The problem of the UK's hate speech laws codified as part of the Public Order Act of 1986 is that they are being used to enforce the ethos of multiculturalism and politically correct speech. (You can find an extensive discussion of the hate speech laws in this post discussing the case of the blogger Lionheart) Such laws limit criticism, they forestall debate, and they have a chilling effect on free speech. Even if one is never convicted and senteced to the maximum of seven years in prison, there is still the police investigation, the hiring of a solicitor, and the worry about what may happen. And the way the system works, anyone can make a complaint that they are offended by your speech. There is no cost for making a complaint. That said, the story of Robin Page that appears in today's Daily Mail is a cautionary tale:
Mr Page, 64, a farmer, conservationist, columnist for The Daily Telegraph, and the chairman of the Countryside Restoration Trust, became the focus of police attention after his comments at a country fair in September 2002.
He claims that in order to gain the attention of listeners at the gathering in Frampton-upon-Severn, Glos, he started in a "light-hearted fashion".
His opening remark was: "If you are a black, vegetarian, Muslim, asylum-seeking, one-legged lesbian lorry driver, I want the same rights as you." No one present expressed any concerns at the time but a letter of complaint was later received by police, and another person wrote to say he disagreed with the remarks made.
He was arrested the next month, and a further five months later was contacted at his farm in Cambridgeshire and asked by two officers from Gloucestershire to attend an interview at a police station.
At the station he declined to answer questions without a lawyer and was arrested.
He was put in a cell and told that he would have to stay overnight if he wished to wait for his solicitor, but after 40 minutes agreed to be interviewed without legal representation.
Mr Page said: "I was told I had committed a 'hate crime', interviewed under caution and given police bail."
The BBC claimed that he had been arrested for a "race speech" and he felt the incident was potentially damaging to him professionally and as a district councillor for 30 years.
No charges were brought but he was never given any explanation.
Under Freedom of Information disclosures he discovered that the Attorney General had given the opinion "no crime committed".
Mr Page was also astonished to discover that his name was put on a "Homo-phobic Incidents Register".
He also took exception to an internal email from the arresting officer - after requesting a change of bail renewal date to allow him to go on a journalistic trip to Kenya, the sergeant wrote: "Let's hope he gets eaten by a crocodile."
Mr Page said: "Thank goodness for the Data Protection Act and my advice to anybody who feels that they have been stitched up is to use the Act to get to the real facts.
"It is absolutely outrageous. In my view it clearly shows that I was arrested for political reasons simply because my views on the countryside were not appreciated. I was not guilty of any crime."
Read the entire article. Mr. Page eventually sued the police for false detention and received 2,000 pounds - some five years after his arrest.
Lionheart is a British blogger who faces imminent arrest by the Bedfordshire Police for "suspicion of stirring up racial hatred" on his blog. See this post below for much more background. Phyllis Chesler gives us more information and interviews Lionheart at PJM:
. . . Today, the British police want to question and/or arrest the British blogger known as Lionheart. His crime? Turning his life around as a young school dropout and petty drug dealer and emerging as a believing Christian who opposes the drug plague in his hometown of Luton and who views the Pakistani Islamist and al-Qaeda control of the drug trade in Luton as both criminally and politically dangerous. For this, Lionheart has been charged with “stirring up racial hatred”—which is a crime in the UK.
Yes, Luton—where the 7/7 suicide bombers, Omar Bakri, and the hook-handed Abu Hamza of the Finsbury Park Mosque all came from. In fact, according to Lionheart, one of his supporters is Glen Jenvey, the man who helped imprison Abu Hamza and aided in the expulsion of Omar Bakri from Great Britain.
Interestingly, Dr. Ehrenfeld was sued because she documented that the Saudi billionaire was funding terrorism and that Islamist terrorists are funding their diabolic deeds by selling narcotics. The phrase: “narco-terrorism” is Ehrenfeld’s.
Lionheart, whose real name is Paul, documents the extent to which this is true on the ground. He writes about the massive number of Pakistani Muslim drug dealers in his hometown of Luton who addict British youth and whose profits fuel expensive lifestyles, paramilitary organizations, suicide terrorism, and religious hate speech against Jews, Christians, and the West. Ironically, what is said in mosques and madrassas and on protest marches all over the UK is never considered to constitute a “racially” motivated hate crime. As George Orwell understood, not all pigs are equal. Oh yes. These Islamist groups also raise money by sexually enslaving girls and women. The largest opium fields in the world are currently in Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda, The Taliban, and Pakistani Islamists are selling what becomes heroin and crack cocaine to the West.
