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Cartoon protesters sentenced to 6 years in jail
BillieTheBot
Posts: 8,721 Bot
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6904622.stm
An interesting one for defenders of total freedom of expression I guess.
Whereas I actually think soliciting murder should be an offence I'm uneasy about the resolution of this case. Given the average sentences given in this country for various crimes, 6 years seems rather disproportionate. People have got less for actually killing someone.
And in some of the cases at least the charge of "soliciting murder" seems quite thin on the ground:
Does anyone believe shouting that deserves 6 years in jail?
And while we're at it, does anyone believe a person attending a pro-Iraq war or pro-Israel rally (there were actually some held) shouting "bomb, bomb Iraq" or "bomb, bomb Lebanon" would have been arrested, let alone sent to jail?
Trial by newspaper is alive and well, it seems...
An interesting one for defenders of total freedom of expression I guess.
Whereas I actually think soliciting murder should be an offence I'm uneasy about the resolution of this case. Given the average sentences given in this country for various crimes, 6 years seems rather disproportionate. People have got less for actually killing someone.
And in some of the cases at least the charge of "soliciting murder" seems quite thin on the ground:
BBC article wrote:Javed, from Birmingham, was filmed by police shouting: "Bomb, bomb Denmark. Bomb, bomb USA."
Does anyone believe shouting that deserves 6 years in jail?
And while we're at it, does anyone believe a person attending a pro-Iraq war or pro-Israel rally (there were actually some held) shouting "bomb, bomb Iraq" or "bomb, bomb Lebanon" would have been arrested, let alone sent to jail?
Trial by newspaper is alive and well, it seems...
Beep boop. I'm a bot.
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*waits for the inevitable claims that
(a) I'm "foaming at the mouth", something liberals obviously never do...
(b) I'm allegedly quoting something the Daily Mail editorial says...
(c) That I sound like a tabloid. (as if that's a bad thing, they pay pretty well)
(d) Some idiot attempting to imply that I'm somehow being racist for calling on someone to be booted out of Britain...
Come on, surprise me for once...
What do you think of the sentences as well? Let's forget about the background of the case for a minute. Do you think a person shouting 'bomb X country' deserves 6 years in jail?
What a load of bullshit. So what? We go up to the leaders of France, Germany, or some other country, and say, "These men have been born, bred and educated in Britain, and we don't like the job we've done. You take them?" You're extremely naive if the only solution you can come up with is "deport them" and expect it to be practical. I really worry about you doing a degree in politics if that is the limit of your understanding of the situation.
On the main question, yes 6 years is absolutely ridiculous. I've seen plenty of people on US news channels saying that we should "nuke them all," and know doubt similar sentiments have been expressed in Britain (except that the news channels are less willing to show such extremist viewpoints). Yet there are never calls for these people to be brought to justice for identical "crimes" aimed at a different target. Not only have these extremists merely exercised their right to free speech, but this sentence can only do their cause more good, because of the completely hypocritical circumstances in which it occured. You get less that 6 years for assault, death by dangerous driving, hell, even rape in some cases. 6 years for shouting over a megaphone and holding a banner is bollocks of the highest order.
All it will do will make people already sympathetic to their cause think "actually, you know what, they might be right. It's okay for a Danish newspaper to insult muslims, but when we attempt to retaliate, we get put in prison."
Hmm, I think muslim people tend to be peaceful. As for Islam itself being a peaceful religion......I'm not sure.
Falluja or some other hotbed of Islamic extremism, they'd be happy there.
On a side note, 6 years is OTT but that's what you get when you live in a country where fear of attack is so high.
Surely it would have been better to say something at the time? These court cases cant have been cheap.
We could say the same thing about you, all these liberals you hate, etc. You might be better off being deported to a country without these people?
Bollocks.
Hell, the immense majority of posters in this very forum, me included, should be rotting in jail right now. Who can say they have never expressed their desire that a regime, leader, group, organisation or even country would get bombed?
This is one extremely worrying case of trial by media, make no mistake. Like I'm with Stupid said earlier, journalists have often expressed their desire that a country be bombed, invaded or otherwise attacked. How is that different? Why aren't they in jail? Oh, that be because they were talking about towelheads and the press didn't make any fuss about it, whereas this chap was talking about a good old Western nation and the press made a monumental fuss about it.
Or imagine if these were BNP supporters with signs saying 'behead those who support Islam' what would the views be then...
The BNP scenario is a good example as well. Any BNP member shouting such things would probably get a stiffer sentence than joe public shouting about something else. The point is, once again the media has successfully influenced the outcome of a case. That is an extremely worrying development.
I am willing to bet my life that there were quite a few people in that big Countryside Alliance demo a few years ago who shouted 'release the hounds on Blair' or something to that effect. Does anyone really think it would have been concievable for any of them to be arrested, charged, prosecuted and given a six year jail sentence? Yeah, right...
And rightly so, for fuck's sake. I have a fucking massive problem with a member of the public who is no fucking threat whatsoever to a nation being jailed for six years for *shouting* at a demo.
It wasn't just a demo though was it? It was designed to cause fear and intimidation - back down or they'll be bombings.
To be fair to the Countryside Alliance (and the thousands of other demos) they weren't suggesting that bombs be set off.
That said I agree that six years seems harsh...
I appreciate that you don't want these nasty fuckers around, but it's really tantamount to covering your eyes and pretending the problem has gone away to suggest deporting them.
Tbf this whole event was orchestrated whereas most people who say stuff like that do it on a spur of the moment type thingy. You don't just suddenly have plackards that say "Europe you will pay with your blood" on your hands with 50 or so other people with similar plackards and shouting similar sentiments while feeling angry at something.
They should've got a year tops, but hey, the government wants to send out a message that this sort of thing won't be tolerated. Just fueling the fire if you ask me.
See, we don't know if they are no threat to the nation or not.
The Countryside Alliance don't have a history of setting off bombs, English people don't have a history of setting off bombs in Portugal even though they might say it. Islamic Fundies have a history, in the UK and elsewhere, that's why they got dealt with so severly.
And if they're British?
incting murder is a crime, and thus they got prosecuted, but excessive custodial sentences aren't the answer
it was blatantly a 'hire a angry mob' scenario, they'd be better off giving them a year suspended sentence and having MI5 look on them to see who organises these kind of things
and the thing about the countryside alliance, remember that one of them broke into the commons whilst in session, they got less of a sentence....
they're too dark to be british obviously
**whilst reading my enemy combatant book by Moazzam Begg who spent 3 years in guantamano**
Well i never said it could happen. Just that I don't want to live alongside them, like most people probably don't.
Was this individual a threat to Denmark and the US? Did his demands during the demo pose any real kind of threat to those nations? Was the punishment proportionate?
One can only fear that none of those questions were given due consideration. You would expect such thing to happen in banana republics but certainly not in Britain.
You think religion and political affilliation have no bearing on the case? Of course they do, you must take every case on it's merit, you can't just have a blanket sentence handed down on any who says "bomb or kill x,y,z". If you some pissed up football fan shouting "bomb Portugal" is the same as a group of Islamic Fundamentalists organising a demo and calling to kill those who insult Islam is the same thing then there's something wrong there.
The cartoons were published by a Dane. They also don't like the West (or anywhere else in the world for that matter) because our way of life, secular and fee, doesn't fit in with their medieval fantasy utopia.
Funnily enough you could say that football fans are also prone to acts of violence. And yet or hypothetical England fan shouting 'bomb Portugal' would have never been given a custodial sentence- or even see trial.
The Law is suppossed to be blind and not to make generalisations.