Good advice from Peter Tatchell on the risks of Northern Ireland introducing bad hate crime law

He was put in the dock over a sermon in which he fiercely criticised Islam.

Yet the case never seemed to attract the general contempt that it should have done.

Pastor McConnell’s sermon was unpleasant sounding. But it was a sermon, which is a forum in which many ministers around the world have been inclined — by their beliefs — towards fiery rhetoric.

And even if his words had not been uttered within a church, they were wholly within the boundaries of reasonable speech. Islamic extremism, as events going back 30+ years have shown, is deserving of blunt denunciation.

It was a scandal that public money and time and effort was wasted in bringing Pastor McConnell to trial.

The saga took on a comical edge when Martin McGuinness condemned the pastor for “hate mongering” talk. Mr McGuinness knew a thing or two about hate mongering, yet never faced a trial commensurate with his terrorism.

Countries around the world are flirting with dangerous legislation, which could see many more trials such as the one the elderly pastor had to endure in Northern Ireland.

In Scotland, a misconceived piece of legislation, the Scottish Hate Crime Bill, creates an offence of ‘stirring up hatred’.

The long-standing gay rights campaigner and radical voice Peter Tatchell, who has become an important opponent of excessive infringements on free speech that are brought in to protect the sensitivities of minorities, has warned Northern Ireland not to follow the Scottish mistakes.

“It should retire proof of intent to stir hate,” he says.

This is good and timely advice when a review of hate crime legislation is under way in Northern Ireland.

Incitement to hatred became a crime here decades ago, and rightly so.

We need to be wary about straying beyond such existing laws.

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