An imam in Britain has been sentenced to nine years jail for incitement to murder and inciting racial hatred. This raises the question of whether a separate offence of inciting racial hatred is necessary. In this case, I don’t think so. The standard law prohibiting incitement to murder was adequate, and I think it was unreasonable to tack two years of consecutive imprisonment for inciting racial hatred onto the main sentence. On the other hand, it would be easy enough for a moderately clever preacher of racial hatred to word their statements in such a way as to encourage racial attacks without actually saying enough to be convicted of incitement to murder.