BS: Race hatred on line - test case

Subject: BS: Race hatred on line - test case
From: Emma B
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 01:40 PM

There have been a number of threads which highlight the differences between American concepts of 'free speech' and British legislation which limits 'incitement to hatred' on the grounds of race or sexual orientation.

In a landmark case two Britons have become the first in the UK to be convicted of inciting racial hatred online, having printed leaflets and controlled websites featuring racist material.

Although their vitriol was variously directed at black, Asian and other non-white people, most of the material shown to the jury was virulently anti-Semitic.

What makes this paricularly relevant to the differences in UK and US legislation however is that the defence argued that the online material did not fall under the jurisdiction of UK law, because Sheppard's site was hosted on servers in California.

In a landmark ruling, the judge dismissed this - potentially paving the way for further prosecutions against the owners of other hate sites who believe they are exploiting a legal loophole.

Before the jury in the first trial could return verdicts, both men fled to Los Angeles International airport and attempted to claim political asylum.

The irony of two racists attempting to exploit the immigration and asylum system was lost on no-one who followed the case!

Full report BBC news

Subject: RE: BS: Race hatred on line - test case
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 01:51 PM

I say send them to Libya ...

Subject: RE: BS: Race hatred on line - test case
From: Stringsinger
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 02:49 PM

I think a test case might in the US might well be set up if a race hatred blog were set up in Britain and received in America and it showed that violent irreparable harm had been done
to citizens on the basis of race. I'm not sure that this kind of thing would be tolerated
here.

Subject: RE: BS: Race hatred on line - test case
From: robomatic
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 03:02 PM

Over here in the United States we have a thing called the "First Amendment"

It is not written so that you have the freedom to tell your mommy you love her, although you should.

It is written so that you can pollute the media with your own brand of mental garbage, just like the Daily Worker, The Nazi Blat, the Economist, and the New York Times.

Let the memes hit the streets and fight it out for themselves!

Thought control is thought control.

Subject: RE: BS: Race hatred on line - test case
From: John P
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 03:17 PM

robomatic, is shouting "FIRE!" in a crowded theater constitutionally protected speech? Is it protected speech if you have a website with the photo and home address of someone you don't like, along with lots of verbiage about how protecting freedom/religion/racial purity means that person has to die? Is that different than a crime lord "suggesting" to one of his minions that life would be better if so-and-so wasn't around any more? What about burning a cross in front of someone's house? What about making threats to kill someone? If you don't actually follow through on that threat, is it just free speech?

Thought control is thought control.
I agree, but that wasn't the question. These laws are being proposed because certain types of hate speech are known to actually incite violence. I'm not saying I agree with these laws, but I can see why folks would want them in place. Do you have a different plan to prevent impressionable people from being incited to violence by hate mongers?

Subject: RE: BS: Race hatred on line - test case
From: Jeri
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 03:59 PM

I'm getting the feeling that some folks in the UK think free speech is fine unless the speaker pisses people off.

People incite hatred, for whatever reason, all the time. Sometimes, it's based on race or religion and sometimes it's one person who hates somebody else and tries to get others on their side. None of it's illegal and I really believe people aren't stupid enough to fall for it. Even if they do, without action, hatred mostly hurts the hater.

It's the action that's important over here. Hate based crimes, and those are crimes no matter what the criminals' motives are. Incitement to commit a crime is illegal, whether it's hate based, greed-based, or revenge-based.

Subject: RE: BS: Race hatred on line - test case
From: Paul Burke
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 04:09 PM

Words, action....

Setting up a website is an action, setting up a newspaper is an action. Would the US tolerate Muslim websites/ newspapers that advocate bombing of American cities and the killing of US citizens, as they accord free speech to Nazis? Maybe the answer is yes, or maybe it would be an easy way to get an free air ticket to Pakistan and free accommodation there.

But I agree, that when it gets to setting fire to houses or throwing stones through windows, it's easier to draw the line.

Subject: RE: BS: Race hatred on line - test case
From: robomatic
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 04:23 PM

Where there are laws about hate speech one can indeed legislate restrictions on freedom of speech. This opens the door to state mandated thought control.

One can go to the Bible, the New Testament and the Qu'ran and find advocacies of persecution and hatred.

In the United States, these liberties are available to the common people as well. Unlike Osip Mandelstam, you can't be sent to Siberia for comparing Stalin's moustache to a cockroach!


This does not mean that we practise 'absolute' freedom of speech. You are not allowed to be obscene over the public airwaves. You may insult someone to the point of physical violence and you will lose in court if you argue your freedom of speech rights. If you express yourself freely as to your boss's hairstyle, you might expect this to limit your ability to progress in the organization of your workplace.

(My favorite example is when an acquaintance told me about being attacked in a bar 'I paid him a compliment, told 'im his wife had a nice p****!")

