Scottish Government summit aims to police online bigotry to fight sectarianism
As part of its measures to tackle the issue of sectarianism in Scotland after a summit called following last week’s troubles as a result of the heated Old Firm game in Glasgow, the Scottish Government has announced that it will aim to better police the internet for bigoted comments.
The Scottish Government has yet to outline exactly how it plans to police the internet, but the measure is one policy set out as part of its six point plan to tackle sectarianism, with this particular measure noted as one of eight ‘broad measures’ to improve behaviour.
“We will employ the technology that we employ in other areas to bring these perpetrators to account,” promised First Minister Alex Salmond.
Today's summit involved the three governing bodies of Scottish Football, Scottish politicians and senior representatives from both Rangers and Celtic.
A budget of £500,000 has been assigned to several anti-violence and anti-sectarian organisations in order to battle the problem in Scotland, which Mr Salmond said he hoped would ‘make things better’ but accepted it would not solve the problem entirely.
"It is our national game, it has enormous prestige and the willingness that was demonstrated by clubs and associations today, to see football in that context and to broadcast that message, was extremely encouraging,” commented Salmond.
Calls were made by police prior to the summit to no longer broadcast games between Celtic and Rangers in Scotland in a bid to avoid future scenes of violence.