House passes harsher penalties for hate incitement based on sexual orientation, gender

The House plenum on Thursday passed a law introducing stiffer penalties on anyone found guilty in a court of law of inciting violence or hatred against persons for their sexual orientation or gender identity.

The relevant law making this a criminal offence already existed. The bill passed by MPs on Thursday is an amendment, increasing the penalties from three to five years in jail, and from €5,000 to €10,000.

In remarks on the House floor, Akel MP Aristos Damianou – who drafted the bill – said these new legal penalties bring them in line with the penalties provided for the offence of hate speech or inciting racial hatred.

Damianou noted that in recent years Cyprus has enacted a great deal of related legislation as recommended by international organisations. But the country still lags behind when it comes to enforcement.

The MP mentioned the recent attacks against food delivery workers whose “only crime”, as he put it, is “their colour and job”.

For her part, MP Alexandra Attalidou said such laws are necessary as “certain politicians, with their stance, have normalised the assaults that are happening right now, which contributes to creating a climate of fear, exclusion, social tensions and increased violence”.

But the Elam party dismissed the entire exercise as a vote-grabbing gimmick by the legislation’s sponsors and backers.

Elam’s Sotiris Ioannou spoke of “neoliberal voices who support the woke agenda, and it appears there are a great deal of such voices, judging by the high attendance at pride marches”.

Ioannou questioned the purpose of increasing the penalties for this particular offence – incitement of violence or hatred based on sexual orientation or gender identity – given that not a single person has been convicted since 2015 when the relevant law was first enacted.

The MP complained that talk of hate speech is “selective, since no one speaks about the hate speech directed against what Hellenism and the Orthodox faith hold sacred”.

He went on to describe the term ‘gender identity’ as “vague”.

For Elam, he added, only two genders exist – male and female. His party, he pledged, would never consent to marriage between homosexuals, adoption rights for such couples, or sex-change operations.