Racial Vilification and Freedom of Speech

Abstract

The legal systems of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and most other modern states prohibit the dissemination of ideas hostile to racial groups. For example, the 1965 Race Relations Act made “incitement to racial hatred” an offence in the United Kingdom in circumstances where the accused intended to incite racial hatred and the language used was threatening, abusive or insulting and was actually likely to stir up racial hatred.1 In a number of other European countries, legal systems go further and criminalize the expression of views which “merely” vilify or insult racial groups. For example, in the Netherlands it is a criminal offence to “deliberately give public expression to views insulting to a group of persons on account of their race, religion or conviction or sexual preference”;2 in Sweden, the Freedom of the Press Act, one of Sweden’s constitutional documents, prohibits the expression of contempt for a population group “with allusion to its race, skin colour, national or ethnic origin, or religious faith”.3 In Australia, at the federal level, the Racial Hatred Act of 1995 prohibits public behaviour that is likely “to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people”, if the act is done “because of the race, colour or national or ethnic origin” of the other person or a group;4 in addition, a number of Australian states prohibit acts of racial vilification.KeywordsHate SpeechLiberal SocietyUnited States SupremeLegal ProhibitionPresent DangerThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.