Q&A: Hate speech, law & order and a civilized society

Hi guys, there are times when emotions run very high over a topic and I have to stop myself from ranting on my blog - clearly, as a gay man, I was deeply angered by some of the responses to the Orlando Pulse nightclub massacre and I feel more should be done to prevent such crimes. In the UK, we had a shocking killing yesterday when MP Jo Cox was brutally shot and stabbed by an extreme right-wing activist who was angry with MP Cox for her liberal views on the EU and immigration. I had included a quote from my friend LM in my last article about hate speech in Singapore, I went back to him and had a conversation about the issue in an interview style as I wanted to get his perspective on the issue. LM lives in London and works with the police here in the UK - obviously, he is offering his personal opinions rather than speaking on behalf of the police in any professional capacity, hence we shall only use his initials here.

What is the role of law & justice in this matter?

Limpeh: We have seen had some horrific crimes just in the last week. the shootings in the gay nightclub in Orlando, followed by the brutal murder of MP Jo Cox. Can we talk about the relationship between hate speech and hate crimes please? A lot of people say that using words, no matter how offensive, isn't the same as an actual killing, so it shouldn't be taken that seriously especially if you were to permit free speech in our society. Where do we draw the line?

LM: There is definitely a link between hate speech and hate crime - what makes the headlines is just the tip of the iceberg. These killers do not simply wake up one morning and decide to go out and kill a lot of people - what I do is investigate their motives and look into their actions leading up to the crime. There is often meticulous planning and research that goes on for months, even years, leading up to the ultimate attack. In the case of Thomas Mair, the man who killed MP Cox, he had links to neo-Nazi groups in the US and South Africa. These people do not operate in isolation, but are often incited to commit hate crimes by others online. After the shooting a lot of Mair's family and neighbours express their disbelief when they found out he had committed cold blooded murder in broad daylight like this - but what did you expect? Was Mair to going to announce his plans to his family and neighbours? Clearly not - for they would have tried to stop him, even called the police. But people like him would turn to others online who would encourage him, even assist him in his plans - such is the way such killers operate, they don't want to be dissuaded.

Limpeh: Some people have said that the freedom of speech shouldn't be sacrificed in the wake of all this, no matter how angry we may feel at the moment after these two incidents. What do you make of that argument?

LM: Let's not forget that people like MP Cox had the right to go to work, do her job without getting killed. That is her right too, the same way the people at Pulse nightclub in Orlando had the right to go dancing on a Saturday night without being brutally murdered. Let's not be so obsessed with the freedom of speech that we forget the right of ordinary folks to go to school, go to work, come home safely at the end of the day to their families and not worry about getting killed by people filled with hate. Does one person's right to indulge in hate speech outweigh the right of MP Cox or the gay people at Pulse nightclub to be alive? Of course not. If we censor someone, if we take action against someone who is spewing hate speech, someone inciting violence and hatred in order to save the lives of innocent folks, then I say, that's for the good of society. We take this kind of law and order for granted, it is only when such horrific killings happen that people start wondering what keeps them safe and what keeps crime rates low.

Limpeh: So you're saying that the prevention of crime trumps everything, even the freedom of speech, is that right?

LM: In my job, I investigate the most gruesome of crimes - I often get to see first hand the aftermath of murder and you should see the anguish that the family members have to go through after they have a loved one taken away from them through murder. When someone dies in such circumstances, their families suffer for years, even decades. That is why the prevention of serious crime is so important and if we have to punish a few idiots for saying really hateful rhetoric, then I think that's a small price to pay. Some people are defending this concept of 'the freedom of 'speech' as if it is something that must be preserved at all cost - you can say what you want but you must be held responsible and accountable for what you say as an adult because there are consequences to hate speech. The right of innocent folks to live outweigh the right of idiots to indulge in hate speech and that's the law in this country.

Limpeh: Okay. Let me give you an example from Singapore. We have extremely strict laws to prevent people from littering, that is why the streets are so clean. Some people may think that there's nothing wrong with littering, but their opinion doesn't matter because if caught, they will be fined and even jailed. The law isn't there to try to convince people what is right and what is wrong, the law is merely there to achieve an outcome: to keep the streets of Singapore neat and tidy, devoid of litter. And it works. I don't see Singaporeans complaining that the draconian laws are too strict about littering - they are by and large thankful to the government when they realize how clean Singapore is compared to other cities around the world. They don't see not being allowed to litter on the streets of Singapore as a massive infringement of their human rights - it may lead to a small inconvenience when you hunt around for the nearest dustbin once in a while, but it is a small price worth paying and you do have public consensus on that issue, at least amongst the locals. We love the fact that Singapore is such a clean city and no one questions how it is achieved.

