Anti-Gay Leaflets [May] Lead To Seven Years In Prison (UPDATED)
Derby, UK, is not a great place to distribute anti-gay literature.
So learned four young Muslim men this week. According to Newstrack India, Ihjaz Ali, Kabir Ahmed, and Razwan Javed have been sentenced to seven years in prison for distributing leaflets demanding the death penalty for LGBTs. They, along with two others who were cleared of charges, were the first men to be tried under 2010 legislation prohibiting the stirring up of hatred against LGBT people.
Earlier this week, readers of the Guardian learned how one of the men, Mr. Ahmed, accidentally handed one of his leaflets to a police officer:
Giving evidence to the court on Monday, Ahmed said he had handed one of the Death Penalty? leaflets to PC Stephen Gregory on 2 July as he was passing the Jamia Mosque in Rosehill Street following Friday prayers.
Ahmed told the court he said to the officer: "Something along the lines of 'Is everything OK?' and he said something like, 'Yes, fine,' and I said 'I'm not trying to offend anyone.'"
Ahmed's barrister, Zacharias Miah, asked him whether, if Gregory had told him he was doing something wrong, he would have handed over the bag of leaflets. Ahmed replied: "Of course, without a shadow of a doubt."
But Ahmed insisted he was never told any such thing. He thought only that he was doing his civic and cosmic duty:
He said: "My intention was to do my duty as a Muslim, to inform people of God's word and to give the message on what God says about homosexuality."
... "My duty is not just to better myself but to try and better the society I live in," he said. "We believe we can't just stand by and watch somebody commit a sin, we must try and advise them and urge them to stay away from sin."
The covers of the leaflets depicted a mannequin hanging from a noose under the title "Death Penalty?" Inside, the leaflets explained that "the only dispute amongst the classical authorities was the method employed in carrying out" the death penalty against homosexuals. It went on to suggest burning, stoning, and the flinging of gays from cliffs or high buildings.
UPDATE: Thanks to reader Jay for pointing out that the Newstrack India story above is incorrect. In fact, according to GLBTQ.com and elsewhere, the pamphleteers will not be sentenced until February 10th. They could receive a maximum of seven years.
There's more to this story than simple incitement to hatred.
Some of the men involved in the leaflets were also involved in political intimidation at the polls and various other nefarious practices.
A lot of the reporting on gay sites has - understandably - concentrated on the distribution of those vile leaflets and the fear they created. However, the men convicted were linked to various unsavoury organisations and seemed quite willing to intimidate other Muslims who didn't agree with them.
While I can see why some Americans are seeing this simply - on reports - as a First Ammendment issue, there's a lot more to it than that (and I'd urge people to do some more research before treating it as a clear-cut issue).
It might be the case that these criminals have been taken out of circulation on the basis of inciting violence towards gay people, but in the wider scheme of things, it seems more akin to Al Capone being imprisoned for tax evasion rather than murder and racketeering.
Either way, society is going to be a better place with them imprisoned for whatever reason.
Posted by: dazzer | Jan 21, 2012 7:18:20 PM
@Max, the only difference between what these men did and what Fred Phelps, Bryan Fischer, David Bahati, Pat Robertson, etc., do on a daily basis is that these brit losers are way small time by comparison. No one is pointing fingers at Christianity as if to say Christianity made these men do what they did. But to claim that Muslims are the only problem when Christians are campaigning for our deaths on an international scale is just more of the same religious bigotry. You can capitalize all the words you want and cherry-pick all the facts you want to lay all the blame on Islam, but who was it who said let he who has not sinned and all?
Posted by: JJ | Jan 21, 2012 7:42:53 PM
They were not sentenced to seven years in prison. The law that bans incitement to hatred carries a punishment of up to 7 years, but they have not been sentenced yet. Their sentencing is due February 10
www.pinknews.co.uk/2012/01/20/three-anti-gay-leaflet-defendants-guilty/
Posted by: ct | Jan 21, 2012 7:54:45 PM
@JJ: Yours is a false equivalency. Just because there exist Christian fundamentalist bigots who might have the same murderous viewpoints with respect to GLBTs, does not say anything about whether Islam is at its core a violent faith. That is the point that needs to be emphasized here.
