I WRITE about hate crime again, after reading a somewhat unsettling article by the director of public prosecutions Alison Saunders, published in the Guardian.

Governments love to censor for reasons which should be obvious. They have also, around the world, demonstrated a general hostility to the internet, where the traditional forms of censorship have proven difficult to enforce.

So according to Ms Saunders, people in the UK may feel recent events in Charlottesville and in Barcelona - and already it is suggested that these are in some way thematically linked - are of little relevance, however, she says that, online, similar ‘hate’ is experienced by internet users who are of a particular race, religion, sexuality, gender and disability.

I’ll brush over the odd suggestion that people in the UK might think Barcelona irrelevant to their lives.

The purpose of this introduction is to link both of these tragic and revolting events - the product of actions - with words spoken on the internet.

Ms Saunders is the head of the Crown Prosecution Service, and the occasion of her article is apparently a new commitment to treat online hate crimes as seriously as those committed face-to-face.

I suppose there is little wrong with this in principle, although feasibly the number of people who see a ‘hate-filled’ comment is far greater than those who encounter such an incident on the street. Simultaneously, the ease of simply ignoring said comment is greater.

She concedes that some may consider this approach heavy-handed, and says rather glibly that there are provisions in law to protect free speech.

There is no concession though on the more fundamental debate on whether the law has any right to police thought and intention in this manner.

Ms Saunders writes: “The definition of hate crime, recognised by the CPS and police, is “any criminal offence which is perceived by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by a hostility or prejudice” towards the personal characteristics mentioned above.”

She says a “common thread” links those who commit online hate crime and those who commit physical hate crime, and states that online hate crime has “devastating” effects on individuals and on society, sowing seeds of “division and intolerance”.

No doubt there is an element of truth to this, logic would suggest so. On the other hand, Ms Saunders fails to provide any evidence directly linking comments on Twitter with violence in the real world.

She also rather helpfully undermines her point in a later paragraph.

She says: “Police statistics show that religiously motivated hate crimes increased fivefold in Manchester in the weeks after May’s attack, while hate crimes against Muslims tripled in London in the week of that atrocity and then almost doubled again in the week after the June attack at London Bridge.”

I don’t know whether this refers to successfully prosecuted crimes or just recorded crimes as is usually the case when hate crime statistics are quoted.

The news that the religiously-motivated murder of concert-goers in Manchester should have led to varying degrees of criticism of religion, including hate, should come as no surprise.

Any violent attacks in response, though clearly deplorable, have a more obvious ‘cause’ than a few comments made online.

Let us imagine a crackdown on internet hate crime which targets merely those who claim there are intrinsic differences between human beings based on their skin colour, racists in other words. This is a demonstrably false claim, and its hard to argue the human race would lose out by denying these idiots a platform. Note, such people are more common than you might believe, and many strongly believe they are anti-racist.

Still, as we would not hear their views, we would be able neither to observe how common they are, nor to counter them with rational argument.

Of course, the hate crime crackdown is already straying well beyond this remit by including religion, as though it were a physical characteristic of a person rather than a ideological choice.

Where is the balance between legitimate criticism of religion and hatred? Who has the authority to police this gap? And why shouldn’t one hate religion, as one may justifiably hate other ideologies, such as fascism, to use a non-controversial example.

The original framing of hate crime legislation notoriously include the word ‘insult’, before it was wisely removed. But this demonstrates how a simple error can have serious implications on free speech.

If we are not free to talk freely on these topics we cannot hope to properly understand the motivations behind those who perpetrated the attacks in Barcelona, Manchester, Charlottesville, Finsbury Park et al, nor to find a solution.

What if the state’s restrictions in this regard go beyond to include criticism of government policy.

Much of this is framed as being in defence of ‘minorities’, an implicitly discriminatory idea as it singles people out based on their physical characteristics.

It is also rubbish, where people have faced real discrimination it has been at the hands of the state, and censorship has been its tool of enforcement. Free speech is the means by which civil rights movements have successfully challenged these regimes.

Censorship will lead not to greater equality, liberty or understanding between human beings. It will only cause further division.