Officers would be likely to be alarmed
Apparently in the UK it’s illegal to make “offensive” comments about Allah. I wonder if that law applies to “offensive” comments about God too – they are supposed to be the same man, after all, even if Malaysians are forbidden to use the first word to mean the second unless they are Muslims.
A man has been fined for making offensive comments about Allah during the English Defence League protest in Leicester.Lee Whitby was found guilty of using racially aggravated abusive words during the protest in the city centre on Saturday, October 9.
…
Alexandra Blossom, prosecuting, said the comments made were bound to cause harassment, alarm or distress because of Leicester’s multicultural society and the fact the words were said in the city centre.
She said: “A number of people present that day were likely to be offended.
“It was a high-profile event and members of the public would have been in the city on a Saturday.
“The remarks are even offensive to police.
“A clear message needs to be sent out about using such behaviour in a multicultural city.”
Notice all the conditionals and subjunctives. Bound to cause; were likely to be; would have been. There’s nothing about anyone who actually was “offended,” except for the police. The police were offended, and other people could would were likely to be, but in fact as far as anyone knows were not, no doubt because they didn’t hear anything. It was only the police who heard the “offensive” comments and the police were obligingly “offended” so Lee Whitby (who is no doubt a repellent unpleasant bully) gets done for saying something that could have offended people if only the people had been in earshot.
Mr Moore said: “It is a fact you were with others chanting and police were within hearing distance but there is no evidence of non-police officers within hearing distance.
“It is likely that a police officer or officers hearing the words would be likely to be alarmed and for that reason we find you guilty of this offence.”
Whitby was fined £200 and ordered to pay a further £200 in costs, as well as a £15 victim surcharge.
A victim surcharge, despite the admitted lack of any actual victim. £415 because police officers would be likely to be alarmed.
You know what? I should send a copy of Does God Hate Women? to the Leicester police department. Surely the Leicester cops would be likely to be alarmed by the last three pages of that little book. If that’s a criminal offense, surely I am guilty.
The preemptive prohibition of presumptive offence. Spectacular.
Honest-to-goodness, what’s going on in the UK? Statutes against “offensive” comments? 15 year-olds arrested for harming a book? This is farcical.
Isn’t it? Isn’t it just spectacular (thank you Saikat) and godawful?
Andy you got a shout-out for a comment here, the one about the Tom Johnson scholarship fund, on PZ’s thread today. :- )
What did he say?
The EDL – fascists?
I’d like to know on what grounds the offense was “racially aggravated”. Islam is certainly not a race in the conventional sense.
Not surprised by this though. UK keeps having these cases.
The report didn’t say what he said. No doubt it was too “offensive.” I suspect it was something like “Allah is a wog/nigger/some other racial epithet.”
EDL is English Defence League. Certainly nativist if not actually fascist.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Skeptic South Africa, Stuart Pollock and Ophelia Benson, Rational Humanist. Rational Humanist said: Officers would be likely to be alarmed #humanism #atheist http://tiny.ly/NsvI […]
Ah, I see. I recall the EDL now. Nasty types.
Still, a ridiculous charge.
So you don’t even know what he said, he supports a borderline-or-full fascist organization, and this is the post you write? Wow. “[W]ho is no doubt a repellent unpleasant bully.” To say the very least. I’m speechless.
Did you delete my response to Sean?
We do not have the right to free expression, in public, here in the UK. Please have a look at this:
http://www.yourrights.org.uk/yourrights/right-of-free-expression/criminal-law-restrictions-on-freedom-of-expression/racial-hatred.html
@ Andy Dufresne
The arrest of a 15 year old girl for burning the koran is just as mad. What’s going on in the UK? The rise of political extremism, because liberalism and socialism in the UK has become spineless and insane.
Ian, I know. Commenters filled me in on the Public Order Act during a similar discussion of a similar incident, awhile ago. I just keep being startled by new instantiations.
As I said, I’m not surprised (I’m quite aware that our First Amendment is almost peerless with regards to protecting politically offensive and racist speech), but I’m still annoyed about it. This kind of police action is a petty response to a petty man as far as I can see.
This is the sort of nonsenses that crops up when packs of ideas are given the same legal status as packs of people.
Islam is a pack of ideas, one of which ideas is that of The One God, creator of everything. Under Sharia law, Lee Whitby probably could have been buried up to his shoulders and slowly stoned to death for offence of Allah, even though the only people listening perhaps were of non-Muslim persuasions. That is, the idea offended was perhaps in no listener’s head, but rather just floating around the place on its own. I think Plato would agree, wherever he is now.
Blasphemy of Jehovah, never mind Allah, used to be a crime in Britain. Thank God it’s not any more (no irony intended). We can see from just this one example that it leads straight into a police state. The offended cop for all we know may have been a Wahhabist, and a particularly touchy one at that.
