Another win for the FSU

The FSU reports:

This morning in Wellington, Police withdrew charges against Paul Burns, a man charged under Section 3 of the Summary Offenses Act for public disorder after engaging in public debate. This is a necessary victory for free speech after an outrageous arrest and charge. We have been proud to manage this case, says Jonathan Ayling, Chief Executive of the Free Speech Union.

“In March earlier this year, Burns spent his Sunday how he regularly did, encouraging public debate on his anti-abortion stance.

“Burns stood on Lampton Quay holding a sign that said, ‘$100 to the 1st person who proves that slavery is more evil than abortion’ with $100 worth of notes taped to the sign. 

“When approached by a group of young people willing to engage in the debate, one of them said abortion was justified due to overpopulation.

“Using a typical debating tactic, Burns turned the young person’s logic around and said, “if you think that the world is overpopulated, then why don’t you kill yourself?”. Burns was arrested, taken to Police cells, and charged under section 1(4)(b) of the Summary Offences Act for ‘offensive language’.

“Ahead of his trial, Police outrageously upgraded his charges to disorderly behaviour likely to cause other people to behave violently. This is a disgraceful response to someone engaging in debate.

The original arrest was bad enough. But for the Police to then increase the charge to one with a potential jail sentence is worse. You suspect they did it to encourage a plea deal, but because Burns had the FSU behind him he refused.

The FSU has also convinced the Police to stop focusing on hate speech which is not a criminal offence, and instead to focus on actual criminal offending. The Police have now 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…”

It never should have been a perception-based standard, but it was. thanks to the FSU, sanity has won.

I find it distressing that so many on the left see the FSU as an enemy. It is in fact the most effective civil rights organisation in New Zealand, something the left used to be passionate about.

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