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He was arrested for inciting racial hatred which was based on a number of subsequent tweets which where racially charged in nature and included one where he blanket referred to muslims as "towelheads".
From what you report, it looks like a section 5 offence, at worst.
Aroogah nailed it.
Nobody has any right to not be insulted by anyone, even by racists and bigots.
Nobody was being discriminated against - insofar as discrimination is defined as being illegal or unlawful
Nobody seems to have been abused, other than in a general sense, and general untargeted abuse is, as far as I know, not illegal, other than from a section 5 public order offence perspective, and not from a moral perspective.Without knowing the full context, it's probably best not to make a call though., I guess.
NotThamesWater-
not illegal, other than from a section 5 public order offence perspective
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Nobody has any right to not be insulted by anyone, even by racists and bigots.
I think this is something that I fundamentally disagree with.
And this isn't in some namby-pamby cotton wool and coddling ideal that everyone must be lovely to each other.
This is from the perspective that if you don't have a right not to be insulted by someone then we, as a society, consider racist, facist or otherwise bigoted abuse to be both acceptable and reasonable behaviour and should held as normal. You're welcome to believe that to be true but I don't think it is, or ever should be.
If we do take that as a truism, that bigoted abuse of people is acceptable and normal, when does the line get drawn? When do we say that someone has gone too far? Does it have to get a bit sweary? Do taboos like the N-word have to be breached? Does someone have to be physically hit?, Do they have to bleed? Be hospitalised? Die? Or how about if a collective group of bigots are all a little bit abusive towards an individual? None of them singularly cross a severity line, is it all just a matey jolly wheeze and the victim is to blame if they, for some crazy reason, feel that the insults are compound due to their multiplicity?
spiderpie
The_Seldom_Killer
Just for some important clarification, he wasn't actually arrested for the "mealy mouthed" tweet.
He was arrested for inciting racial hatred which was based on a number of subsequent tweets which where racially charged in nature and included one where he blanket referred to muslims as "towelheads".
Whether that was right depends on your views of the fine balance between freedom of speech and the right not to be discriminated against and abused because of who you are rather than what you do.