Friday, January 05, 2007

Wow! I guess they don't have free speech in England

One of the protesters against the Danish cartoons has been convicted of soliciting murder for shouting "Bomb, bomb Denmark, bomb, bomb USA." This seems a little extreme to me:

A British Muslim has been found guilty of soliciting murder during a London rally against cartoons satirising the Prophet Muhammad.

Umran Javed 27, of Birmingham, was also convicted of stirring up racial hatred by a jury at the Old Bailey.

Javed told a crowd of hundreds at the February 2006 protest: "Bomb, bomb Denmark, bomb, bomb USA."

He had claimed the chants against the two countries were "just slogans" and that he regretted saying them.

[...]

The maximum penalty for soliciting murder is life in prison.

[...]

The Crown Prosecution Service's Sue Hemming said she was mindful of the rights to free speech when considering cases such as this.

"However, when we examined the content of Mr Javed's speech it was explicit that there was direct encouragement to those present and those watching via the media to commit acts of murder against the Danish and Americans."

She said the law was also clear that free speech "should not be misused to insult, abuse or threaten people in such a way that it will stir up racial hatred".

[...]

"He said disbelievers would pay a heavy price...and said Denmark would pay with blood."