Government looking to introduce hate speech laws

Stuff reports:

Little said he was fast-tracking a widespread review of New Zealand’s existing hate speech legislation.
This would include deciding if hate crime should be established as its own separate offence, as it is in the United Kingdom.

The UK is a great example of how well intentioned laws end up criminalising many different types of speech. Some examples:

• An evangelist, was convicted because he had displayed to people in Bournemoutha large sign bearing the words “Jesus Gives Peace, Jesus is Alive, Stop Immorality, Stop Homosexuality, Stop Lesbianism, Jesus is Lord”. 
• A man was arrested in Cardiff for distributing pamphlets which called sexual activity between members of the same sex a sin
• Harry Taylor sentenced to six months prison (suspended) because he left anti-religious cartoons in the prayer-room of Liverpool’s John Lennon Airport on three occasions and the Chaplain complained
• A 19-year-old woman was convicted of sending a “grossly offensive” message after she posted rap lyrics that included the N-word on her Instagram page
• Scottish YouTuber Mark Meechan of Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire was fined £800 after being found “grossly offensive” for posting a YouTube video that was viewed over 3 million times depicting him training his girlfriend’s pug to respond to the phrase “Sieg Heil” by lifting his paw in a Nazi salute
• A student was arrested for saying to a mounted police officer “Excuse me do you know your horse is gay”
• A teenager was arrested for barking at two labradors, as the owner was non-white
• A teenager was prosecuted for holding up a placard that described the Church of Scientology as a cult
• A man was charged with racially aggravated criminal damage for writing “Don’t forget the 1945 war” on a UKIP poster
• An Essex baker Daryl Barke was ordered to take down a poster promoting English bread with the slogan “none of that French rubbish”, because the police believed it would stir up racial hatred
• An 11 year old boy was charged for calling a classmate a “Paki bastard” in a playground fight after being called a teletubby
• The North Wales Police Commissioner tried to prosecute a newspaper columnist for suggesting a Welsh bridge should be named something indecipherable with no real vowels, such as Ysgythysgymlngwchgwch Bryggy”.
• An Irish TV writer was visited by the Police because he used the pronoun “he” on Twitter to refer to a transgender woman.

These are just a few examples I’ve plagiarized from various columns and articles I could locate. There are no doubt many more.

We already have a law which states it is an offence to publish anything which is “likely to excite hostility or ill-will against, or bring into contempt or ridicule, any such group of persons in New Zealand on the ground of the colour, race, or ethnic or national origins of that group of persons”

Lowering the bar from exciting hostility will lead to court cases like the ones cited above. If the Government proceeds, it will be buying a huge battle.