Comment on MPs urge minister to adopt definition of Islamophobia amid rise in hate crime
wewbull@feddit.uk 5 days ago
The key point here seems to be the because Islam is a religion and not a race then it doesn’t get classed as racism, and that matters because certain laws reference racism.
To me, this points to a problem with our laws where we need a crime to be in the right category of motivation to be treated properly. Why is a racially motivated assault any different to a assault motivated for any other reason? Assault is assault and should be dealt with by the same law.
scratchee@feddit.uk 5 days ago
Assault is already a generic crime. But random assaults whilst serious are just a form of crime that hurts the country a bit but not a lot (individuals might get badly hurt, but a low level of assaults is just a nuisance from a societal level).
But hate crime is different, hate crimes beget hate crimes, and even a low level can grow rapidly, and once you have a racial/religious/whatever conflict you’re stuck with that for a few generations, so hate crimes are incredibly dangerous for society, so get stomped on very hard.
That’s the theory anyway.