Islamaphobia Legislation (UK)

[ANDREW GREEN]

While I don't agree with what happened, I'd imagine they were going off the below sections of the Public Order Act

Intentional Harassment, Alarm or Distress (Section 4A Public Order Act 1986) – This offence is caused by demonstrating abusive behaviour toward somebody by using threats and insults. The maximum sentence is 6 months and the trial would only take place in the Magistrates Court, unless the offence was said to be racially aggravated in which case you could receive a greater penalty at the Crown Court.

Threatening, Abusive or Insulting Behaviour (Section 5 Public Order Act 1986) – This offence can be caused by using abusive language or gestures with intent to cause another harassment alarm or distress. The maximum penalty for this offence is a fine.

It's pretty dubious whether or not these were breached, I'd lean to them not being breached

 

[Thecaferacer]

Section 4 and 4a specifically relates to threatening behaviour which causes fear of violence, with 4a adding an intent element. It can be done with publications but is often better served with Malivious Communications offences .

Section 5 deals with public notices as well as personal actions or behaviours. This has been often used for protests where protesters for animal rights will show highly graphic images of animal torture. Harvey Vs DPP 2011 had far reaching implications for this as it examined the context element of any case of public order offences.

 

[h4rm0ny]

So to be clear, you'd be in favour of prosecuting some of the people in here for some of the views they've expressed. Can you share which ones you'd lock up if you were supreme leader?

Yep - I very much want to hear this. Amp should back up what they just said by picking out a post in this thread as an example of the ones they think are prosecution-worthy. Bonus points if it's one of mine.

 

[h4rm0ny]

I would say it’s about context.

The pigs alone aren’t offensive, and I’ll be the first to say that anyone complaining about them is being overly sensitive.

Having a passage of the Koran on display is a bit odd if you’re not Muslim, but I can’t imagine it would be regarded as offensive.

However, you’d have to be pretty naive to not realise that conflating the two would be antagonistic, especially given the location of the house.

Unless it genuinely is a case of Hanlon‘s Razor, the only reason for doing so was to get a negative reaction, and then act surprised and outraged when said reaction inevitably occurs.

It seems to me that the whole thing was a complete waste of police time and their response was heavy handed, but it wouldn’t have happened if the woman wasn’t being a bit of a **** in the first place.

Person has porcelain pigs in their window. Person gets grief from Muslims for doing so. Person puts up quote from the Koran about how you should show tolerance to non-believers. Person comes home to find police breaking into their house.

I mean it goes in all directions. If I'm woken up by noise pollution (call to prayer) early in the morning from the mosque across the road, isn't that offensive? Offence is a bad basis for most law. And nobody should pretend that in the UK the law isn't being used as an activist tool to bully and enforce particular points of view.

 

[h4rm0ny]

Time to go down the rabbit hole, i highly recommend everyone here see this 3-part documentary of what could happen when you let the inmates take over the asylum:

The point where Bret Weinstein was accused of racism, then told not only he can't defend himself, but asking for evidence itself is racism was just jaw dropping.


The thought police is coming for most of us, make no doubt about it, they want to completely control our thinking, we've already have thin end of the wedge with transphobic hate speech being targeted, and propaganda being peddled in schools. They see how well it's going so now they are expanding it to other areas. Before long it's be dangerous to hold any opinon at all

Watched these as they came out. Terrifying.

 

[Irish_Tom]

Your analogy isn't appropriate though. Hillsborough was a tragedy not a belief system. That would be like somebody posting a sign up saying "the Manchester victims deserved it" or "the Holocaust was a lie". Both are on par with outraging public decency offences and constitute the section 5 public order offence.

The two examples you’ve posted are specific statements of opinion that can easily be categorised as a public order offence.

Both the quote/pig scenario and the Liverpool/Sun scenario are ambiguous enough to make that categorisation less obvious and down to interpretation.

Anyway, you’ve changed your tune:

Basic manners doesn't come in to it. In a free society people have the right to hold views and articulate them, regardless of how blunt or unsophisticated they are. She is allowed to hold views and communicate them and she is under no obligation to listen to the other side. Just as nobody is forced to look at her window.

And no, there is no escalation to police "having a word" as that's using an instrument of the state to coerce somebodies opinion. They are there to uphold and enforce the law. If no laws are broken then it's not a police matter. The only reason for police to be involved would be to prevent a breach of the peace, which would involve arresting those who sought to cause harm to the lady with the pigs

The only appropriate response, if she wasn't willing to engage, is to publicly show something with a counter argument. Something like a poster saying "bigots with porcelain pigs can't hurt me"

In a free society, I should have the right to dislike Liverpool FC fans and articulate that view, regardless of how blunt or unsophisticated that view is. I’m under no obligation to listen to the other side, just as no one would be forced to look at my Liverpool window.

