Man jailed for racist internet posts.

Man jailed for racist internet post

By Cordelia O'Neill

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/man-jailed-for-racist-internet-post-2371883.html
Monday, 17 October 2011

A man who used a social networking website to post sectarian comments about Catholics and Celtic supporters has been jailed for eight months.


Stephen Birrell, 28, from Glasgow, was also handed a five-year football banning order at Glasgow Sheriff Court for writing the comments on a Facebook page titled Neil Lennon Should Be Banned.

He admitted writing the religiously and racially motivated comments between February 28 and March 8 this year.


Sentencing him, Sheriff Bill Totten said the courts had to send "a clear message to deter others who might be tempted to behave in this way".


One of the comments, posted a day before a Celtic v Rangers game on March 2 this year, read: "Hope they all die. Simple. Catholic scumbags ha ha."


Two days after the match, he wrote: "Proud to hate Fenian tattie farmers."


His lawyer, Iain McLennan, told the sheriff that Birrell had accepted what he had done but struggles to understand the severity of his actions.


He said: "He finds it difficult just to comprehend how serious what he did was. But he does accept that what he did was wrong and gratuitously offensive."


The sheriff told Birrell that he had escaped a longer sentence because his comments hadn't made specific threats against individuals.


But he said he wanted to "send a clear message that the right-thinking people of Glasgow and Scotland will not allow any behaviour of this nature, or allow any place in our society for hate crimes".


He said: "The use of modern communications to spread or support abuse or target groups of people because of their ethnic or racial background has no place in our modern society and has no place in genuine support for any football club."


The sheriff also reduced Birrell's jail term because he had pleaded guilty, cutting the time from 12 months to eight.


Under the football banning order, Birrell cannot attend any football match in the UK for five years. He will also have to inform police and comply with any decisions they make if he wishes to attend a game abroad.


Birrell, dressed in a tracksuit with his belongings in a yellow plastic carrier bag, spoke only to confirm his name and address.


As he was led to the cells, he turned and waved to his friends and family who had come to see him sentenced.




Birrell was arrested and charged in April during a police crackdown on sectarian hatred on the internet.

Specialist officers began investigating hate comments after an ill-tempered Scottish Cup replay at Celtic Park. The so-called "shame game" brought simmering tensions between the clubs' supporters to a head.


The match saw three Rangers players given red cards and ended in confrontation between Rangers' then assistant manager Ally McCoist and Celtic manager Neil Lennon.


Disruption was also seen off the pitch, with around 30 fans arrested at Celtic Park.


An Old Firm summit chaired by First Minister Alex Salmond was held in the wake of the game and an eight-point action plan was agreed.


Controversial legislation aimed at tackling sectarianism is making its way through Holyrood. If passed, the Scottish Government's Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications Bill will create two offences which relate to behaviour deemed to "incite religious, racial or other forms of hatred" in and around football grounds and on the internet.


The Bill would mean those convicted could spend as long as five years in prison and be banned from football grounds. It was intended as emergency legislation but the timetable was delayed because of concerns about its lack of clarity. The "need" for new laws has also seen disagreement.


Speaking after Birrell was jailed, Scotland's Solicitor General Lesley Thomson said sectarianism was "completely unacceptable in modern Scotland".


She said: "The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service is absolutely determined to play its part in confronting the problems of sectarianism, religious offences and related disorder and violence.


"Whether the offences are at the football match itself, travelling to or from it or, as in this case, online threatening communications, we will do all in our power to bring those who perpetrate such crimes to justice.


"Prosecutors will continue to prosecute anyone indulging in such behaviour which is completely unacceptable in modern Scotland."

Perhaps PFers are next? LOL

 

does that mean if people were to talk bad about muslims they all could be punished? The US may become a self imposed prison not to mention israel practically already is.

Imagine if no one was allowed to lie. What would politicians be like?

How about churches, mosques and synagogues?

I bet that would correct the hate issue.

 

Freedom of speech should be better defended, even if the speech is moronic.