In short, what is Christian extremism is Islamic mainstream thinking, and this is primarily because Islam has never experienced a Reformation. It is a 14th century religion in a 21st century world. It has yet to undergo a movement toward modernizing its beliefs, doctrines, precepts, and teachings as a result of the social, economic, scientific, and technological advancements that have occurred in the last 600 years. And what is most worrisome about this is the fact that so many of its adherents don't even recognize the NEED to do this, and in fact want to make it MORE extreme in response to humanity's modernization. That's PRECISELY WHY we have incidents like these in Western societies--these immigrants want to enjoy the freedoms of modern culture but hypocritically seek to impose medieval religious values on that society. They don't understand that those freedoms exist only because we had a Reformation and an Enlightenment.
Posted by: atomic | Jan 21, 2012 7:56:27 PM
Please correct your blog post: They have NOT been sentenced to prison for seven years or at all. They have been convicted. They will not be sentenced until February 10. They maximum sentence is 7 years in prison and an unlimited fine. It is unlikely that they will get anywhere near the maximum sentence. See the post on this at glbtq.com. Here is a link: a href="http://www.glbtq.com/blogs/three_convicted_in_landmark_british_hate_speech_case.html">Three Convicted.
Posted by: Jay | Jan 21, 2012 8:09:39 PM
Here is the url for the glbtq.com post about the conviction: http://www.glbtq.com/blogs/three_convicted_in_landmark_british_hate_speech_case.html
Repeat: they have not been sentenced. Please correct your post.
Posted by: Jay | Jan 21, 2012 8:12:09 PM
Just add the word "may" to the headline:
"Anti-Gay Leaflets May Lead To Seven Years In Prison"
There you go. Fixed. ;1
Posted by: RJ | Jan 21, 2012 8:16:39 PM
Free speech is one thing. Targeting a community and arguing for them to be put to death (i.e. directly inciting violence) is quite another. If I publicly threatened to kill people I wouldn't be too surprised if some jail time was in my future, so I'm neither surprised nor upset about the consequences of their actions, and I see them as actions rather than just speech.
Posted by: Ernie | Jan 21, 2012 8:18:17 PM
It wasn't clear to me from this article whether these folks were advocating state execution of gays or essentially "mob violence" in the name of their god. Both are despicable but in the US at least the former is protected speech while the latter can be prosecutable depending upon various factors.
Posted by: JohnAGJ | Jan 21, 2012 8:20:31 PM
Do these freedom of speech advocates think people have the right to "cry fire in a crowded theater"? Do they have the right to call for the death of people their primitive religion abhors? Should fanatics like them gain political power, I wonder if the free speech advocates will be discussing the merits of their position as the would be taliban pile up the stones with which to crush their skulls?
Posted by: jack | Jan 21, 2012 8:23:55 PM
Other instances where people have been convicted of homophobic incitement in Europe:
Sweden 2005: Pentecostalist pastor Åke Green is sentenced to one month in prison for a sermon in which he likened homosexuality to bestiality and called it "a cancerous tumor in the social body". A few months later the swedish Supreme Court overturned his conviction citing the European Convention for Human Rights' protections of religious freedom.
France 2006: Conservative deputy Christian Vanneste is sentenced to a €3000 fine for saying that "homosexuality is a threat to the future of humanity" and "morally inferior". Two years later his conviction was overturned by the Appelate Court.
Croatia 2011: Catholic priest Franjo Jurčević is sentenced to 3 months in prison with probation. Reacting to the violent attacks by neo-nazis on Belgrade's Gay Pride, he wrote in his blog: "Well done to the people of Belgrade. We should do the same if these perverts step their foot here"
Serbia 2011: The leader of the nationalist "United Serbia" party Dragan Marković was convicted for incitement after he declared that "Gay Pride is a manifestation where perverts try to prove they are normal". The court decided not to sentence him - he was reprimanded instead.