No law has been broken, so the only reason for police to get involved would be to prevent a breach of the peace, which would involve arresting those people about to put a brick through my window.

The only appropriate response, if they aren’t willing to have a civil discussion, is to publicly show something with a counter argument like “the bigots at The Sun can’t hurt me”.

Person has porcelain pigs in their window. Person gets grief from Muslims for doing so. Person puts up quote from the Koran about how you should show tolerance to non-believers. Person comes home to find police breaking into their house.

That’s not how I interpreted the story. The timeline is a little fuzzy, but it says she complained about harassment from local youths after she put up bunting, nothing to do with the pigs.

I’m certainly not defending their actions either, I refer back to my initial position ‘be civil to your neighbours and don’t be a ****’. It goes both ways.

Offence is a bad basis for most law. And nobody should pretend that in the UK the law isn't being used as an activist tool to bully and enforce particular points of view.

I wholeheartedly agree, as I said in my very first post in this thread.

*Edited to fix quotes*

 

[Thecaferacer]

You really don't grasp the legislation do you? You have stated you believe the pig example warrants police warning the women. I have clearly stated it doesn't.

Something can be published or displayed that has the men's rea to incite violence, display gross indecency or to cause outrage to the standards of a person with reasonable firmness. This covers the examples i posted above and could be argued covers the Hillsborough scenario.

To take insult or offence from something like porcelain pigs with quote similar to something in the Quran is on par with say a Rangers fan adorning the front of his house with blue scarves in a Celtic area.

The top would warrant police involvement, the bottom doesn't.

If you genuinely don't see the difference then I can't explain it any further.

 

[StriderX]

You really don't grasp the legislation do you?

Something can be published or displayed that has the men's rea to incite violence, display gross indecency or to cause outrage to the standards of a person with reasonable firmness. This covers the examples i posted above and could be argued covers the Hillsborough scenario.

To take insult or offence from something like porcelain pigs with quote similar to something in the Quran is on par with say a Rangers fan adorning the front of his house with blue scarves in a Celtic area.

The top would warrant police involvement, the bottom doesn't.

If you genuinely don't see the difference then I can't explain it any further.

It may not warrant police involvement, but it does warrant study.

You don’t answer the question,

‘What drives people to commit crimes of passion ?’

By simply ignoring environments they dwell in, typically I’d argue there are connections to be made with how people act to how they will act in the future.

The essence of precrime is becoming reality, whether you want it or not, I’d argue statistical momentum is a valid research area for the police to use when a crime has been committed, as the effect of it transpires into a higher likelihood of further crime in the immediate period afterwards is... simply efficient.

Beyond that I really don’t know how they’d use more complex policing methodologies. I imagine it’ll contribute to a drone-like police force far removed from the people they’re supposed to serve.

 

[Thecaferacer]

It may not warrant police involvement, but it does warrant study.

You don’t answer the question,

‘What drives people to commit crimes of passion ?’

By simply ignoring environments they dwell in, typically I’d argue there are connections to be made with how people act to how they will act in the future.

The essence of precrime is becoming reality, whether you want it or not.

I don't really understand what that has got to do with anything. Crime passionnel isnt recognised in UK law, it's French. We only recognise mitigation for purposes of sentencing. And there is no such term as "pre-crime" you are trying to describe the environment that allows crime to thrive.

If you are trying to suggest that everyone must be monitored and coerced into a form of Orwellian group think to prevent future crime then you really need to step back and gain some perspective

And as for your "what causes a man to commit a crime of passion" simple, loss of control. There is no justification for causing damage or injury to a person or property just for insulting you.

 

[StriderX]

I don't really understand what that has got to do with anything. Crime passionnel isnt recognised in UK law, it's French. We only recognise mitigation for purposes of sentencing. And there is no such term as "pre-crime" you are trying to describe the environment that allows crime to thrive.

If you are trying to suggest that everyone must be monitored and coerced into a form of Orwellian group think to prevent future crime then you really need to step back and gain some perspective

I don’t need to step back at all, I know exactly how this works.

We’ve seen it plague politics, business and government agencies. The corporate nature of emotionless chatter and drive for results regardless of the means to get there.