Paul/Lionheart started working with the police and with vulnerable children. He gave evidence that led to a one year jail sentence for one such drug dealer. Because some police officers are, allegedly, corrupt, Paul’s name was given to the drug dealer as the “informant.” Paul fled after receiving credible death threats. Now, he himself faces possible arrest.
Paul-the-Lionhearted began a blog. He described what had happened to him and what he saw happening on the streets of his hometown. Someone unknown decided that Paul’s denunciation of Al-Qaeda and terrorism constituted “hate speech.” Perhaps Paul’s Christianity offended both Muslims and the politically correct oligarchy that rules the media, the universities, and perhaps the House of Lords in Britain.
In my opinion, Paul should be knighted by the Queen and all London should give him a parade.
I encourage you to visit his blog HERE http://lionheartuk.blogspot.com where all his “stirring” and highly informative articles may be found. I also suggest that you visit Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs who conducted an initial radio interview with him nearly a year ago. Also, I want to acknowledge my British colleague and friend, Carol Gould, who only yesterday alerted me to Paul’s situation.
Here is the interview that I just conducted with him:
THE INTERVIEW
Phyllis: Did you grow up in London?
Lionheart: No - I grew up in Luton & Dunstable, which is about 30 minutes North of London.
P: How long have you been blogging?
L: Exactly 1 year.
P: How old are you?
L: I am 31 years old.
P: Since you are potentially facing trial and even arrest, do you have a good lawyer?
L: I have been offered one of the best Barristers Britain has to offer through a friend, and I have Tony Bennett, who is a very high profile lawyer, as my point man for the initial proceedings (like confirming I am not lying like some dim wits think) and an American lawyer has stepped forward to advise me about American legal matters.
P: Has this happened to anyone else in England as yet?
L: No. Among bloggers, I am the first.
P: What did you write about Islam that has led to a warrant for your arrest?
L: I have written extensively on what is happening on the ground in Luton & Dunstable where I live in relation to the large predominantly Pakistani Moslem community living here. Luton you will recall was the start off point of the 7/7 bombers and has many more links to international Islamic terrorism, that is covered on my blog.
I had my life threatened by the drug dealing gangs of Pakistani Moslems who control the streets and I had to flee. Someone set up the blog for me so that I could write about my experiences. Since then I have been homeless and gone from place to place using libraries and friends’ internet connections to keep my blog going.
P: Who is behind the accusation of “racism”? What forces led the British government to act on this accusation?
L: I have no idea but am certain that it will all be revealed at a later stage. This accusation of racism is being used to try to silence me. I can provide any number of friends of other ethnic backgrounds who know me who would refute such ludicrous accusations – One of my closest friends is a black man. I have Jewish friends, and I put my life on the line for Israel. Glenn Jenry, who was involved in the Omar Bakri and Abu Hamza cases is supporting me.
P: How refreshing that you understand that Jew-hatred or anti-semitism is a form of racism! What do YOU see is at stake here?
L: My liberty, my life, my freedom to tell the truth about what has happened to me personally and what is happening to my community, my country and to the civilized world in relation to Islam’s Holy War against the West. Beyond that, our whole civilization is at stake, the Islamic World is calling for the annihilation of the Jewish race and the total destruction of the Western World. . . .
Read the whole article here. If you would like to support Lionheart, he has a donation button on his website.
Freedom of speech is under assault today in Britain. A British blogger whom I have had occasion to read, Lionheart, has posted on his website that he expects to be arrested upon his return to the United Kingdom for things that he has posted on his blog. Likely as a result of his commentary on Islam, he will be charged with "stirring up racial hatred."
Lionheart is a modern pamphleteer. He uses his blog to shine a light on the evils of radical Islam, primarily within the borders of the UK. He sees the growth of radical Islam in his country as insidious and a threat to the very existence of British culture, if not Britain itself.
