Was Umran Javed’s conviction safe? Or was it another nail in the coffin of free speech?
Geeklawyer says it was a proper conviction: but only just, bits of it were worrying.
Some of the reported remarks used to support a conviction were merely opinion and desire:
“He said disbelievers would pay a heavy price…and said Denmark would pay with blood.”
Basing a conviction based on evidence like that is absurd. He also yelled:
“Bomb, bomb Denmark, bomb, bomb USA.”
In many circumstances even this might be no more than a crude form of wish expression. Geeklawyer was not at either the march (he supports the Danish cartoonist very strongly) or present at the trial so it is rather hard to make an assessment of the facts. And the case did seem to turn closely on them. When one also considers the global context of the protests where deaths did occur such statements could form real incitement.
But when prosecutors say;
free speech “should not be misused to insult, abuse or threaten people in such a way that it will stir up racial hatred”.
The conviction may form a worrying precedent for political protest: one has every right to offend or insult racial national or ethnic groups so long as what’s done does not result in prejudice to their legitimate expectations.
If one wants to call Americans fat, Germans humourless, Jews greedy and the English snotty the remedy is proof and logic, not jail.
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