Subject: RE: BS: Race hatred on line - test case
From: Jeri
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 04:33 PM

Like I said, "Incitement to commit a crime is illegal..."

Subject: RE: BS: Race hatred on line - test case
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 06:31 PM

Alas, Robo, some thoughts ought to be controlled.

Subject: RE: BS: Race hatred on line - test case
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 11 Jul 09 - 07:19 AM

Does anyone know who the scum's lawyers were?

Subject: RE: BS: Race hatred on line - test case
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Jul 09 - 07:25 AM

Irish Times Thursday:
"BNP says sink migrant boats
LONDON - British National Party leader Nick Griffin said boats carrying migrants from Africa to Europe should be sunk to stop Europe being "swamped by the Third World".
Mr Griffin, one of two members of the far-right party elected to the European Parliament last month, said occupants of sunk boats could be given life rafts to get back to Africa.-(PA)"
The freedom to advocate the killing of immigrants??
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Race hatred on line - test case
From: Emma B
Date: 11 Jul 09 - 12:43 PM

How the LA Times reported this case on 3rd June

Men bedeviled in bid for sanctuary

Simon Sheppard and Stephen Whittle believed they would find a free-speech haven in the U.S

"They thought they had found safe harbor from the English court that three days earlier had convicted them of hate-related writings originating on their website.
Rather than wait for sentencing -- expected to range from a year or two for Whittle to perhaps five years or more for Sheppard -- the men skipped bail and hopped a plane in Dublin, believing that U.S. free-speech traditions and the visa waivers they secured at an Irish airport would shield them.

The men, known as the "heretical two" to supporters, aren't in U.S. custody because of their world views. Nor have they committed any crime in America

"All they had to do," says attorney Bruce Leichty, who represented them early in the case, "was get off the plane in LAX and walk off into the free world."

Their lengthy detention is largely the product of the asylum-seeking process that Sheppard and Whittle brought on themselves when they entered the country

Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Virginia Kice in Orange County said their visa waivers became invalid once they indicated to officers at LAX that they intended to try to stay in the United States.


"People are entitled to hold racist and extreme opinions which others may find unpleasant and obnoxious," Mari Reid, a lawyer for the Crown Prosecution Service's Counter Terrorism Division in England said in a prepared statement earlier this year about the case.

"What they are not allowed to do is to publish or distribute those opinions to the public in a threatening, abusive or insulting manner either intending to stir up racial hatred or in circumstances where it is likely racial hatred will be stirred up."

The vast majority of the material in this case concerned Jewish people, Reid said, "but there was also material relating to black, Asian and non-white people generally, all described in derogatory terms using offensive language."

Subject: RE: BS: Race hatred on line - test case
From: Emma B
Date: 11 Jul 09 - 12:54 PM

and on White Pride World Wide.....

JAILED BRITISH "HERETICS" HIRE ASYLUM LAWYER

Los Angeles, California--(9/29/2008)--

Two fugitive British writers jailed in southern California have hired an American lawyer to make their claim for political asylum in the United States, says Paul Ballard, coordinator of a legal defense fund for the pair known as the "Heretical Two."

Bruce Leichty, a San Diego County immigration lawyer with 20 years of experience representing asylum-seekers in California, has met with the "Heretical Two" and has agreed to take their cases, Ballard and Leichty announced today.

Said Leichty, "This is an vitally important Internet free speech case, where an obsessive security apparatus runs amok and punishes dissidents by making them criminals, and one does not have to share the views of the Heretical Two to appreciate the threat."

The label "Heretical Two" was applied to Simon Sheppard, 51, and Stephen Whittle, 42, when they were undergoing criminal trials in Leeds Crown Court in Britain on several speech-related charges.Sheppard created and administered and Whittle wrote under a pseudonym for a website--hosted by a server in California

"There are people who want to criminalize `hate speech' in the U.S., too," noted Leichty. "But as officers of the court we must remind people that even speech perceived as hateful deserves protection. One man's hate may be another man's passion or critique, or even another man's creed."


Leichty is best known previously for representing Ernst Zundel, an internationally known Holocaust revisionist

Subject: RE: BS: Race hatred on line - test case
From: heric
Date: 11 Jul 09 - 01:14 PM

Well, no. Incitement to commit a crime is not illegal. The potentiality for that crime must be *imminent.* Very tough standard, and advocating the sinking of refugee ships would not be forbidden.

Permitting hate speech is a very, very tough rule to accommodate. The US stands alone in that decision.

Terrorism advocates may run into the problem of advocating overthrow of the US government.

