| Ethelred note: While the I can agree with the overall sentiment, there are too statements that need to be challenged. My remarks are interspersed in blue, and an article on the original incident (with my highlights) precedes it.
BNP boss held over race film The leader of the British National Party was released on bail last night after being arrested on suspicion of incitement to racial hatred. Nick Griffin, 45, was detained at dawn by four plain-clothes police officers at his farmhouse in mid-Wales and driven to West Yorkshire for questioning. His arrest followed an undercover BBC documentary into his party's activities. The party's founding chairman, John Tyndall, 70, was arrested on Sunday on suspicion of the same offence. He was freed on bail until March pending further inquiries. Mr Griffin, surrounded by dozens of supporters, said he was questioned about alleged incitement offences under the Public Order Act but had not been charged. Any decision to prosecute under the Act must be taken by Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General. Since 1986 there have been about 60 prosecutions for incitement but none of such a high-profile figure. The arrests were made as controversy surrounds Government plans to extend the incitement laws to cover religious hatred. The film, Secret Agent, which was broadcast in July, showed Mr Griffin addressing a crowd in Keighley, Yorkshire, in which he railed against the Koran and Islam. "This wicked, vicious faith has expanded through a handful of cranky lunatics about 1,300 years ago until it is now sweeping country after country," he said. "[If you get a copy of the Koran] you will find verse after verse after verse which says that you can take any woman you want as long as they are not Muslim women; any woman that your right arm can own - that is the sword arm, the fighting arm, the arm you hit a white lad with a baseball bat. Any woman they can take by force or by guile is theirs." After his release from Halifax police station, Mr Griffin repeated his view that Islam was "wicked'' but said this did not extend to Muslims. "I was talking about the menace of Islamic fundamentalism to this country and, until next year, thank God, that is still not against the law." Since it is not a crime to incite to religious hatred, a case against Mr Griffin would need to show that he had behaved in a way likely or intended to stir up racial hatred. Mr Griffin, a Cambridge graduate who plans to contest the Sheffield Brightside constituency of David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, is the 12th person to be arrested as a result of the documentary. He accused the BBC of selectively editing his speech and claimed that the arrests were politically motivated. "It is to demonise us in our electoral chances,'' he said. Original Article: Telegraph.co.uk (Filed: 15/12/2004) Some of Nick Griffin's pronouncements on race and religion, for which he was arrested yesterday morning, are extremely stupid and nasty. They give offence to all civilised [uninformed] Britons, of every religion and none, who value our country's tradition of tolerance [ah, THAT word! Should 'it' be reciprocated?]. Most of all, the leader of the British National Party has offended British Muslims by apparently condemning Islam as a "vicious, wicked faith", [Have the editors actually READ the Koran?] and making rude and highly questionable remarks about the contents and meaning of their sacred book, the Koran [Again, have the editors READ it?]. We have the greatest respect for devout Muslims, and the passion with which they defend the name of their prophet, Mohammed [now we see - a Muslim reacting with 'passion' (that is with violence, threatened or not) to any remark that that they deem 'offensive' is OK]. They have every reason to feel offended by some of Mr Griffin's remarks, made at a meeting of BNP zealots and secretly recorded and broadcast by the BBC in July. We have grave doubts, however, about the extent to which offensive speeches on any subject should be matters for the law. Freedom of speech means nothing, after all, if it is taken to mean only the freedom to express views approved by the Government, or those that nobody finds offensive. If the term is to mean anything, it must surely include the freedom to give offence. There is clearly a cast-iron justification for our ancient laws against incitement to violence. [Right, so to say something true about Islam that 'incites' Muslims to violence is to be prosecuted.] In some countries, there may even be a case for outlawing the expression of certain opinions. One can readily understand, for example, why it was made a criminal offence in post-war Germany to deny that the Holocaust took place [the key here is that the Holocaust DID take place, and denying it carries a wealth of other meanings]. At the time, the possibility of a Nazi revival seemed a real threat to civil order and to the survival of the new republic. But in these islands, no such arguments apply for banning stupid [says who?] and offensive remarks. Until we hear the case against Mr Griffin - if any is to be brought to court - there are three observations that ought to be made. First, why did the West Yorkshire police think it necessary to send four plain-clothes policemen to arrest the BNP leader at dawn at his farmhouse on the Welsh border, in the week before Christmas? Here is a man who has never made any secret of his longing to be arrested, and to have his martyr's day in court. The police say that, since July, a team of officers has been working 10 hours a day, five days a week, watching videos handed to them by the BBC. Is there so little crime in West Yorkshire that they have nothing better to do with their time? The second observation is that it is a very serious matter to arrest the leader of a political party for stating his opinions - no matter how unpleasant we may find them, or how misguided we may think the 800,000-odd voters who backed the BNP at the European elections in the summer [can't argue with this]. The third is that there are surely far more effective ways of silencing [why silence him? Why not have an open discussion about Islam?] Mr Griffin and his kind [what kind is that?] than the law and the threat of prison. The most effective weapons in the liberal arsenal are argument, scorn and public ridicule. Original article: Telegraph.co.uk Ethelred comment: What is happening is very clear. Once again, Muslims are given special treatment because of fear that they will react with violence to any kind of discussion about Islam, but that this 'passion' is OK. Presumably, to say otherwise will create more violence. Muslims are bullies, and the threat of violence always hangs in the air about them, but their multi-culti partisans look on this fondly as 'passionate' belief. |
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