Freedom of speech in britain?

well, looks like the brits are arresting people for thought crimes now. saying naughty things about islam and all that. sad what europe has come to these days. :s

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west … 094275.stm

From time to time we have drawn your attention to the ongoing Religious Vilification Case in the State of Victoria, Australia against Pastor Daniel Scot, Pastor Danny Nalliah and Catch the Fire Ministries. This case was originally slated to be a 3 days in court and has now extended over more than a year. Under recently enacted Vilification Laws in Victoria, the two Pastors have been accused of defaming/vilifying Islam. The complaint was made by three western Muslims who attended a seminar on Islam run by and for Christians in which the majority of the teaching was taken straight from Islamic literature. Final submissions were made mid-June and since then the judge has been considering all the evidence and the submissions from legal counsel in order to make a decision. This has been a lengthy case that deeply affects the freedom of religion and freedom of speech in Australia. The eyes of the world are on this case, awaiting the outcome. For more information about this case see the link above.

Griffin is a very nasty piece of work, as is most of the BNP. Yes, inciting racial violence, beating people up, and plotting terrorism are crimes in the UK, why is that a bad thing ?

and what do you consider “incitement”? we in the states also do not allow free speech that steps over the “incitement” line, but it seems our definition is a little more strict than merely saying bad things about a religion/group.

Fire!

Just read this interesting piece on the UK public order law. It is by Iqbal Sacranie, the secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, and argues in favor of the proposed expansion of the law.

At this point I’d say I am leaning:

color=blue [/color]moderately in agreement with Sacranie in that it seems wrong for the law to apply to Jews and Sikhs but not to Muslims (or other religions);

and

color=blue [/color]moderately against the law in general (as I understand it).

One of the articles I saw referred to the recent proposal as an extension of the Public Order Act 1988. Does anyone know if this actually should have said the Public Order Act 1986? That’s the only one I could find, and I’ve only glanced through it, so I certainly haven’t made up my mind on either of the above points.

Can any UK law experts out there help me out on this? Is it really possible that this law can impose a 2 year prison sentence for directing a play that some jury interprets as stiring racial (now proposed to extend to religious) hatred?

This seems to nicely update this thread.

[quote=“BBC: Four Men Jailed Over Cartoon Demo”]Four Muslim men have been jailed for their part in protests at the Danish embassy in London, against cartoons satirising the Prophet Muhammad.

Mizanur Rahman, 24, Umran Javed, 27, and Abdul Muhid, 24, were each jailed for six years for soliciting to murder after telling a crowd to bomb the UK.

A fourth man, Abdul Saleem, 32, was jailed for four years for stirring up racial hatred at the protest in 2006.

The men, from London and Birmingham, were convicted at the Old Bailey.

Judge Brian Barker said their words had been designed to encourage murder and terrorism. [/quote]
Now ranters from two sides of the debate can be prison bunk mates. They should enjoy the experience… all kinds of daily opportunities to get worked up.

What exactly is that? On it’s face it sounds like inciting someone to commit a thought crime, since generally hatred in itself is a mental state. Do they mean he actually tried to incite some specific violent actions?

Then all the article tells us he did is:

So what is that? Harassment is pretty vague, does anyone know what precisely he did?

On the face of the charge I’d say it’s all BS, but I would hope that there’s something more specific that they are referring to here, that isn’t mentioned in the article.