Did this act warrant a jail sentence? See link inside.
Basically, a university student has been jailed for tweeting offensive messages about a footballer who had just collapsed after a cardiac arrest during a game. Now, whilst I don’t condone racism in any form and think this lad is quite clearly a total prat, I can’t help feeling that a jail sentence (56 days) seems really extreme.
Here is the story. Do you think a jail sentence is the perfect punishment for this tool or do you think it is a waste of tax payers money?
I am on the fence here. Whilst I am pleased to see that racism is being punished in some way and it’s good for people to realise that we are not anonymous on social networking sites I am also left wondering why this deserved a jail sentence and yet the guy that murdered Trayvon Martin recently hasn’t even been arrested. I know these two examples of racism happened in different countries but still, do we have our priorities straight when it comes to bringing people to justice?
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I am pro-free speech. This seems ridiculous to me.
The District Judge said “You committed this offence while you were drunk and it is clear you immediately regretted it. But you must learn how to handle your alcohol better.”
For saying something racist publicly on a social netowrk site, IMO, public shame of his ignorance should be enough.
I wonder what was said..
I don’t imagine there could be anything non-threatening that could be said to deserve jail time.
I don’t think jail time was appropriate, but if inciting racial hatred is a charge then that’s how it goes, I guess. The subsequent decline in reputation and career seems punishment enough, which I’m glad happened.
It depends on exactly what was said. Racist hate speech is rightly illegal and punishable by jail time in the UK.
Major overkill. There shouldn’t be any jail time for hurting someone’s feelings. It would be understandable if the words were a call for an immediate threat of violence, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
If he knew hate speech was illegal in the UK, then it’s his fault for not setting up a proxy server from the start, as a precautionary measure for incidents like these. It would have saved him from this mess.
According to reports his initial tweet said something along the lines of “fuck Muamba he’s dead LOL” (Muamba collapsed during a televised match, he is still alive). This caused people to retaliate and his responses to this became racist and sexual. I can’t find any articles that has information on what he said in these instances.
Probably not, the prisons being fit to burst as it is. Having said that, this fucking loser deserved some form of punishment, i’d have given the tosser a bloody good hiding, but there you go.
@ucme I agree. I am glad his act didn’t go unpunished and even though I feel this may be a very harsh punishment, it is better than no punishment.
It depends on what that country’s laws are and they might be very different from our own on such issues, I don’t know. Personally I’m not in a position to criticize whether the 56 day sentence fits the crime but the victim and his family should have every right to sue his ass off at least. In my opinion this was a form of harassment. Free speech doesn’t mean one should have the right to defame another’s character regardless of how it is done.
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