Singapore: very clean (well, apart from the air during haze season)

LM: Yes, I've been to Singapore some years back and it is lovely, I like it a lot. But that is a good example of how a society, a country can reach consensus on an issue like littering - so what we are trying to do is to reach the same consensus on hate speech and crime prevention. I'm sure we can all start from the same place, which is that crime reduction is generally a good thing for society that we should all strive for. Now what price are you willing to pay in order to live in a safer place? What price are you willing to pay, so that you know that your family will come home safely at the end of the day? Are you willing to sacrifice the right of some people to hate certain minority groups? Are you happy to sacrifice the right of some haters to incite violence against certain minority groups? Most people would say, yeah that's a small price worth paying, I don' think these people should be indulging in hate speech in the first place anyway. So by and large, common sense does prevail here in the UK on this issue.

Limpeh: Some people have mentioned to me that you can't possibly police this effectively, how are you going to monitor what people are saying on the internet? There must be millions of conversations going on in social media. So even if you have the best of intentions to police hate speech online, in reality, how much can you realistically do in terms of policing what is being said on the internet?

LM: We react. We cannot possibly monitor everything on social media. But when someone reports something to the police, we make sure we investigate thoroughly and take the appropriate actions. People know that we will take such reports very seriously. We do rely on people reporting crimes to the authorities in order for us to investigate and take actions. You know that a man was arrested for making homophobic death threats to MP Ben Bradshaw yesterday, in light of recent events, therefore it is very important that the police do take such death threats very seriously indeed.

When a crime is committed, it must be reported.

Limpeh: Some people are arguing that there's only so much you can do to prevent crimes like the murder of MP Jo Cox. The murderer did it without making any fuss on social media and struck out of the blue, leaving most in his community in total shock. Those who are trying to provoke a reaction on social media are merely doing that - they are attention seekers rather than real criminals. As in the case of Bryan Lim in Singapore, many people don't actually believe that he will carry out his threats to kill gay people in a Pulse nightclub style attack, even if he is spewing a lot of hate speech online. I am just playing the devil's advocate here: are you perhaps putting too much attention on hate speech in the context of crime prevention?

LM: There will always be killers who strike out of the blue, with no previous warning, no previous history of crime. What we can do however, is focus on those who have shown a pattern of criminality, who are on our radar and we need to track these people a lot more carefully. Omar Mateen, the gunman in Orlando, had been interviewed by the FBI no less than three times - yet they failed to realize he was up to. We're not claiming that the police can always prevent crime but you don't throw away a leaky bucket when you are trying to put out a fire with it. These killers are not just people who have gone crazy and don't know what they are doing - often they have an agenda, they are motivated by hatred for a certain group of people. If you look at the Andreas Breivik case, he killed 77 people during his act of mass killing in 2011 in Oslo. Breivik planned his attacks for 9 years - he slipped under the radar, because the authorities in Norway didn't recognize the threat from the far right. People in Europe are too focused on Islamic terrorists after 9-11, so even if the evidence was there, nobody looked hard enough to realize what Breivik was up to, mistakes were made. This is why we must investigate all manners of hate speech, in order to stop people like Breivik before they kill.

What more can the police do to investigate such crimes?

Limpeh: I suppose it is a balance of resources: there is so much information out there to sift through, what is the best use of police time and resources then? Do you give someone like Bryan Lim a slap on the wrist and a warning, on the presumption that he will not turn into a killer like Breivik and Mateen? Or do you treat such hate speech a lot more seriously, knowing that you can nip a lot of these killers in the bud if you intercept them early enough? There must be plenty of missed opportunities in the cases of Breivik and Mateen.

LM: I can't give you a simple answer as every case is unique, every individual investigated will have a different story. In the case of Bryan Lim, I will be interested to see what pattern of behaviour he has demonstrated - if he has access to firearms, if he has had a history of harassing the LGBT community, if he has shown any remorse. A lot of people will just plead ignorance or stupidity when arrested to try to get off the hook, but the evidence will speak for itself.

Limpeh: And if I told you that yes Lim does has access to firearms during his NS reservist activities, yes he has had a history of harassing the LGBT community and no he has shown no remorse, instead he deleted his Linkedin and Facebook profile to try to make the whole thing go away? What would you do to such an individual then?

LM: If this had been in the UK, the person would have been brought in for questioning to ascertain the level of threat he poses to society, to find out if he had any plans to follow through with the threats and certainly, provision would be made to ensure that he has no further access to any firearms until the investigation is complete. That has to be done in the name of crime prevention - keeping the public safe is paramount. Whether or not he is ultimately charged with an offense, so many practical steps can and should be taken to prevent the possibility of him committing a crime.

