English police are now calling on citizens to report hate incidents. ...
The latest call for action in England is from the South Yorkshire Police on Twitter. Similar reporting requests are posted on the United Kingdom government website. Two tweets from the South Yorkshire Police over the weekend requesting citizens to report hate matters to police should grab our attention.
The first calls out any hate “incident or crime.” There is a meaningful distinction there. The tweet defines hate incidents as “motivated by prejudice or hostility (or perceived to be so)…” The tweet ends with, “Report it and put a stop to it.”
To be clear, reportable incidents under this scheme have as low a bar as non-crime incidents merely perceived to be hostile. . {snip} Law enforcement is now soliciting people to turn others in for being offensive. Freedom from criminal investigation and arrest may now be subject to someone else’s feelings or perceptions in England.
The second tweet explicitly calls on citizens to “please report non-crime hate incidents, which can include things like offensive or insulting comments, online, in person, or in writing.” Reporting non-crimes to the police already seems like a waste of time and resources, but reporting people to the police for being offensive crosses the line into fascist territory. ...
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