Britain to ban criticism of religion

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Old news Goldie

1. Criticism of religion is NOT going to be banned. Where on earth did you hear that rubbish from? Even plain old religious bigotry will remain legal. What's being banned is the extreme end of religious hatred; like calling for all Muslims or Methodists to be gassed. A similer law has been in operation in Northern Ireland for a long time for some funny reason.
All prosecutions must be approved by the Attorney General.
And yes you will still be able to say "Islamic Terrorist".

2. Jury trials MIGHT be scrapped in complex fraud cases. This is being considered due to the farce over the Jubilee Line (and similer cases) and is entirely understandable.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Actually, read the article.

No need; I've read the proposed bill and the little note that comes with it

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No, no it isn't.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

What the bill is supposed to stop, btw, is some of the stuff that happend across the Pennine belt a few years ago. Not nice. Not nice at all.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

You mean things that were already illegal?

The BNP stirring up the riots was perfectly legal at the time

[Filuwaúrdjan]

This note was published alongside the bill:

"the offences will not encompass material that just stirs up ridicule or prejudice or causes offence. Further, what must be stirred up is hatred of a group of persons defined by their religious beliefs and not hatred of the religion itself."

There's perfectly good reasons to oppose the bill and perfectly good reasons to be in favour of it (and personally I'm symphathetic to some arguements from both sides) but if you want to talk about it please don't misrepresent it and claim that it does something that it clearly doesn't do (I'm talking to you here Goldie).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Anyone actually bother to read this?

"the offences will not encompass material that just stirs up ridicule or prejudice or causes offence. Further, what must be stirred up is hatred of a group of persons defined by their religious beliefs and not hatred of the religion itself."

NO CAUSE EURRRROPE IS EVIILLLLL!!! LOL! MUSLIMS TAKING OVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111111 LOL!!!!!!!111111 THOUGHT POLICE!!!!!!!!!111111 LOL!!!!!!!!!!111

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Even stirring up "hatred" should be legal, as one does not have an inherent right to be free of hate.

Maybe not (although a reverse arguement *could* be that you don't have a right to hate people either) but you do have to understand the context of all this; the 2001 riots scared the hell out of a lot of people and the Government has been looking to do something about this for a while.
Now you can argue that you should be able to say whatever you damn well please, and I'd be able to respect that.
But a lot of the opposition to the bill has been deeply hypocritical (especially from that **** Evan Harris) and some of the absurd claims on this thread have really pissed me off....

</rant>

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I looked into it and found this page created by the BBC seems to be a pretty good overview.

Manningham's always been a trouble spot