Religious people of all persuasions should be comfortable enough with the scriptural assurance that blasphemers will undergo horrrrrrible and eterrrrrnal torture in Hell foreverrrrrrrmore, and just leave it at that.
http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/news/English-Defence-League-exactly/article-2730397-detail/article.html
http://www.google.com.au/search?q=allah&hl=en#sclient=psy&hl=en&q=english+defence+league+leicester&aq=4&aqi=g5&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&pbx=1&fp=30ae018d48516c74
I wonder why Whitby wasn’t ranting on about the Jewish or Christian gods, which are of course the same exact god. I wonder if he might have some other agenda…
The EDL is vile, and its members are probably mostly not nice people, but they should have the right verbally to express their bigotry.
What rights they have to say what in what context are debatable. The situation should be presented comprehensively.
I’m sure it’s perfectly legal for anyone with a Muslim name to make offensive remarks about polytheists, or homosexuals, or Jews (or women), or just about anyone they deem aberrant. Their speech is free. For everybody else, it’s a wee bit more expensive. Again, spectacular.
The situation wasn’t presented completely comprehensively in the article; for instance the article omitted what Whitby said. The article did however say that the magistrate himself said there was no evidence that any people other than cops were in earshot.
Salty Current,
I understand your reluctance to support a member of the EDL with previous assault convictions who was fined for chanting anti-Muslim sentiments… but (i) there is no easily accessible online record of the actual words of his chant (believe me I tried), so we don’t know exactly what was said, (ii) the fine was for causing offence, which I very much believe should not be a matter for any criminal court anywhere unless the offence is part of another criminal action (e.g. inciting violence, breaching privacy laws), and (iii) the offender was not fined for causing offence but for saying things that *would have* caused offence *if* any offendees had been in earshot, of which the court itself accepted there was no evidence — and then a victim surcharge was added to the fine despite the non-existence of victims. This a most illiberal decision.
And in any case I’m not supporting a member of the EDL, I’m criticizing an arrest, prosecution, and conviction. Nothing in my post even came close to supporting Whitby. Saying the act he was convicted and fined for should not be treated as a crime is not the same thing as supporting him. Does that really need to be spelled out?
I don’t support people who call women bitches or cunts, but I also don’t think they should be arrested and convicted and fined for doing so.
The EDL do not look like my sort of organisation, but if they oppose blasphemy laws I am with them at least on that.
Even in the most liberal of Muslim countries, even secular ones like Turkey and Egypt, someone who took offence at a blasphemous remark and followed it up with violence would probably get off pretty lightly in court. Free speech has to trump avoidance of giving offence, and this sort of thing and Sharia are the thin end of the illiberal wedge.
Exactly. And other elements of the context. Relevant details all.
The other EDL thugs, actually. And who knows? And who knows anything about the cops? It says it was in the city center.
Reluctance? Look, I can’t understand what is wrong with people that they can’t recognize the significance of context here.
You’re going by a single article. And even it said that other EDL people could obviously hear, so the potential for inciting violence is vey much there.
My point is that the presentation of this as a ‘selective blasphemy’ case is ridiculous. This appears to be a far-right hate group. If someone’s going to post about it, they should post the full story.
I should hope not, and I never said you were.
Based, apparently, on a single article that doesn’t provide details, including of what the guy even said.
Will you show me where I said it did?
a) again (though you should be aware of the potential effects of posts like this); b) you didn’t even know what act he engaged in when you wrote this post.
The presentation of this post is unbelievable.
No, SC, you’re wrong on this one. The “presentation of this post” is not “unbelievable.” Ophelia is straightforwardly criticizing what appears to be an arrest for pure speech – regardless of whether it’s motivated (or not) by racism, or uttered by repugnant fascists.
SC, I think what you mean is that Ophelia should have posted a more detailed story. Nobody has the ‘full story’, except perhaps God, and he has shown great rerluctance to post comments here.
‘Far-right hate group’ seems to be a simplistic appraisal of the EDL. From the Wikipedia article cited below, it seems they are very aware of the ease with which a mere ‘far right hate group’ can be marginalised and worn down by prosectutions and legal proceedings. Their “stated aim is to oppose the spread of Islamism, Sharia law and Islamic extremism in England.” In that cause they appear to have found allies.”The EDL uses street-based marches against what the EDL labels as Muslim extremism. It presents itself as being multi-ethnic and multi-faith, and states that it opposes only ‘jihadists’, not all Muslims.”
