THE full extent of Scotland's sectarian shame has been revealed in a shocking new report which shows offences of bigotry are up to 60 times more likely in Glasgow than much of the rest of the country.
Official Crown Office figures obtained by Scotland show that one in 500 people in Glasgow have been charged with a religiously aggravated offence since 2003, when the new offence was introduced.
That compares with a figure of one in 29,000 in the
Grampian region, where only eight incidents have been recorded in four years.
The figures were compiled following new laws, introduced in 2003, which allow the courts to increase a punishment for an offence if it can be proven the crime was motivated by religious hatred.
Many of the cases are thought to be breaches of the peace accompanied by sectarian abuse.
The figures show that almost all cases of sectarian hatred are confined to west central Scotland, despite claims by campaigners that the issue needs a nationwide solution.
After Glasgow, Lanarkshire is the second most common region for such offences, with one in every 1,472 people having been charged. Third is Ayrshire where the figure is one in every 2,156.
By contrast, only one person in every 13,933 has been charged in the Highlands and Islands, and one in 7,572 in Lothian and the Borders.
In total police have charged 2,154 people with a religiously aggravated offence since 2003.
That is well below the 4,346 charges recorded in 2006-2007 alone, in which the main cause of aggravation was deemed to be on race grounds.
The details come after former First Minister Jack McConnell put sectarianism at the top of his political agenda, organising two high-profile 'summits' between Catholic and Protestant leaders. He labelled sectarianism as Scotland's "secret shame", and backed policies which have seen lessons on anti-sectarianism given in primary schools.
But McConnell's successor, Alex Salmond, is now understood to have scrapped any future summits, in the belief that they gave sectarianism an importance it does not deserve. And the Catholic Church has argued that the summits were "meeting for meeting's sake".
Scotland's leading historian said last night that the disparity in figures could be explained by the flows of Irish immigration in the last century.
Tom Devine said: "The Aberdeen area, for example, has never really had a problem because these are problems caused by the historic flows of Irish immigration and, specifically, the crucial combination of Catholic Irish and Protestant Irish."
"In Dundee, there was very substantial migration but it was very homogeneous. There was very little Protestant flow so Orangeism therefore never really developed. In terms of per capita, Dundee wasn't that far behind Glasgow. But where you only got one group then you don't really have a problem".
He added: "It is remarkable that it has continued for so long when you consider that this is a very old migration."
Despite the findings last night, anti-sectarian campaigners said that a nationwide effort to tackle the problem was required.
A spokesman for the anti-bigotry campaign group Nil by Mouth added: "Some communities suffer more than others from the effects of religious bigotry, although higher population numbers and a particular drive against sectarian behaviour in areas such as Strathclyde must be considered when reading the statistics."
He added: "Much sectarian behaviour, while damaging, does not constitute a criminal offence. Figures such as these only paint a very limited picture of what is fundamentally a very human issue."
A spokeswoman for the Scottish Government said: "We will work across Scotland as a whole - we believe that one religiously aggravated offence is one too many. There are no quick fixes - religious intolerance will not simply disappear over night - that is why we are committed to long-term action."
Separate figures on the number of convictions for a religiously aggravated offence were also released last week, showing that a total of 1,163 were brought - just over half the number of charges made by police.
The spokesman for Nil by Mouth said: "Nil by Mouth is concerned about the recent drop in the conviction rate on religious-aggravated offences. We urge the Scottish Executive to commission research to support a stronger and more consistent challenge against sectarian-related crime."
