They were arrested and charged with incitement to hatred by the PSNI (Police Service Of Northern Ireland) for pictures they posted on facebook of themselves burning poppies. This is in the context of poppies worn in remembrance of the fallen of the Great War which is a popular activity in the UK and other countries in the Commonwealth. I’m guessing the kids who did this were from a Nationalist/Republican background as the poppy is seen as a British symbol (even though 1000s if Irishmen fought and died in the Great War).
What the kids did was assholish, and I don’t condone it. However, I think incitement to hatred charges are a bit much. It is, I suppose akin to burning a country’s flag, which again I think is usually assholish but shouldn’t be illegal IMHO. What do you folks think? Should these kids have been charged or not?
Just like you are implying, they could and should be called assholes for their behavior but that should be the extent of it. That said, I come from a culture that emphasizes the importance and absolute necessity of free speech to a functioning democracy.
More rationally, I see a number of wonderfully functioning democracies with limitations of various kinds on speech: So I would have to know more about the context before applying my terrorism and insurrection free point-of-view on Northern Ireland law. Does this behavior functionally increase the likelihood of future terrorism? Yes? Then it’s certainly understandable and given the severity of the violation the kids will probably get off with a slap on the wrist if found guilty at all.
I would like a judge, before an open courtroom with press access, to enter into an official and permanent legal transcript that the teenagers are very very very stupid.
This whole law, and proscribing of groups by the Home Secretary, is a farce. The recently proscribed Muslim group that routinely burn flags and poppies at remembrance parades prove how ridiculous this whole setup is. The last group had about eight different predecessors, each one banned, only for a new one to spring up immediately.
What started out as a law to prevent Radio Rwanda style ethnic agitating is now being used to prosecute kids burning bits of paper, and men burning Qurans in the privacy of their own backyards.
I just find it very hypocritical. How many Irish tricolours are burned during July in the north? Nothing ever happens to the people that do that. Different rules for different people I guess.
Just kids being stupid, so criminal charges are totally inappropriate.
And while I would never be so crass and offensive as to burn a poppy, there is a growing sense among some people in the UK (me included) that the symbol of the poppy is being co-opted into a political “my country right or wrong” nationalist symbol, rather than simply a memorial for the fallen.
“Support the troops” very quickly gets turned into “Support the war”, which is a different sentiment entirely.
Its not a hate crime law in the sense used in the US. In the US hate crime laws enhance sentencing of things that would be illegal anyways because they’re being done to terrorize some group of people. If you burn down a church to indimidate Christians, for example. Arson is illegal in the first place, the fact that your terrorizing Christians just makes sure you end up with a longer sentence then the guy that burned down a building just because he likes fires.
I don’t think the simple act of burning poppies is illeagal in Northern Ireland. So in this case something that isn’t illegal is being made illegal by the law because of the message it conveys.
I think the former is a good law and the latter isn’t. But in anycase, they aren’t the same thing.
Is burning the Irish flag really all that common? Not challenging you, I really want to know. I thought things had calmed down there quite a bit over the last two or three decades.
I don’t think Klan Kidz who burn a cross off in a field somewhere and post the vid to their Facebook pages should be charged with inciting hatred. There are things legitimately prosecutable as hate speech, but they’d have to be much more serious and more offensively publicly present that.
Oh, I do, I do, those pesky crime laws . . . Would you believe every single way I can think of to get rich quick is illegal?! What kinda country is this?!
Well, remember, hate crime laws, as distinct from hate speech laws or campus-rules, newly-criminalize no behavior, they just add a penalty enhancement for hateful intent, only when an actual crime is already established. And looking at the defendant’s motives and intent is nothing new, really; there are a lot of common-law situations where it affects the degree of a crime, and the jury really is tasked with looking inside the defendant’s mind, in effect, or making its best guesses as to what’s in there.
I came in here wanting to know how burning* poopies* could be a hate crime.
Now I have to wonder if burning poppies would actually incite hatred. IMHO, if I wasn’t already inclined toward hatred, that video wouldn’t change my mind.