Posted by: ct | Jan 21, 2012 8:24:39 PM
MAX: Homosexuals, to use your word, are put to death by Christians all the time, most every day in the U.S. alone, the only difference being they act as individuals here, but prompted by their Bible which has instructions to do so. The only place, THE ONLY PLACE, you'll find marching orders to kill gays is in organized religion, Christianity, Hinduism, and yes the faith of Muslims too. There are probably more LGBT people killed here in the U.S. by Christians every year than in all the Muslim nations put together. The fault is clearly with religion in general.
Posted by: S.C. | Jan 21, 2012 8:35:52 PM
@Atomic, the symbol of Christianity is a device that was used to torture people to death. It is at its core a violent faith just like Islam. The social, economic, scientific, and technological advancements of the last 600 years were secular advancements made in spite of Christianity, not because of it. The Church imprisoned and executed many who dared to make these advancements. It was secularism that civilized the West, not the Reformation. Protestants revived the Old Testament, paving the way for fundamentalism, whose followers now quote Leviticus when they call for the execution of gays.
Posted by: JJ | Jan 21, 2012 8:37:31 PM
Atomic, well and fully said. Thank you. The guy who said the man pictured was attractive should have his head examined (bleh, choke hurl), or removed, which is what they would do to him. Since whole body shuddering revulsion cannot be conveyed in words I leave in the ardent hopes that prison time will give these cretins the full and forceful experience of what they condemn.
Lastly, Thank you to UK justice.
Posted by: uffda | Jan 21, 2012 8:39:10 PM
@ JJ:
I was curious as to why the BBC was not reporting the sentencing !
And equally curious about a court sitting on a Saturday for sentencing !!
Bah ! Now I'm disappointed.
Posted by: JackFknTwist | Jan 21, 2012 8:55:49 PM
@JJ: Again, you are missing the point. I *NEVER* said that Christianity is at its core a peaceful religion, or that it was never used to oppress or vilify certain groups of people. I never made the claim that there do not exist Christian fundamentalists whose beliefs are just as abhorrent as these Muslims convicted of inciting hatred.
What I am saying--and you really must search YouTube for Sam Harris and watch his videos if you are to fully appreciate this point--is that mainstream Islamic thought and teachings are intrinsically violent, and unlike the other Abrahamic religions (of which Christianity and Judaism are included), Islam has FAILED to reform and cast aside these violent teachings as antiquated and flawed doctrine. Mainstream Christianity, for instance, does not prescribe DEATH as punishment for apostasy.
But again, that is not to say that Christianity and Judaism as they are practiced among all their adherents is nonviolent or free of discrimination.
You really should learn more about the history of various world religions and the various progressive movements that have taken place that have brought us to modern civilization, if you are to understand how to criticize the flaws of dogmatic thinking in all its forms. Bringing up the violence of Christians is not a logical counterargument to the point that Islam is a regressive and violent religion, and that simply dismissing the behavior of these men as that of "Islamic fundamentalists" is indicative of a huge blind spot to this reality. Ultimately, the goal of humanity should be to rid itself of all of this magical thinking and religious doctrine, and to embrace reason, humanism, and science as the founding organizational principles of a just and peaceful society.
Posted by: atomic | Jan 21, 2012 9:00:01 PM
Thanks, Jay. Story updated.
Posted by: Brandon K. Thorp | Jan 21, 2012 9:07:05 PM
"Homosexuals, to use your word, are put to death by Christians all the time, most every day in the U.S. alone..."
"There are probably more LGBT people killed here in the U.S. by Christians every year than in all the Muslim nations put together."
S.C., this is pure BS you pulled out of your own a$$.
Posted by: Max | Jan 21, 2012 9:19:47 PM
A bill that would ban homophobic incitement in Greece is shelved
www.gaynewsfromgreece.blogspot.com/2012/01/bill-that-would-ban-homophobic.html
Posted by: ct | Jan 21, 2012 9:42:15 PM
Here's the flyer: http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/01/20/article-0-11628BA3000005DC-651_634x911.jpg
Here's the reality in Iran: http://nottoomuch.com/images/publichanging.jpg
So it's not "just" words.