It would seem to me from what I know of Britain that outlawing blasphemy is likely to bring about a result quite opposite to that which its supporters hope to achieve. It would appear that getting laws passed against it in keeping with the norm in the Muslim world was an understandable Muslim response, but tailor-made to assist the rise of a mass backlash, which of course the EDL would benefit from and likely encourage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Defence_League
The EDL is a very nasty group. Their only visible activity is in holding loud, disruptive street demonstrations. Their appearance is that of classic white-supremacist skinhead thugs [if I may be permitted to be so shallow as to judge people by their haircuts, clothing and demeanour]. They are, I expect, largely an online network, organising their appearances wherever they can be the most headline-grabbing. All that said, convicting someone for saying something that a police officer might have thought offensive to someone else who might have heard it if they’d been in a position to, which they weren’t, is still stupid.
No, I’m not wrong. And I’ll note that they have different laws concerning speech over there, including hate, racist, and potentially-violence-inciting speech. Whether, given their laws, the penalty was warrented is certainly debatable (though I think knowing what the guy actually said would be significant), as are speech laws in general. But it’s misleading to present this as primarily or simply a blasphemy case, leaving out or noting only in passing crucial elements of the story.
Well, obviously I meant a far more comprehensive story.
SC, I searched for several sources for the story. I even tried to read the court transcript, but the UK law website seems determined to make it impossible to find. Unfortunately there are only two original sources: the Leicester Mercury report and a BBC story that only mentions the original charges and not the final judgement. I would have loved to have read some other sources, but it appears there is only one source at this time. If you are aware of any other sources I would be pleased to know about them.
IMO you are acting in an even greater fact-free zone than the rest of us. While I tried and failed to get more information (and acknowledged that), you are quite happy to tell us all that Whitby deserved his prosecution despite the fact that you have no added information and you are doing your best to pretend that the evidence that is available (to wit the quoted judgement) doesn’t exist.
I did try to talk constructively to you, but in return you accused me of not recognising context when you yourself have no more context than anyone else to draw upon, and then you accused all of us of being misleading for not posting the full story when we are drawing on all the story we have available to us. Meanwhile you go pulling moral judgements out of thin air. Clearly I made a grave error in thinking your purpose here was to contribute to liberal secularism or that you might be interested in discussing arguments more subtle than “EDL bad, therefore criminal charges good.”
Yes, you are wrong.
What a constructive dialogue.
I know they have different laws concerning speech over there; that’s my point. And I didn’t present this as a blasphemy case; I didn’t even use the word.
Having seen the EDL in ‘action’ I wouldn’t be surprised to find that the police grabbed the nearest opportunity to pin a charge on a thug, even if that charge was tenuous, to say the least. But I have a very hard time in general with this whole concept of ‘blasphemy’ and ‘incitement to religious hatred’. To me (as an atheist, so I may be missing some nuances here) it seems that the very existence of one religion is blasphemous to another. Islam seems to recognise this by branding all non-muslims as ‘unbelievers’, even if they are believers in another religion and all the talk of the ‘people of the book’ notwithstanding.
If I were a christian and protested at the site of a proposed new hindu temple with a sign reading ‘There is only one god so this temple is a waste of time and money’, would that be blasphemy? Which religious view trumps which other?
Or (and now I’m on firmer ground) if I say to a muslim that I don’t believe in the existence of any gods and that therefore her religion must be based on false premises, is that a valid argument, or blasphemy?
This might seem like nit-picking, but it worries me that creeping acceptance of the very concept of ‘blasphemy’ will lead to religions being immune from any criticism at all (which is their exponents’ very aim, I’m sure).
The crime of “blasphemy” was abolished a couple of years ago.
But notice that the article says that the man was charged with incitement of racial hatred, not religious hatred. If this is accurate, then it may indicate (depending on what the actual words were, which we don’t know) that the prosecution intentionally pulled a fast one, since the law on racial hatred is somewhat looser than the one on religious hatred.
Specifically, the crime of incitement to racial hatred specifies “threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour”, whereas the crime of incitement to religious hatred requires “threatening” behaviour and explicitly excludes “antipathy, dislike, ridicule, insult or abuse of particular religions or the beliefs or practices of their adherents” (amongst other things) from being criminalized.
Yet the article also says Whitby was “fined for making offensive comments about Allah” – the elision of that with “racial” is what caused me to speculate that his chant was something about Allah as a racial epithet of some sort. But maybe I’m being too generous and trusting to the police and the courts by speculating that – creating a connection when in fact there wasn’t one. Maybe there wasn’t anything explicitly racist, leaving only the idea that “making offensive comments about Allah” was a proxy for racism. That may well be true, but it certainly seems like playing fast and loose with the actual law.
But the Organisation of the Islamic Conference seems determined to make it a universal principle at the UN. The concept that a set of ideas can be ‘insulted’ or ‘defamed’ is crazy.