(Update) As to the foundation for Lionheart's belief, please see these recent revelations in the British press. The first, from the Telegaph, discusses the existance of Muslim 'no-go' areas in the UK where the indigenous population dare not tread. The day after that article was released, the allegations were confirmed by Manzoor Moghal, chairman of the Muslim Forum in Britain, who, writing in the Daily Mail, expressed his horror at the rise of radical Islam in Britain's Muslim population, and, in a stinging indictment, expressed his judgment that the U.K. socialist's policy of "multiculturalism has backfired spectacularly." Not surprisingly, PM Gordon Brown denied that any major problem exists. And it is telling that all of the major British political parties, including the supposedly conservative Tory party, "have responded with knee-jerk predictability, desperate as ever not to offend Muslim sensibilities." Lastly, there is this from the Times, discussing how multiculturalist policies have fanned the flames of radicalism in Britain to the point where the majority strain of Deobandi Islam now present in Britain is more radical and militant than that to be found in Pakistan. To put that in some perspective, do recall that it is Pakistan's radical Deobandis that form the core of the Taliban.
With all of that in mind, do visit Lionhearts blog. Lionheart’s descriptions of what he sees in his own local community are dire. But while his language may be emotional, Lionheart ultimately is no different than thousands of bloggers in the U.S. who similarly note, deconstruct, and critically discuss radical Islam. He just happens to be living in Luton, ground zero for radical Islam in the UK. It is also important to note that Lionheart does not promote violence against Muslims. (Update: Phyllis Chessler provides more background and an interview here)
I contacted Lionheart to get additional information about his claim that he faced imminent arrest, and he put me in contact with the attorney whom he has retained, Anthony Bennett. I spoke with Mr. Bennett, who confirmed the following facts:
1. The Bedfordshire police have contacted Lionheart to arrange for him to submit to arrest.
2. Lionheart asked the police why he would to be arrested. A Bedfordshire police officer sent Lionheart an e-mail, forwarded to me by Mr. Bennett, which read in pertinent part:
The offence that I need to arrest you for is "Stir up Racial Hatred by displaying written material" contrary to sections 18(1) and 27(3) of the Public Order Act 1986.
You will be arrested on SUSPICION of the offence. You would only be charged following a full investigation based on all the relevant facts and CPS consent.
3. Mr. Bennett adds "There are already a number of aspects about this case involving not only ‘Lionheart’ but concerning other friends of his which are almost certain to result in a complaint being made to the Independent Police Complaints Commission."
4. There has been nothing filed yet by the police that will tell us precisely what blog posts they will be using to prosecute Lionheart. That will only become known after his arrest. Further, we do not yet know who was responsible for making a complaint to the police.
The Public Order Act of 1986 makes it an offense to "stir up racial hatred." The act defines "racial hatred" as "hatred against a group of persons defined by reference to colour, race, nationality (including citizenship) or ethnic or national origins." The law does not define the word "hatred." The specific provisions of the Public Order Act of 1986 mentioned by the police in their e-mail to Lionheart are:
18 (1) A person who uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or displays any written material which is threatening, abusive or insulting, is guilty of an offence if—
(a) he intends thereby to stir up racial hatred, or
(b) having regard to all the circumstances racial hatred is likely to be stirred up thereby.
27 (3) A person guilty of an offence under this Part is liable— (a) on conviction on indictment to imprisonment for a term not exceeding seven years or a fine or both;
To call this law a gross assault on freedom of speech would be the height of understatement. It criminalizes the content of speech and it applies a wholly subjective threshold – "hatred" – for finding guilt. There is no question that this law would be unconstitutional in the U.S. This is ironic because our 1st Amendment freedoms of speech and the press derive from British common law as it existed in 1776. Yet Britain never adopted a written Constitution, thus setting the stage for the modern day socialists to silence and stifle free speech by merely passing laws through Parliament.
To put this in the broader context, socialists in Britain and throughout Europe, are using their laws to protect Islam from substantive criticism as part of a suicidal marriage of convenience. That marriage combines the socialist's core ethos of multiculturalism with the creation of a reliable, and increasingly critical, Muslim electoral bloc. As Bret Stephen wrote in the Wall Street Journal:
For Muslim voters in Europe, the attractions of the Socialists are several. Socialists have traditionally taken a more accommodating approach to immigrants and asylum-seekers than their conservative rivals. They have championed the welfare state and the benefits it offers poor newcomers. They have promoted a multiculturalist ethos, which in practice has meant respecting Muslim traditions even when they conflict with Western values. In foreign policy, Socialists have often been anti-American and, by extension, hostile to Israel. That hostility has only increased as Muslim candidates have joined the Socialists' electoral slates and as the Muslim vote has become ever more crucial to the Socialists' electoral margin.