I believe there is a real danger in defending groups, particularly religious groups, out of political correctness when they would NEVER do the same for you in return. Some sects ARE regressive, anachronistic, hateful, bigoted, and hostile and society has a vested interest in controlling them. How to do that within a framework of liberty and freedom is a difficult question, but to treat them as just another opinion when they are in fact inimicable to Western standards and values is a very slippery slope.
So far as Christianity is concerned, I wish there was a way to sue groups like the AFA and Focus On The Family for slander or libel against a group. "We don't like them" is an opinion, free speech. "Gays are all child molesters" is a deliberate lie, one of the many lies these groups tell to scare their constituency into giving them money. Those constant, demonstrably false, deliberately told lies are why the SPLC has classified them as hate-groups, not because they don't like gays.
I know it's more complicated than that, but I just want to see those b*stards in a court of law being told to either support their claims or shut up.
Posted by: Caliban | Jan 21, 2012 10:08:01 PM
It's NOT more complicated than that.
All these "Free Speech" mputhbreathers refuse to acknowledge that they see it as a one way street. The want those who hate us to gain more and more freedom to do so. And when we object they scream "CENSORSHIP!"
Posted by: David Ehrenstein | Jan 21, 2012 10:14:36 PM
Who cares how they fight this, the reality is when you marginalize, belittle, and threatened people with death, you need to be behind bars. To use their words "to try and better the society I live in".
Hope they get 7 years!
Posted by: FunMe | Jan 21, 2012 10:27:58 PM
@Atomic, no, I get what you're saying. You're trying to put Christianity on a pedestal because it underwent Reformation. You're saying that Islam is fundamentally more culpable for homophobic violence than Western religion, because Islam is less evolved.
I'm saying that Reformation did not civilize Christianity. It's just as bad as Islam. You tell Muslims that in order to rise to the level of reformed Christianity "It's not enough to just say "I don't agree" [with violence]. You have to force the change by shunning those who preach hate, and by disregarding outdated, barbaric, and violent teachings in your own holy texts."
Well, the Protestant Reformation revived the Old Testament--exactly those holy texts that the Catholic church had deemed outdated, barbaric, and violent. A hundred years later, American Protestants used the outdated, barbaric, and violent teachings about the descendants of Ham to justify white supremacy and slavery. Two hundred years after that, they were still at it, ethnically cleansing the continent of Native Americans in the name of Manifest Destiny. The Southern Baptist Convention--the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S.--formed in 1845 to preserve and defend their Bible-fueled belief in slavery. Over a century later they were still terrorizing blacks and leading the fight for segregation on the grounds that if God had wanted the races to mingle, he wouldn't have spread them across separate continents. Today, mainstream Western Christian leaders are working with mainstream African leaders to execute gays on the basis of Leviticus.
That's the legacy of Reformation. There was no great leap forward that elevated Christianity above Islam. What has civilized the world is the rise of science and secularism, in _spite_ of religion. If you think Muslims are intrinsically less moral than Christians, you're simply ignoring any evidence to the contrary.
Posted by: JJ | Jan 22, 2012 2:40:34 AM
"Thanks to reader Jay for pointing out that the Newstrack India story above is incorrect"
Actually I pointed it out before "your reader Jay"...
Posted by: ct | Jan 22, 2012 5:11:26 AM
Just to remind you all that this is not just a hypothetical argument. In 2008 a young gay man, Oliver Helmsley, was stabbed in the neck and paralysed for life during a random attack by muslim homophobes. This was in an area of London where muslim men regularly hand out homophobic leaflets and harass and attack gay people. His attacker, described as of very low IQ and "easily coerced" was sentenced to 10 years and may well have been released already.
Here is journalist Johann Hari's reaction
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/can-we-finally-talk-about_b_828037.html
Posted by: tarxien | Jan 22, 2012 5:24:04 AM