Fans Against Criminalisation Campaign News

Jan

2016

2Comments

FAC6

FAC Petition to be discussed at Holyrood next Tuesday – email your MSP for support

A petition asking the Scottish Parliament to undertake the full and transparent review which the Government so shamefully failed to do last June will be discussed at the Petitions’ Committee on Tuesday 12th January at 10am. We are asking all opponents of this dreadful legislation to email your constituency and list MSPs to ask them to support the aims of the petition.

You can find the relevant contact details here if you live in Scotland:

Find your MSP

And here if you live outside Scotland but are affected by the Act because you travel to games and wish to write to the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, the Justice Minister, Michael Matheson and/or the Community Safety and Legal Affairs Minister, Paul Wheelhouse.

Email contacts for Scottish Ministers

and below is some draft text which you can cut and paste in or personalise as you please. An automated email facility is available on the site of one of our founding organisations, The Celtic Trust.

Automatic Email generator to all your MSPs

The emails generated by this system do not make any reference to Celtic or supporters groups; the text is neutral and no personal details are collected/retained.

Dear [insert name of MSP]

In June 2015 the Scottish Government reneged on its promise to carry out a full and transparent review of the Offensive Behaviour at Football Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act 2012. Instead, the Minister, Paul Wheelhouse, in a twenty minute statement to Parliament, quoted selectively from a single piece of research and a highly skewed YouGov poll commissioned by his Department. During the ten minutes of questions he also lied to the Chamber by saying that Fans Against Criminalisation supported his diversion from prosecution scheme. I am shocked that he has repeatedly refused to withdraw this comment after being requested to do so by that organisation.

On Tuesday 12th January 2016 a petition will go before the Petitions’ Committee asking that Parliament carry out the review of the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act which the Government has conspicuously failed to do.

I am writing to you as your constituent to ask you to support the petitioner and the aims of the petition either in person at the meeting on the 12th or by writing to the Chair of the Petitions’ Committee in advance.

I look forward to your response.

Yours sincerely

[insert your own name and address]

Please do this as a matter of urgency and encourage your friends, family and workmates to do likewise.

2 Comments

P Skelton

Posted January 9, 2016 at 12:24 am | Permalink

A dreadful undemocratic piece of legislation that was unnecessary – the famous shame game that led to this legislation .( I am sure it was the players on the park that acted in an anti social manner that night).resulting in many people predominately young people being given criminal records on the say so of the police or anyone else who can choose to be offended or not ? – Now some of the songs you not like and you can choose to be offended and you can argue have no place in a civilised modern Scotland but its shouldn’t be a criminal offence . Freedom speech , and freedom thought is a human right and people should have right to express their opinions as long it is non threatening or violent
Then using courts at great expense to the tax payer only to be found in some cases no case to answer

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Donald Murphy

Posted January 10, 2016 at 12:29 am | Permalink

It’s. Football. Not the place to sing political songs and if saying that means you don’t support Celtic then fine go somewhere else.

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