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Showing posts from February, 2020

Republicans oppose free speech??

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Many readers will be aware that over recent months there has been an upsurge in discussion around “hate speech” legislation in Ireland. This is primarily due to the Free State’s public consultation titled: Review of the Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act 1989; and the far-right attempts to use this as a subject to rally around. The far-right rarely give a scant mention to the fact that there is current legislation in place, they prefer to allow people to believe that is a brand new concept for Ireland. The current 1989 Act prohibits certain forms of threatening, abusive or insulting conduct that are intended or likely to stir up hatred against a group of persons on account of certain characteristics. These characteristics are race, colour, nationality, religion, ethnic or national origins, membership of the travelling community and sexual orientation. Freestate public consultation There have been public rallies held by these far-right groups opposing proposed