Article originally appeared on www.foxnews.com.
A bill currently being considered by the Irish government could jail citizens for merely possessing material that criticizes certain protected characteristics, ranging from gender identity to national origin.
The Irish Criminal Justice Bill is supposed to target “hate speech” but some critics have compared it to the concept of punishing people for “thoughtcrime,” a term popularized by George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984.”
The text of the “Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill 2022,” notes that a person can be imprisoned if they “prepare or possess” material that is “likely to incite violence or hatred against a person or a group of persons on account of their protected characteristics or any of those characteristics with a view to the material being communicated to the public or a section of the public, whether by himself or herself or another person.”
The bill includes a variety of “protected characteristics” that one can be prosecuted for criticizing, including, race, color, nationality, religion, …
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