UK Politician Arrested Over Twitter 'Stoning Joke' 422
History's Coming To writes "The BBC is reporting that a Tory city councillor has been arrested over a 'joke' he posted to Twitter suggesting that Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, a UK based writer, be stoned to death. The full tweet read, 'Can someone please stone Yasmin Alibhai-Brown to death? I shan't tell Amnesty if you don't. It would be a blessing, really.' Following complaints he was arrested under the Communications Act 2003 and bailed. He has since apologized. This comes on the same day that a conviction for a Twitter 'joke' about blowing up an airport was upheld."
Doing in wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously he should have phrased it "Won't someone rid me of this meddlesome columnist?"
Asshat (Score:4, Insightful)
Stupid (Score:2, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:About The news (Score:5, Insightful)
Can someone please stone spammers to death? I shan't tell Amnesty if you don't. It would be a blessing, really.
Re:Stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Stupid (Score:0, Insightful)
Actually, it's his problem now. When are people going to realize there are consequences for what they say? Having free speech doesn't mean you have freedom from responsiblity. His arrest and hopefully conviction for making a death threat will teach him this lesson.
Re:Stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
It takes just one determined (and mentally ill) person who does not see this as a joke for a murder to happen. This is one of the main reasons why this kind of 'joke' is not acceptable.
However, if you assume someone of that sort of mental illness, you can't guarantee he/she'll misinterpret anything else you say as an "order" to murder someone. If you start down the path of kowtowing to people whose mental deficiencies give them homicidal tendencies, you don't solve any problems. Ever.
Re:Stupid (Score:1, Insightful)
People are morons, the correct way to make the joke is using sarcasm; "Hope no nutjob stones this person to death, that'd be terrible". Is there a single case (ever) of a mentally ill individual murdering a 3rd party because they took a joke literally?
How about stuff like "Do us all a favour, go fuck a power outlet"... should phrases like that be banned because one in a hundred million people are stupid or would it merely prove the point in such exceptional circumstances?
They don't have that class (Score:1, Insightful)
"Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary."
-- Robert Louis Stevenson
Nice demonstration of "reasonable restrictions" (Score:5, Insightful)
...and more specifically, how a law that on the surface seems perfectly reasonable can be so easily misused.
The law is against menacing, the statement -- made publicly, not directed at any given person -- is
"Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!"
Any sensible person can see there is no threat there, it's just someone being a drama queen. But it violates the letter of the law and it's politically expedient to ignore the obvious.
Similarly,
"Can someone please stone Yasmin Alibhai-Brown to death? I shan't tell Amnesty if you don't. It would be a blessing, really."
is not a serious solicitation to murder; it's just someone being an ass. Or making a point in an offensive way, given that he says he was responding to a comment by Alibhai-Brown that no politician has the right to comment on human rights abuses, including the stoning of women in Iran.
I would presume that this [bbc.co.uk] is the program in question, though I haven't listened to it so don't know.
Re:Stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
Sam Kinnison said it best, "You'd have gotten the same thing from the Monkees!". Crazy people might interpret nearly anything as a command from God to do a crazy thing if that's what they're predisposed to. If we're going to restrict speech based on the possibility that a crazy person might mis-interpret it, then we can't say anything at all, including "Hi" or an acknowledging grunt. Of course, silence might also be "creatively" interpreted....
Re:Stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
Nine time out of ten, people who say this really mean "I don't really believe in free speech at all". And you are not number ten.
Re:About The news (Score:3, Insightful)
Stoning is far too good for spammers. They should be burned at the stake.
You mix up Britain and England (Score:3, Insightful)
>Where do you have greater freedom of speech and presumption of innocence: Britain or Saudi Arabia?
On balance I'd say Britain
>Where are you more likely to be harassed by police for trivialities: Britain or Saudi Arabia?
Not sure, do you have the figures that you could share with us?
>Every day the two look more alike.
Evidence from, say the last 5 days: could you give us five separate summaries to prove this point?
>And now I will commit a crime in the eyes of England:
I suppose you mean "in the laws of England". Are you aware that England and Britain are different?
Re:Stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
...except direct calls for violence against individuals and groups. And that is exactly what this is. He didn't even add a smiley... how is this to be interpreted as a joke? The guy does not deserve full punishment for this, but arrest and prosecution are warranted IMHO, if only to give him a slap on the wrist for utterly irresponsibly behaviour. This is a bit like yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theatre.
Re:Asshat (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nice demonstration of "reasonable restrictions" (Score:5, Insightful)
Your dedication to the principle of freedom of speech is touching.
Maybe that wouldn't be as effective as being nasty.
There's no slander involved here.
Re:Stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you honestly think that someone who would murder based on this tweet wouldn't have committed murder anyway?