 

i like the freedom of speech part as apparently he was sharing a solution

but if misleading people was a capital offense then neils solution would not be required

 

We're aware that you have to watch your lip in Germany, Liebe, or you might be jailed for mentioning the elephant in the room. That's not 'freedom', not by a long chalk.

 

Good news!! - Now let us just round up Stormfront and those members here that give this site the nickname of "stormfront lite"

 

Holy Cow (well not in your case), I fully agree with your statement.

Here in the states, Liberals are chomping at the bit for government to have this kind of authoritarian control over speech and ultimately thought.

 

I was thinking the same.

Only nutters feel there is a lack of freedom in Germany because they want to wear a swastika and deny the holcaust. Poor things.

 

Good news. I just spent half an hour reporting some racist moron's photos, with disgusting anti-black and anti-mexican "caricatures". People should learn that free speech is about freedom to share thoughts and opinions - NOT freedom to insult and incite violence.

 

At some stage, it has to be accepted that freedom of speech is only as free as the consequences resulting from that speech warrants.

If the individual cannot show a measure of responsiblity regarding his use of the freedoms he enjoys, then those freedoms do need to be curtailed....and, in Scotland, we have spent decades trying the softly softly approach re the sectarian divide with no success......in fact the modern methods of communication are making it worse.

Personally, I'd have started the fight against sectarianism in Scotland by banning all Orange/Protestant and Hibernian/Catholic marching.......if only because I fail to see just what celebrating/crying about happenings in Ireland/Northern Ireland 300+ years later has to do with Scotland today.

It is a ludicrous situation when you consider that Glasgow hosts more Orange and Hibernian marches than Londonderry or Belfast taken together.

Freedoms for some should not mean a right to cause serious problems for others.

 

that's fine until they stop your freedom of speech

 

Fully agree with you.

Liebe exposed one more time her hostility towards our Western values.

On the one hand she accuses her opponents of sympathy with the Third Reich, on the other hand she supports censorship and persecution of pepole who make use of the freedom of speech.

What a hypocrisy!

 

I think Western values need a bliddy good shake up, if the freedom to be an ******** is perceived as a value worth defending.

 

Yes, that is the crucial point.
Every totalitarian regime claims to have 'freedom of speech. They ban only 'hate speeches' (i e. the speeches that the regime hates).

 

Don't see that at all......maybe they do go OTT at times....in fact they do go OTT at times......but generally, when you have people who are incapable of monitoring their own mouths and the result of that lack of self control is violence, which often escalates......then something has to be done.

The way to deserve freedoms is to learn to use those freedoms responsibly.....and there are far too many, particularly among the younger elements in Scotland, who don't do responsibly at any price.

If you wouldn't shout fire in a crowded theatre, why would you approve of sectarian singing/chanting/signs in a stadium in which half of the punters there are the people you are chanting against. These chants are aimed at the crowd of individuals wearing the different colours to them, because of their religion.......they are not chants aimed at the team because of their playing.

 

I totally agree.. It's not often that I cross swords with moon, but on this ocassion I do.....I know it sounds somewhat of a cliche, but with rights come responsibilities..Freedoms, in other words, are necessarily conditional.

 

total freedom of speech can be a bad thing in certain circumstances. as an example. should freedom of speech be allowed so that a person can yell "FIRE" in a movie threater?

 

That's precisely the point I was making in post 20.

 

Like in the good ole U.S.S.R. - ?

Moderation in all things , WOT ?



....

 

Not in all things.

Everybody can drive a car by way of example.

 

Inciting violence in most cases is wrong. Inciting violence along religious lines, over what one claims to believe and what the other believes is completely and unquestionably wrong.

 

a fine post.........

 

Ona Zee pics (Circa 1990 ) anyone ???

 

What does that have to do with anything?

 

Freedom to insult actually is part of the freedom of speech.

Inciting violence is another matter entirely.

The guy who got jailed was just being insulting, which is why the jail sentence was ridiculous.