science

Incitement to ethnic or racial hatred

Incitement to ethnic or racial hatred is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Incitement to ethnic or racial hatred rather than just read about it. In short: Incitement to ethnic or racial hatred is a crime under the laws of several countries. Australia In Australia, the Racial Hatred Act 1995 amends the Racial Discrimination Act 1975, inserting Part IIA – Offensive Behaviour Because of Race, Colour, National or Ethnic Origin.

Key takeaways

Incitement to ethnic or racial hatred belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Incitement to ethnic or racial hatred to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Incitement to ethnic or racial hatred from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Incitement to ethnic or racial hatred is a crime under the laws of several countries.

Australia

In Australia, the Racial Hatred Act 1995 amends the Racial Discrimination Act 1975, inserting Part IIA – Offensive Behaviour Because of Race, Colour, National or Ethnic Origin. It does not, however, address the issue of incitement to racial hatred. The Australian state of Victoria has addressed the question, however, with its enactment of the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001.

Finland In Finland, agitation against a population group (Finnish: kiihottaminen kansanryhmää vastaan) is a crime according to the Criminal Code of Finland's (1889/39 and 2011/511) chapter 11, section 10: Section 10 – Agitation against a population group (511/2011) "A person who makes available to the public or otherwise spreads among the public or keeps available for the public information, an expression of opinion or another message where a certain group is threatened, defamed or insulted on the basis of its race, skin colour, birth status, national or ethnic origin, religion or belief, sexual orientation or disability or a comparable basis shall be sentenced for agitation against a population group to a fine or to imprisonment for at most two years." Section 10(a) – Aggravated agitation against a population group (511/2011) "If agitation against a population group involves exhortation or enticement (1) to genocide or the preparation of genocide, a crime against humanity, an aggravated crime against humanity, a war crime, an aggravated war crime, murder, or manslaughter committed for terrorist intent, or (2) to serious violence other than that referred to in paragraph 1 so that the act clearly endangers public order and safety, and the agitation against a population group is also aggravated when assessed as a whole, the perpetrator shall be sentenced for aggravated agitation against a population group to imprisonment for at least four months and at most four years."

France Section 24 of the Press Law of 1881 criminalizes incitement to racial discrimination, hatred, or violence on the basis of one's origin or membership in an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group. A criminal code provision deems it an offense to engage in similar conduct via private communication. In 2002, four Muslim organizations filed a complaint against Michel Houellebecq for stating that Islam was "stupid" and "dangerous" in an interview. The court found that Houellebecq was not immune from the charge on the grounds of literary immunity or freedom of speech but acquitted him on the grounds that he criticized Islam rather than individual Muslims. In 2005, politician Jean Marie Le Pen was convicted of inciting racial hatred for comments made to Le Monde in 2003 about the consequences of Muslim immigration in France. Similar complaints were brought in 2015 after he compared Muslim street prayers to the Nazi occupation of France in 2010, but he was acquitted. In 2008, actress and animal-rights campaigner Brigitte Bardot was convicted on charges of inciting racial hatred for her criticism concerning the ritual slaughter of sheep during the feast of Eid al-Adha in a letter to then-Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy. Bardot had been convicted of inciting racial hatred on four other occasions over the previous 11 years for criticizing Muslim immigration.

Germany

Sweden The current Swedish legislation on incitement of hatred against a population group (Swedish: 'hets mot folkgrupp') dates back to 1948 and originally only criminalised incitement to hatred based on 'origin' and religion. The actions of the notorious Swedish anti-Semite Einar Åberg were cited as one of the reasons for the laws' introduction. In 1970 the law was amended to specifically name race and skin colour as well as national and ethnic origin. The law was widened to include hatred based on sexuality in 2002 and gender identity and expression in 2018.

Norway Under the Norwegian law about hate speech (§ 185), all hatred towards people based on skin colour, nationality or ethnic origin is punishable by fine or up to 3 years' imprisonment. The current law has been in effect since 20 May 2005.

United Kingdom Under the law of the United Kingdom, "incitement to racial hatred" was established as an offence by the provisions of ss. 17–29 of the Public Order Act 1986, punishable by two years' imprisonment (now seven years). It was first established as a criminal offence in the Race Relations Act 1976. This offence refers to:

deliberately provoking hatred of a racial group distributing racist material to the public making inflammatory public speeches creating racist websites on the Internet spreading inflammatory rumours about an individual or an ethnic group, for the purpose of spreading racial discontent. In England and Wales, laws against incitement to hatred against people on religious grounds were later established under the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006.

See also Dehumanization Genocide prevention Hate speech Incitement Incitement to genocide Incitement to terrorism International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, (Article 20, 2) International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Article 4) Psychology of genocide Public Order Act 1986 Crime and Disorder Act 1998 Religious intolerance

References

External links Government information on the race relations act Commission for racial equality Crime Reduction Toolkits: Racist Incidents and Harassment

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Incitement to ethnic or racial hatred

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Incitement to ethnic or racial hatred claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Incitement to ethnic or racial hatred before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Incitement to ethnic or racial hatred ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Incitement to ethnic or racial hatred

In research: Incitement to ethnic or racial hatred appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Incitement to ethnic or racial hatred in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Incitement to ethnic or racial hatred is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Censorship, Hate speech, Race and law, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Incitement to ethnic or racial hatred outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Incitement to ethnic or racial hatred in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Incitement to ethnic or racial hatred means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Incitement to ethnic or racial hatred out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Incitement to ethnic or racial hatred in simple terms?

Incitement to ethnic or racial hatred is a crime under the laws of several countries. Australia In Australia, the Racial Hatred Act 1995 amends the Racial Discrimination Act 1975, inserting Part IIA – Offensive Behaviour Because of Race, Colour, National or Ethnic Origin.

Why does Incitement to ethnic or racial hatred matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Incitement to ethnic or racial hatred?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Incitement to ethnic or racial hatred.