Bishop John Keenan, Bishop of Paisley and spokesperson for the Bishops’ Conference on life issues said:

“This is a chilling day for fundamental freedoms, including our basic right as citizens in Scotland to manifest our beliefs in public, religious or otherwise.

“None of the arguments made were able to get around the basic premise that Police Scotland had never asked for more powers and even told the Parliament they were “really uncomfortable” with the bewildering suggestion of having to police people’s thoughts under the new law.

“The Bishops’ Conference of Scotland condemns all harassment and intimidation of people but continues to note the poor case made that this sort of behaviour was in any way the ethos of Scottish vigils, and endorses the view of Police Scotland, that there are already ample laws in place to deal with such behaviour. This law is certainly unnecessary in terms of public order and will disproportionately affect citizens of faith.”

Bishop Keenan added: “While we commend the one MSP who was prepared to recognise and call out the injustice of this draconian law which now criminalises citizen’s thoughts and makes it illegal to pray in certain parts of the country, it is concerning that there was only one.”

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