A guy has actually been fined ₤ 800 after he posted footage on YouTube of a family pet dog giving Nazi salutes.
Mark Meechan recorded his girlfriend’s pug, Buddha, responding to declarations such as “gas the Jews” and “Sieg Heil” by raising its paw.
He was arrested after authorities looked out to the clip, which has actually been viewed more than 3 million times.
Following a trial at Airdrie Sheriff Court in Lanarkshire in March, he was condemned of posting product that was “grossly offensive, anti-Semitic and racist”. He had actually pleaded not guilty.
Meechan, who regularly posts videos on YouTube under the name Count Dankula, was convicted of devoting a crime under the Communications Act which was worsened by religious bias.
Meechan – explained by his defence agent Ross Brown as a “tolerant and liberal” guy – stated he had actually posted the footage as a joke to annoy his partner, and claimed the case raised problems of freedom of speech.
The “whole point of the joke” was the “juxtaposition of having a charming animal respond to something vulgar”, he stated.
Speaking outdoors court, he claimed the case set a “truly dangerous precedent for individuals to state things, their
context to be entirely overlooked then they can be convicted for it”.
Sheriff Derek O’Carroll said that while the right to freedom of speech was essential, the law “always puts some limits on that right” in “all contemporary democratic countries”.
Sentencing Meechan, Sheriff O’Carroll also revealed the 30-year-old’s sweetheart did not register for the video channel he had published the video footage on.
He included: “I discovered it showed that the video you posted, using a public interactions network, was grossly offending and contained menacing, anti-Semitic and racist product.
” You intentionally selected the Holocaust as the style of the video.
” You deliberately used the command ‘gas the Jews’ as the centrepiece of what you called the whole joke, surrounding the ‘gas the Jews’ centrepiece with Nazi images and the Seig Heil command so there might be no doubt what historical occasions you were referring to.”
Lots of supporters, including previous English Defence League leader Tommy Robinson, were outside the building on Monday.
Ross Brown said his client was worried about the impact his case might have on comedians such as Frankie Boyle and Ricky Gervais.
” His problem, it appears, was that he was somebody who enjoyed shock humor, both offering and receiving it, and tackled his life under the impression that he lived in a jurisdiction which permitted its people the right to freely reveal themselves,” Mr Brown added.
After the guilty decision last month, Gervais composed on Twitter: “A guy has been convicted in a UK court of making a joke that was considered ‘grossly offensive’.
” If you don’t believe in a person’s right to state things that you might find ‘grossly offending’, then you do not think in Freedom of Speech.”
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