The mere existence of the hate speech laws on the books is chilling to freedom of speech as the potential penalties are severe. And there is a mountain of evidence beyond the prospective arrest of Lionheart that the socialist Labour Party in Britain are using their hate speech laws to stifle speech and proscribe certain thoughts.
Perhaps the most infamous example of the misuse of hate speech laws by the socialist Labour Government comes out of the BNP prosecutions and, in particular, statements made by then Chancellor, now Prime Minister, Gordon Brown.
In 2004, the BBC surreptitiously filmed a speech by members of the British Nationalist Party (BNP). Caught on film were BNP members who described Islam as a "wicked, vicious faith" and who said that Muslims were turning Britain into a "multi-racial hell hole". The Crown used the Public Order Act of 1986 to prosecute the BNP members for stirring up racial hatred. After two lengthy trials, the first of which ended in a partial hung jury, the BNP members were acquitted. Their attorney argued at both trials that the speech was a part of legitimate political discourse. Gordon Brown commented after the trial:
Laws protecting Britain's ethnic and religious minorities may be tightened after the leader of the British National Party was cleared of trying to stir up racial hatred, Chancellor Gordon Brown said last night.
The Chancellor promised a fresh look at the law in the light of the decision of a jury at Leeds Crown Court yesterday to clear BNP leader Nick Griffin and his fellow activist
. . . Mr Brown said: "Mainstream opinion in this country will be offended by some of the statements that they have heard made. Any preaching of religious or racial hatred will offend mainstream opinion in this country. And I think we have got to do whatever we can to root it out, from whatever quarter it comes."
Does that take your breath away - trying to convict someone and sentincing them for up to seven years in prison for "offending" "mainstream opinion?" PM Gordon Brown will never be confused in the history books with Voltaire. It is both amazing and telling that Brown's statement raised not a hue and cry in Britain.
Regardless of how one feels about the BNP, there is a reason to protect their free speech rights that goes to the very heart of a liberal democracy. As George Washington once said "If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter." And there is no doubt that the people of Britain today are being led by their socialist government like sheep to the slaughter. Freedom of speech is stifled, criminalized or manipulated by the socialists on all of the major challenges Britain faces today, be it open borders immigration that threatens to swamp the country’s infrastructure, the surrender of sovereignty to the EU, or the challenge of Europe’s most radicalized Islamic population. More particularly, the socialists are using the hate speech laws to enforce their brand of politically correct multiculturalism on Britain.
Another example is also illuminating. On January 15, 2007, Britain’s Channel 4 broadcast Undercover Mosque, an expose of the hatred and violence being preached in Britain’s mosques. Here is part 1 of that program. It clearly exposes the type of radicalization going on in Britain’s mosques – and indeed, it is precisely the type of things shown in this video that Lionheart rails against in his blog. Parts 2 through 6 are embedded at the end of this post.
If you are wondering who was investigated for violation of the Hate Speech laws as a result of this program, it was none of the Wahhabi and Deobandi clerics who appeared therein preaching violence, hatred and seperatism. It was Channel 4 for broadcasting the show.
In another recent incident, a Reverend was investigated by police for a hate crime for merely making an innocuous posting about Islam on his website. In commenting upon that situation, Simon Davis, a British subject, said:
Clearly, this is no longer a free country. Expressions of opinion, taste and preference are now heavily policed - but not in every case. Oh, no. Take for starters the case of the Channel Four documentary which exposed the genuine religious hatred given voice by certain Islamic preachers. Instead of acting against the guilty, the police investigated the programme makers! What, I wonder, would their order of priorities have been had the preachers been Christian? Or white?
Again, when Islamic extremists were giving utterance to death threats outside the Danish Embassy some months ago, the only people arrested or stopped were those white persons foolhardy enough to object. A Christian who distributed leaflets bearing Biblical texts hostile to homosexuality was subjected to all sorts official enquiry. Sir Iqbal Sacranie, meanwhile, airs his anti-gay opinions on national radio and nothing is done.
