Ireland’s Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has come under fire from free speech advocates after he pushed for new laws following a riot in Dublin that was triggered by a stabbing attack from an alleged immigrant.
The prime minister vowed to expedite laws to give police powers to use facial recognition technologies to identify suspects and to update the “incitement to hatred legislation.”
But plans to push through the Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill 2022, which has been dubbed the “hate speech bill” or the “hate crime bill” by critics, have sparked some strong reactions.
Campaigner Free Speech Ireland said the prime minister should be “ashamed” for “citing the actions of a few to erode the rights of all.
Two other children, a 5-year-old boy and a 6-year-old girl, have been discharged from hospital. The female care assistant in her 30s remains in a serious condition but the police say she’s now stable.
The main suspect, a man in his late 40s, is also in serious condition in hospital.
Following the attack, calls circulated on social media for people to gather in Dublin city centre in the evening.
Some 500 angry protesters as well as hooligans showed up in the evening. Rioters throw objects at the police, seriously injuring one officer. They also smashed and looted shops, and burnt cars, buses, and a Luas tram.
The last comparable riot on Dublin’s O'Connell Street occured in 2006 over a loyalist parade, but the damage was dwarfed by Thursday’s violence, with Mr. Varadkar estimating it could run into “tens of millions.”
After the riot, Garda Commissioner Drew Harris blamed “far-right ideology” for driving a “complete lunatic hooligan faction,” and the taoiseach said new laws are needed to deal with online hatred.
“I think it’s now very obvious to anyone who might have doubted it that our incitement to hatred legislation is just not up to date. It’s not up to date for the social media age. And we need that legislation through, we need it through within a matter of weeks,” Mr. Varadkar told reporters on Friday.
The taoiseach said the laws are needed to go after “individuals who post messages and images online that stir up hatred.”
Writing on X, Free Speech Ireland said: “In recent decades, Dublin has seen many incidences of rioting. These incidents never caused calls for scrapping freedom of speech. And the Hate Speech Bill would actually take Gardaí [Police officers] off our streets.
“Leo Varadkar should be ashamed of himself for citing the actions of a few to erode the rights of all.”
The bill, which has been passed in the lower house of parliament and is being scrutinised in the upper house, has been a subject of controversy since it was introduced last year.
A part of the legislation, designed to jail those who plan to disseminate materials even if the plan is foiled by the police, has been dubbed the “thought crime section.”
It criminalises the preparation and possession of materials that are “likely to incite violence or hatred” against people on account of their protected characteristics, and puts the burden on the suspects to prove they don’t intend to disseminate them.
The legislation, if it becomes law, would also criminalise genocide denial. And a criminal office would be deemed to be “aggravated by hatred” if the offender “demonstrates hatred towards the victim” before, during, or immediately after a criminal office, raising concerns that mindless use of a slur may lead to an offence being considered to be aggravated by hatred.
