Hate Crimes? An Update

A Report on an Approach by the Free Speech Union

On Monday I published an article about hate crimes and how the police deal with hate related offending.

This afternoon (Tuesday) I received a message from Jonathan Ayling of the Free Speech Union.

I reproduce some of the content of that message below. I have not seen a Police media statement about this issue and will keep an eye open with a view to further updates as information comes to hand.

In the mean time here is some of the FSU message.

“This afternoon, I am thrilled to tell you that we've pushed the NZ Police back, helped them to see reason, and they're entirely revising their training, changing the framework, and reviewing every file they had flagged with 'hate'.

Instead of doubling down and pushing on, the Police Commissioner was willing to meet with us and hear our concerns. It may have been a combative meeting, but there was a lot at stake. 

Here are the key outcomes: 

✅ The Police Commissioner instructed a complete review of the training material. 

✅ The training is being fully redesigned. 

✅ The definition of 'hate crime' is being reset, connected explicitly to the Police's responsibility to protect 'physical safety'. 

✅ Whenever 'hate crimes' are flagged, there will be a review to ensure that this is an appropriate response. 

The NZ Police in a media release this afternoon said:

"The Police Executive has agreed Police’s definition of a non-criminal hate incident should shift from a perception-based standard to one requiring reasonable grounds to believe an event involves or implies a significant risk of physical harm..."

Our fight against the proposed 'hate speech' laws was big. However, I think the original training conducted by the NZ Police had the potential to have even worse outcomes. We believe this training was extrajudicial, potentially illegal, and went against basic freedoms that Kiwis should be guaranteed.