scotland the only part of the UK without specific homophobic
hate crime laws.
“This is an issue that all parties should take a strong stand on and we
welcome the commitment to legislate against homophobic and disability-
related hate crime made in some of the manifestos.
During this election campaign, Amnesty has become increasingly
concerned by the homophobic rhetoric from some of the emerging minor
parties intent on inflaming discrimination against lesbian, gay,
bisexual and transgender people. The commitment of the major parties to
LGBT rights as well as leadership on equalities issues is vital in the
face of such ignorance and intolerance.
“Scotland is currently the only part of the UK without this protection
for the victims of homophobic hate crime, which unwittingly, sends the
message that hate crimes against LGBT and disabled people are
considered less of a crime,” she said.
Labour says its manifesto commitment to clear sentencing guidelines will ensure all hate crimes are treated equally.
Its manifesto says: “Scottish Labour is committed to improving
transparency and consistency in sentencing. Scottish Labour will
establish a judicially led Sentencing Guidelines Council to set out
clear sentencing guidelines for judges and courts to use across the
country to bring more consistency to sentencing. The sentencing
guidelines will ensure consistency in sentences that take account of
aggravated factors such as racism, sectarianism and other hate crimes.”
Stonewall Scotland campaigner Josef Church said: “Regardless of what
the various party manifestos do and don’t say, we want to see a
government in Scotland which stands up for lesbian and gay Scots when
they come under attack.
“If the new government does not introduce statutory aggravation on the
basis of sexual orientation, it will be sending out the message that
anti-gay hate crime is less serious than hate crime aggravated by race
or religion, and that Scotland is less concerned with tackling
homophobic hate crime than the rest of Great Britain.”
No one has commented on this article.
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