Precrime is not legislated for, but the police use it anyway, it’s prevention rather than reaction. The police used to do prevention before the digital era by being visible and in he community, but that’s a cost.

You don’t want costs, so you cut them. You have to do the same work however, and that requires a new method, one that is now coming to life as the tech matures. It also helps politicians ‘friends’ as they typically involve themselves as contractors for the work, so you have ample satiation of greed.

You’ll fight it pointlessly, but it will only require a single terrorist to push it over the legislative line, and once it is, it’s over.

 

[Thecaferacer]

Your edit is describing crime prediction analysis for purposes of crime reduction has been happening for at least the last 40 years. It's not based on a notion of minority report. It's about putting resources in places to prevent acquisitive crime or in rare occasions violence, such as officers outside nightclubs or at a football ground

And trust me, I can see from your posts you have literally no idea how it works. No amount of police on the ground will prevent different social groups taking umbrage with each other.

 

[StriderX]

Your edit is describing crime prediction analysis for purposes of crime reduction has been happening for at least the last 40 years. It's not based on a notion of minority report. It's about putting resources in places to prevent acquisitive crime or in rare occasions violence, such as officers outside nightclubs or at a football ground

And trust me, I can see from your posts you have literally no idea how it works. No amount of police on the ground will prevent different social groups taking umbrage with each other.

There’s a reason why nationalist sentiment was being stoked, nothing invites fear quite like the enemy within.

That fear of the commons is why we have one of the densest surveillance in the world, and that was just the pretence of stopping crime in general, we’ve gotten used to that. So what’s a few nudges on wedge?

They have the media clocked in on the poor, frail, foreign and rightfully criminal. Jumble all that up and you have frenzy, people will take anything to feel ‘safe’ while they’re robbed blind by charlatans with ideals of false utopias.

 

[Thecaferacer]

Lay off the Kool Aid.

Who has been stoking nationalist sentiment? Since the 90s we have had one of the most aggressive progressive elites dictating the direction of the country in the world.

CCTV is in relation to a society based on property rights not on 1984 surveillance.

 

[StriderX]

Lay off the Kool Aid.

Who has been stoking nationalist sentiment? Since the 90s we have had one of the most aggressive progressive elites dictating the direction of the country in the world.

CCTV is in relation to a society based on property rights not on 1984 surveillance.

No you’ve had some of the most right wing neoconservative governments in power. This is what the right wing with any semblance of wealth want. The ‘progressives’ are just a tool for amusement and to get in your way.

The Middle East, was a playing field of policy and tactics, now it’s come home and it’s not the foreigners who brought it with them, it’s the people you voted for.

 

[Thecaferacer]

If you honestly believe that, I'm out. You are a lost soul.

 

[enkoda]

So it’s not a free speech issue at all - it’s a ‘free speech only when it relates to religion’ issue. Got it.

As I keep coming back to; it’s not about the pigs themselves. By all accounts no one complained when it was just the pigs on display.

The issue arose when the woman deliberately and overtly added a message to the pigs which targeted her Muslim neighbours. The consequence of her action was that she had her pigs confiscated.

Now I’ve already said that I think the response was heavy-handed. However, she only has herself to blame. If she hadn’t gone out of her way to upset other people she would still be the proud owner of her stupid pig collection.

So it’s not about the Muslims ‘expecting compliance with their beliefs’ at all - it’s about not being a **** to others - as per my Liverpool analogy.

Even if she was being a **** to her neighbours they used their religious beliefs as justification have the pigs removed. How is this not 'expecting compliance with their beliefs'?

 

[B&W]

Funny how people call this legislation terrifying, what is actually terrifying is Muslim women and children being verbally abused by racists.

And this has happened in my own family and I'm sure they are not the only ones.

But of course the White majority of this country is under threat and there very existence is in jeopardy.

Fools, xenophobes and cowards are multiplying like rabbits.

 

[Johno please?]

Funny how people call this legislation terrifying, what is actually terrifying is Muslim women and children being verbally abused by racists.

While that's awful, what your coreligionists do on a daily basis is terrifying.

 

[VincentHanna]

What a lot of humans do on a daily basis is terrifying, religion or not.

 

[B&W]

While that's awful, what your coreligionists do on a daily basis is terrifying.

Yeah, whatever muslims do its always worse isn't it? I mean on a thread that's about legislation to stop abuse of muslims it's really refreshing to see your ilk twist the subject to something that suits you.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-48093032

I guess this is the fault of muslims too, guess we just should just stay home or just tell me the truth you'd rather have us all booted "back to where we came from" ?