Hate Cleric Asbos Options

[Simon Kirby]

The Times today is talking about a government proposal to introduce an ASBO which can control what the paper calls "hate clerics".

That sounds like a good idea of course because "hate clerics" sounds like awful people that any right-minded citizen should hate, but I just wonder what the difference is between a "hate cleric" and say, a cleric. I mean, I find some of the stuff that George Carey says about gay marriage to be pretty hateful but I wouldn't want to shut him up with an ASBO, not least because I think it helps to hear intolerant voices to frame a tolerant debate. One of the clerics that the Times names is Haitham al-Haddad who the paper quotes as saying about Osama bin Laden "He died as a Muslim and it is an established part of our Islamic creed that every Muslim, unlike the disbelievers, will eventually enter paradise." Is that really so hateful that it needs a new law to protect us from hearing it? I hardly think so.

We're not talking about saying illegal stuff remember, there are already laws to prevent you saying illegal stuff, this new ASBO is to prevent people saying stuff that is currently lawful. The Daily Mail quotes David Cameron saying "'We have already put in place some of the toughest terrorism prevention controls in the democratic world, but we must work harder to defeat the radical views which lead some people to embrace violence." Actually I'd suggest that if our terrorism prevention controls are already some of the toughest in the democratic world then toughening them further with an ASBO that the state can use to ban speech that it finds arbitrarily offensive moves us dangerously close to the edge of that democratic world.

[NWNREADER]

The (Sunday) Times is no longer 'The Thunderer;, and the Daily Wail is the shock/horror campaigner of a particular section of the community. Read the comments appending the story.

Islam has no hierarchal structure, and any Muslim with a following can call himself Imam. A Catholic Priest is appointed, and can be defrocked/stopped from preaching. There is no such internal control within Islam.

Seems to me the Government is saying the law of the land applies to self-appointed 'clerics' who hide behind their religion to disrupt society. Which religion matters not, but recent experience creates a focus on Islam.

If someone tomorrow announced they were establishing a Church based on the teachings of Leviticus they could preach some scary ideas.......

[Andy Capp]

I quite agree Simon. It has happened a number of times that new law is not necessary as currently is sufficient, if only it was enacted. A bit like the news hacking laws. It might have helped if the police would have detected the hacking, instead of ' helping' it along. I'm sceptical of laws that are inspired by a small minority.

[newres]

A more effective solution to "hate clerics" and the problems they cause might be to stop supporting America in their funding of illegal Israeli occupations of neighbouring states and to not interfere in internal Middle East affairs. The USA has killed and continues to kill thousands of innocents in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq. We have reaped what we have sown.

From A Man for all Seasons

William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

[On the edge]

The trouble is, we don't use the laws we have got. Seems to me that when these 'hate clerics' are stirring up the mob, by inciting violence and saying this is a holy war, they are actually 'waging war on the Queen in her realm' are they not? So, no matter their status, they are committing treason. We have a law that copes with that already. Only question being, why isn't it being applied?

[Andy Capp]

The trouble is, we don't use the laws we have got. Seems to me that when these 'hate clerics' are stirring up the mob, by inciting violence and saying this is a holy war, they are actually 'waging war on the Queen in her realm' are they not? So, no matter their status, they are committing treason. We have a law that copes with that already. Only question being, why isn't it being applied?

Agreed.

[newres]

The trouble is, we don't use the laws we have got. Seems to me that when these 'hate clerics' are stirring up the mob, by inciting violence and saying this is a holy war, they are actually 'waging war on the Queen in her realm' are they not? So, no matter their status, they are committing treason. We have a law that copes with that already. Only question being, why isn't it being applied?

Do you not think that if they were actually doing this the police would act? I reckon that "radical" clerics need only point at what the west is doing in the Middle East to fire up muslim extremism. The solution to this isn't more laws, or watering down a right to free speech.

[On the edge]

Do you not think that if they were actually doing this the police would act? I reckon that "radical" clerics need only point at what the west is doing in the Middle East to fire up muslim extremism. The solution to this isn't more laws, or watering down a right to free speech.

You can't pick and choose which laws you are going to obey; although certain elements in society will always try.

Law enforcement also serves as a deterrent to others, again, often forgotten. I am seriously concerned that the Police are not acting because of their perceived want to be overly sensitive to this segment of society.

The ranting at the scene by the accused in the Rigby murder trial, which they didn't deny in Court was clearly 'waging war' and in my view should have been prosecuted as such.

[Simon Kirby]

A more effective solution to "hate clerics" and the problems they cause might be to stop supporting America in their funding of illegal Israeli occupations of neighbouring states and to not interfere in internal Middle East affairs. The USA has killed and continues to kill thousands of innocents in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq. We have reaped what we have sown.

From A Man for all Seasons

William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

Top post newres. For one's own safety's sake is the point.

[Simon Kirby]

You can't pick and choose which laws you are going to obey...

Hmmm. I would like to hope that I would have the courage to answer first to my conscience and only then to the law.

[On the edge]

I'd certainly defend your right to answer to your conscience but I could not agree that would give you any right to commission or incite acts of physical aggression on others.

[Simon Kirby]

I'd certainly defend your right to answer to your conscience but I could not agree that would give you any right to commission or incite acts of physical aggression on others.

Quite so. I'm thinking more about states that pass unjust and oppressive laws. For example, Alan Turing has today been posthumously pardoned for a "crime" which a just and civilised society should never have criminalised. I'm not attempting to defend the murderers in the Rigby tragedy, but I'm saying that ideas of justice and right are not absolute or external, but are a matter of conscience, and sometimes the right and courageous thing to do is to break the law - think about the Quakers and conscientious objection.

[On the edge]

Certainly justice and right are not absolute and yes, I'd agree it would be right to break the law when it comes to matters of conscience. Is there perhaps a higher plane than legislation, more highest level morality? Probably very difficult to define tidily, because these can be conditioned by society. Nonetheless, and again in a civilised society, most would agree that the unprovoked taking of another life, or deliberately causing personal harm on another is wrong. The Quakers are a very good example, they 'just let enforcement happen' and simply didn't fight back. The original Irish did, but that could be said to be under extreme provocation; expulsion from their homes. I have to say, even if I don't agree with the cause, so long as it does not involve deliberate violence, extreme civil disobedience is understandable in matters of conscience - the Suffragettes being a good example there.

[blackdog]

I saw the news about Turing - which seemed fair and reasonable - until I thought about all the other men convicted of the same crime, before and after. Where are their pardons?

[Andy Capp]

Are their any 'unjust and oppressive laws' in the UK today?

[Andy Capp]

I saw the news about Turing - which seemed fair and reasonable - until I thought about all the other men convicted of the same crime, before and after. Where are their pardons?

Sure what happened to him was abominable, BUT, he was guilty, wasn't he?


Gesture politics.

[NWNREADER]

Quite so. I'm thinking more about states that pass unjust and oppressive laws. For example, Alan Turing has today been posthumously pardoned for a "crime" which a just and civilised society should never have criminalised.

What offence was Alan Turing convicted of, and what were the circumstances?

[Andy Capp]

What offence was Alan Turing convicted of, and what were the circumstances?

Like the Internet never existed!

[JeffG]

What offence was Alan Turing convicted of, and what were the circumstances?

I thought everyone knew that. It's well documented on Wikipedia. It's because of people like him that we are not all speaking German today.

[blackdog]

Sure what happened to him was abominable, BUT, he was guilty, wasn't he?

He was - of an offence that itself is deemed offensive these days - as were many others who have not been pardoned.

Gesture politics.

Can't argue with that.