Limpeh: I'll like to talk about another issue here, that of forgiveness. We touched upon this on our last conversation because I got so angry with someone asking the public to forgive Bryan Lim. You work with the police to keep our society safe, could you explain what role forgiveness plays in this process please?

LM: Like I said to you the last time, forgiveness is a major part of my religion. Forgiveness is about letting go out that anger that will consume you after someone has done something bad to hurt you. I think it is an individual decision about whom you forgive, when you forgive and how - I obey my church's teachings on the issue but I don't tell others how they should deal with the issue. However, I had looked at the piece which got you so wound up and I would like to point out that you can forgive all you want but you need to let justice happen. Forgiving doesn't mean telling the police what they should do, whom they should arrest or telling the judge what kind of verdict or sentence to pass! Let people like me get on with my job, because justice needs to be served in order for us to keep our society safe. Criminals need to face justice if they have broken the law, justice needs to prevail so we can all go to bed at night, feeling safe in our homes, knowing that law and order governs our society.

Limpeh: In that context, is there a place for forgiveness then?

LM: It is a personal issue. I can say that in my work, over the years, I have seen some extraordinary examples of forgiveness. There was a woman whose son was brutally murdered and she went out of her way to tell her son's killer that she forgives him. It was her way to come to peace with what had happened and she wanted to tie up loose ends, she didn't want the hatred following her for the rest of her life after her son's murder. So she forgave her son's killer.

What is forgiveness then?

Limpeh: But the killer was caught and sentenced, yeah? Justice was served, right?

LM: That is correct.

Limpeh: So for her, she knew that her son's killer was going to jail for a long time and justice has been served. She didn't say, "free my son's killer, don't jail him, he doesn't need to face justice and be punished just because I forgave him." That is not how forgiveness works - she can forgive her son's killer whilst he serves a very long jail sentence.  Imagine if justice wasn't served, as in the Stephen Lawrence case, where the murderers got away with the crime because the police messed up the investigation. How much harder would it be for that mother to have offered forgiveness like that if justice had not been served?

LM: That mother certainly deserved justice and people like me owe it to her to do our jobs properly to make sure that she gets the justice she needs and deserves. That is why I agreed with you that it was wrong for anyone to ask for forgiveness for Bryan Lim before the police have even completed their investigations. Let them do their jobs first, before you talk about forgiveness. If you are not a professional dealing with law, order, crime and justice, please leave such matters to the professionals. Without justice, what kind of world will it be? What kind of world do you want to live in? Do you want to live in a world where you don't have justice and criminals get away with doing horrible things?

What kind of world do you want to live in then?

Limpeh: Where do we draw the line as to what exactly 'hate speech' is then? I have said some pretty horrible things to people on social media. This idiot once told me that my blog was useless and a waste of time as she doesn't read it. I told her that just because she doesn't read my blog doesn't mean anything when I have had over 8 million page-views. I then said that her opinion meant so little because she was so unimportant and insignificant that if she killed herself today, her parents wouldn't even attend her funeral. Now, is that hate speech?

LM: Woah. Actually no. You attacked her personally. What you said was cruel, mean and vicious  - but it wasn't hate speech. You were saying awful things to her, about her rather than about a certain group of people like women, Muslims, Indians, gay people, Japanese people or black people. Hate speech is speech that offends, threatens, or insults groups, based on race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, disability, or other traits. Because you were insulting her personally by responding to something she said, it wasn't hate speech. It could be termed as bullying though. I think you were clearly picking on someone who was a lot less intelligent than you, but she shouldn't have started it either. Basically, two wrongs don't make a right - you know that.

Limpeh: Is it illegal though? Did I commit a crime? Is it criminal, what I said?

It's not right but it's not illegal...?

LM: Well, let's say you went further and you told this person to go kill herself and she actually did - then you could get into trouble for inciting encouraging her to kill herself. You were making a point that if she killed herself, then her parents wouldn't even attend her funeral - now that's a hypothetical situation you're talking about and you're not actually asking her to kill herself. Professionally, I would say that's not illegal. But as a friend, I cannot condone that kind of behaviour, I don't think it makes you a nice person when you say things like that just to make a point on social media, but it isn't illegal. Sorry, but you should not say things like that, even if she insulted you and upset you. The fact that she wasn't capable of coming up with a more intelligent way to insult you proved just how child-like she was, what if this person actually turned out to be a 12 year old kid? And even if she was an adult who simply isn't very smart, what can you achieve from insulting someone like that? Is there any triumph or glory from insulting and belittling them?

Limpeh: Yes I can think of another recent incident in Singapore where a very fat woman became infamous for doing something very anti-social and rude, she didn't break the law but became a social pariah overnight.

LM: Yes. Do be careful what you say on the internet. That's the moral of the story.

Limpeh: Thank you very much for talking to me today.

LM: You're welcome.