Is English your third language? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know what planet you are from, but "Can someone please stone Yasmin Alibhai-Brown to death?" is not a rhetorical question here on planet Earth. It is a direct request. In the USA said person could go to jail for life if somebody read the request and actually granted it. This is in fact quite appropriate. Blasting such a request across the internet to hundreds of thousands of people, any one of which could be an instable nutbag, is gross negligence at best, and any death resulting from gross negligence is and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
Re:Doing in wrong... (Score:3, Insightful)
Well the UK turns a blind eye on women abuses in their own country by middle-eastern and northern african immigrants, but a politician makes a crude joke and they're all over it. The UK is doomed.
Re:Stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd also argue that the next Briton who accuses the US of being "less free" than Europe must be stoned.*
*Not must "must be" in the sense of "somebody should go out and make sure that..." but more in the sense of "It's obvious that... is already..."
Re:Stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
Any sane person can see that this is a joke. Those that aren't sane are at risk for violent behavior already and -anything- can put them over the edge. Plus, this was a guy on a city council. A city. council. I don't know about you, but the people on my city council I really don't care what they say personally or not. This isn't an MP, this isn't the Queen, this isn't David Cameron or Nick Clegg saying this its some random city council member.
Free speech should be free speech, especially when it comes to things that are obviously jokes. If someone was going to kill this person, they were going to do it no matter what some random city councilor said or not.
Yes, it was an off-color (or would it be colour?) joke that wasn't very professional. Could people demand he not be re-elected and elect someone else? Yes. Should they arrest someone for an obvious joke? No.
Re:To the legal system: GO BACK TO SCHOOL. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Torn... (Score:3, Insightful)
What is the average time "served" for someone who successfully pleads insanity vs the average time actually served by those convicted of the same crime? What is the recidivism rate for each? Without those, exceptional cases, no matter how many, are useless.
Re:Asshat (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe, but he still shouldn't be arrested for it!
Your freedom to swing your words stops at deathtreats.
Re:Asshat (Score:4, Insightful)
I've read through all the comments to this article and I haven't seen anyone yet suggest that the councillor was perfectly serious, just hoped he could get away with it. Perhaps he wasn't expecting that this would push someone over the edge to do what they have already been wanting to do to her for years, but there is no question that it was one conservative from one culture helping to legitimise the view of another in another.
It is interesting to ask whether speech protections should include the right to say, "Give an opinion that I don't like and I shall call for your death."
Re:Asshat (Score:3, Insightful)
Why not? It's for the courts to decide if he's guilty of a crime, and for the police and prosecution to charge him with what is possibly a crime.
Re:Asshat (Score:3, Insightful)
Can you propose how to distinguish between a "rhetorical" threat against a person's life, and an actual threat against a person's life? I've tried to think of a few ways, and for all of them this would fall on the "actual" side.
Re:Asshat (Score:3, Insightful)
The mistake people make is they think twitter or face book (etc.) is like talking to your 3 best friends at the local pub.
Then they broadcast it to thousands (millions?) of people.
To me both this and the linked articles were CLEARLY jokes.
I can't believe the asshat of a judge in the "blow up the airport" joke.
But.. people do get fired for saying something dumb and then hit "reply all" to the corporate mailing list.
I think the line should be clear for twitter that it's like standing on a building shouting these things with a bullhorn. It bothers me more when changing privacy rules move the line after you said something.
Re:Is English your third language? (Score:5, Insightful)
"...should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law."
As long as "the full extent of the law" is to require the speaker to live with the the guilt and shame of having said something which inadvertently led to someone's death, I agree with you.
Re:Asshat (Score:3, Insightful)
FuckingNickName says,
It is interesting to ask whether speech protections should include the right to say, "Give an opinion that I don't like and I shall call for your death."
That's the single most insightful (and perhaps inciteful) comment in this whole discussion.
Apologized? (Score:3, Insightful)
Apologized? What did he apologize for? Even if he meant it, whatever happened to freedom of speech? Forget it. I already know the answer. The corrupt governments of the world are abolishing it and/or never implementing it in the first place.
Re:Stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
And even if it were a purposeful incitement to violence --
Who is truly responsible there -- the person urging violence, or the people who actually take it upon themselves to commit the violence that is urged??
Are we all so stupid as to do everything some twit exhorts us to do??
Re:Asshat (Score:3, Insightful)
wtf? You seriously think there was ever any remote likelihood that anybody would actually try and stone her to death?
A Muslim woman publicly and prominently stands up against the Islamic religious authorities? I think there's every chance she's at risk of violence, and that there are those who would like to stone her to death (although that might be difficult for them to implement, so I expect they'd content themselves with other means).
And she rightly says, "If I, as a Muslim woman, had said about him what he said about me then I would be arrested in these times of the war against terror."