Once we did not police thoughts and subjected utterance to minimal restraint. Our target was action - violent action and it was punished with swift severity. The result was a lively, stimulating and peaceful environment. Now the courts act on the assumption that most violent action can be excused, whilst crusading against any defendant whose motives might appear on the list of proscribed opinions.
The second truth to emerge is that if any group in British society is now subject to prejudice and de facto legal disability it is the idigenous, white population. This is the logical outcome of so-called "positive" discrimination. It is the end result of a world-view which portrays the ills of the world as issuing from the culture of Europe. Not only does the present generation of Europeans have to expiate the sins of its forefathers but they are denied any sense of having forefathers at all.
No wonder we are all so demoralised as to have given up the business of "generation" altogether. The monstrous but influential web of hard left opinion - which has come to oppose reason and objectivity themselves as merely "western" and therefore false concepts - is now threatening to asphyxiate our culture. The case of the bullied clergyman is now sadly typical of life in this country.
That explains the why of what is happening to Lionheart. Britain of course has the right to commit national suicide. What they should not have the right to do is convict a blogger for merely contesting the suicide. Lionheart deserves our support. And that support is not given wholly out of charity. Britain is the lynchpin of democracy and western values in Europe. If Britain should ever lose its character, which appears well on its way to happening, our own country would increasingly be isolated.
FREE SPEECH? WHAT'S THAT? British blogger to be arrested for inciting racial hatred. What, are they channeling the Saudis in Britain? If you're interested in supporting free speech rights, the British Embassy's contact page is here. As with the Saudi case I don't know much about the blogger, but I don't need to -- people shouldn't be arrested merely for blogging things that the powers-that-be don't like. . .
I concur. My suggestion is that we need to do all we can to publicize this case through our blogs, to write letters to our Congress, and attempt to get the MSM involved. The case of Lionheart needs as much light shined on it as possible – for his sake and ours.
Addendum: There is some significance to the fact that Lionheart is being prosecuted for stirring up racial hatred under the Public Order Act of 1986 and not being prosecuted, at least as of yet, under the new Racial and Religious Hatred Act of 2006. To the extent that Lionheart’s arrows are pointed anywhere, they are being pointed at radical Islam irrespective of nationality.
The new law, which just came into effect on Oct. 1, provides:
29A Meaning of "religious hatred:" In this Part "religious hatred" means hatred against a group of persons defined by reference to religious belief or lack of religious belief.
29B (1) A person who uses threatening words or behaviour, or displays any written material which is threatening, is guilty of an offence if he intends thereby to stir up religious hatred.
29J Protection of freedom of expression. Nothing in this Part shall be read or given effect in a way which prohibits or restricts discussion, criticism or expressions of antipathy, dislike, ridicule, insult or abuse of particular religions or the beliefs or practices of their adherents, or of any other belief system or the beliefs or practices of its adherents, or proselytising or urging adherents of a different religion or belief system to cease practising their religion or belief system.
Amazingly, this bill to criminalize "religious hate" was first introduced without Article 29J after the attacks of 9-11, with politically correct cries of Islamaphobia filling the air waves in Britain. It did not get through the House of Lords. However, the socialist Labour government continuously pushed this legislation at the urging of such groups as the Muslim Council of Britain. The House of Lords eventually agreed to a watered down version with protections for freedom of expression in Article 29J. There are no such provisions protecting freedom of expression in the Public Order Act of 1986.
Article 29J likely applies to virtually everything about which Lionheart blogs. Thus, it would seem that the government is attempting to silence Lionheart’s speech by portraying his criticism of Islam as racial rather than religious in nature. The problem with that of course is that Islam is not a race.
Posts
The problem of the UK's hate speech laws codified as part of the Public Order Act of 1986 is that they are being used to enforce the ethos of multiculturalism and politically correct speech. (You can find an extensive discussion of the hate speech laws in this post discussing the case of the blogger Lionheart) Such laws limit criticism, they forestall debate, and they have a chilling effect on free speech. Even if one is never convicted and senteced to the maximum of seven years in prison, there is still the police investigation, the hiring of a solicitor, and the worry about what may happen. And the way the system works, anyone can make a complaint that they are offended by your speech. There is no cost for making a complaint. That said, the story of Robin Page that appears in today's Daily Mail is a cautionary tale: 
Lionheart