Subject: RE: BS: Race hatred on line - test case
From: Emma B
Date: 11 Jul 09 - 01:29 PM

What this pair failed to overlook in the 'land of the free' was
the legal costs associated with their defence which apparently caught them 'by surprise'.
Asylum claimants are on their own in the U.S. unless they can afford attorneys

btw in case anyone is wondering who the Paul Ballard is that is co-ordinating the defence fund for Sheppard and Whittle

Paul Ballard
Position: BNP Branch organiser for Croydon & Surrey

1998 - Convicted along with Nick Griffin at Harrow Crown Court for producing material likely to incite racial hatred.

Formerly the National Front organiser for Croydon.

1992-1995 - Attended several Combat 18 events, including meetings and loyalist marches.
1992 - Joined the BNP while at the same time being active with Combat 18. He attended C18 meetings, joined C18 members on Loyalist demonstrations and provided security with C18 for Holocaust denial meetings.

Published the anti-Semitic magazine, The Rune, with Nick Griffin during the 90s.

Subject: RE: BS: Race hatred on line - test case
From: heric
Date: 11 Jul 09 - 01:31 PM

If the violence DOES occur, even after a time interval, the speaker can be in the muck. That's what Morris Dees taught Tom Metzger ("White Aryan Resistance") in the case of Ethiopian student Mulugeta Seraw. Not much comfort to the victim, of course, but the distinction should be noted.

Subject: RE: BS: Race hatred on line - test case
From: robomatic
Date: 11 Jul 09 - 01:58 PM

This stuff, race and religious hatred, is a fact of life. It has played out in Europe and America before, and has played more successfully in the US precisely because law and government has stayed away from it, and because of the diverse backgrounds of so many citizens, there has never been an overwhelming majority of folks seeking to dominate the entire culture (at least not since Colonial times).

What can happen is that making it a political/ legal issue simply makes it a matter of gaming the system. This becomes a method of giving the bigots free publicity and a way to lever the issue into the consciousness of people who inherently mistrust government. I see it as a way to recruit bigots.
Far better to form "Anti-Defamation Leagues" and put the matter before the people. Better to make newspapers rich than lawyers.

I am not a Seinfeld fan remotely like I'm a Simpsons fan, but I remember an episode where Seinfeld was trying to break up his uncle with his uncle's girlfriend. He convinced his uncle that his girlfriend was an anti-semite. Later in the same half hour Seinfeld decides breaking them up was a mistake, he sits his uncle down and tells him he's never going to do better "But she's an anti-semite!" says his uncle. Seinfeld looks straight at him: "Can you blame her?"

I don't think the above should ever be legislatable as anything other than drama/ entertainment.

Government OUT!

Subject: RE: BS: Race hatred on line - test case
From: GUEST, Richard Bridge elsewhere
Date: 11 Jul 09 - 02:00 PM

Hmm, so the only lawyer they could find in the USA pals around with antisemites, and no-one seems to know who was prepared to stick their neck out for them in the UK.

Subject: RE: BS: Race hatred on line - test case
From: heric
Date: 11 Jul 09 - 02:08 PM

Simon gave his own closing argument.

Subject: RE: BS: Race hatred on line - test case
From: pdq
Date: 11 Jul 09 - 02:12 PM

The decision against White separatist Tom Metzger was a civil judgement, not crimnal.

That is about the same as the judgement agannist O. J. Simpson who was ofically "not guilty".

People have committed rape, knifings and possibly murder after attending "gangsta" Rap concerts. Prison time for Rappers, perhaps?

Subject: RE: BS: Race hatred on line - test case
From: Emma B
Date: 11 Jul 09 - 07:27 PM

Some Christians have committed rape, assaults etc presumably after attending a church ...... now where was that definition of a non sequitur on another thread?

is this incitement?

Subject: RE: BS: Race hatred on line - test case
From: Riginslinger
Date: 12 Jul 09 - 09:39 AM

"This stuff, race and religious hatred, is a fact of life."

                   That's something that's always bothered me. Race is something you're born with. Religion is something you choose.

Subject: RE: BS: Race hatred on line - test case
From: heric
Date: 12 Jul 09 - 10:44 AM

On Faith and Hope the world will disagree, But all mankind's concern is charity. -Pope

Subject: RE: BS: Race hatred on line - test case
From: heric
Date: 12 Jul 09 - 10:59 AM

That is to say, I think, that when and where there is agression arising out of faith, you can neither beat it nor reason it (nor legislate it) out of others. You can only resist the aggression, and set an example of the charity and tolerance that resides in the ethical tenets of all faiths.

"Blaming" or faulting religion or faith looks like a dead end path (just as with race.)

Subject: RE: BS: Race hatred on line - test case
From: robomatic
Date: 12 Jul 09 - 01:16 PM

Riginsliger writted:

This stuff, race and religious hatred, is a fact of life."

                   That's something that's always bothered me. Race is something you're born with. Religion is something you choose.


oh really?