[Duwensatzaj]

I agree that comparing the UK to the PRC is ridiculous, but you seem to have missed that UK policing goes far beyond your example.

Hamit Coskun was arrested and convicted for burning a Quran, reintroducing blasphemy laws but only for Islam.

Multiple cases of people being arrested for silently praying around abortion clinics.

Arrest and conviction for dressing up as the Manchester Arena bomber for a private Halloween party.

Arrest and jailtime for sharing offensive memes publicly -https://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/24513379.sellafield-worke...

Arrest and jailtime for sharing offensive memes between a group on WhatsApp - https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/former-uk-police-officers-s...

It goes on and on.

[Defletter]

This tendency to obscure context is unfortunately pretty common within discussions about freedom of speech (or the lack thereof) within the UK. I would just like to point out that if your points were so evident, you wouldn't need to remove context to make them.

You may it sound like Coskun threw a Quran into his fireplace and the police kicked his door down and arrested him. You're leaving out that he travelled across the country to burn it outside Turkish consulate in London. The idea that this is "reintroducing blasphemy laws but only for Islam" is you merely repeating punditry.

Likewise, people "being arrested for silently praying around abortion clinics" is because they're violating the protective zone around abortion clinics. You can pray all you want but just a little bit over there. You have the entire country to pray for the unborn. Your rights are not being unduly abridged because there's a few 150 meter zones where doing so is considered violating the dignity of others, if not harassing them while they're vulnerable. But of course, this context can be stripped to make a point.

[brigandish]

> You're leaving out that he travelled across the country to burn it outside Turkish consulate in London

What's the relevance? You can burn a Quran without anyone knowing but if anyone knows then it's forbidden and criminal?

[Defletter]

Not to be glib, but yes, that's what Public Order Offences are. Society and law exists so that we can co-exist, and people going out of their way to be offensive and provocative by, say, setting things on fire in a public space and saying hateful things... yeah, that's eminently antisocial. If you want to frame this as criminality coming from mere knowledge, you can do that, but you're obscuring context... you're literally doing the thing. Cringe.

[brigandish]

Offense is taken, not given. Unless it's harassment or assault (both forms of violence) then the response to speech should always be either speech in return, or to ignore it, not to use violence - either through the state's monopoly, in this case via the police, or through vigilante action.

To say using one's freedom of conscience and freedom of expression is beyond the childish "cringe", it's illiberal, dogmatic, and authoritarian.

[Defletter]

This kind of purist ideology is fine in a perfect world, but the reality is that peaceful co-existence requires intolerance of intolerance. And let's be honest here, you do agree with limiting speech: you just mentioned speech being used as "harassment" and "assault". Would you mind explaining how speech could be harassment and assault and who would decide that? And I'm presuming that you're okay with libel and slander being decided in a Court of Law and enforceable through other institutions of State?

We're not really discussing here whether limiting speech is okay, we're both already doing it. No, it's about where we draw the line. It's just where I put the line also protects vulnerable people from extremely dangerous rhetoric that kills people.

[brigandish]

> let's be honest here, you do agree with limiting speech

Let's not introduce a straw man: I haven't claimed I'm for unrestricted speech; and let's also not introduce a Nirvana fallacy[0], my position is thus because the world is imperfect, hence freedom of speech is necessary to improve it and as mitigation against its misfortunes and burdens. It actively reduces violence by providing a better way to "win" an argument.

> Would you mind explaining how speech could be harassment and assault and who would decide that?

Assault is a very old law with a lot of case law behind it (that is the answer to the who decides) that is very easy to understand:

> A person commits an assault if he performs an act (which does not for this purpose include a mere omission to act) by which he intentionally or recklessly causes another person to apprehend immediate unlawful violence.

Spoken threats are an obvious one, so is shouting at someone in the manner that would lead a reasonable person to feel threatened.

Harassment is also easy to understand:

> The Protection from Harassment Act 1997 indicates that someone’s actions amount to harassment when they make the victim feel distressed, humiliated, threatened or fearful of further violence. The main goal of harassment is to persuade victims either not to do something that they are entitled or required to do or to do something that they are not obliged to do. Actions listed under the Protection from Harassment Act include, but are not limited to:

> phone calls > letters > emails > visits > stalking > verbal abuse of any kind, including on social media > threats > damage to property > bodily harm

You can see several types of speech in there.

> And I'm presuming that you're okay with libel and slander being decided in a Court of Law

You're contradicting your earlier straw man now, you have no such presumption. I do, however, support defamation as a civl tort (though not how it is currently instituted in the UK, the US has a much saner implementation).

> We're not really discussing here whether limiting speech is okay, we're both already doing it. No, it's about where we draw the line.

I'm glad you've caught up.

> It's just where I put the line also protects vulnerable people from extremely dangerous rhetoric that kills people.

Rhetoric doesn't kill people, people kill people, and you're justifying it. So the argument goes: their offence is justified, their violence is inevitable, hence, we should stop the speech.

Have you considered allowing the speech and punishing those who act violently because of their supposed hurt feelings? Would that not be peaceful co-existence?

> the reality is that peaceful co-existence requires intolerance of intolerance

Popper defined, in his "paradox of tolerance" two simple tests for telling an intolerant group:

- They shun debate.

- They turn to violence.

You've picked the wrong group to criminalise.

> In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. - The Open Society and Its Enemies

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_assault

[zimpenfish]

> Hamit Coskun was arrested and convicted for burning a Quran

Wasn't just for burning a Quran though? He was doing it whilst shouting Islamophobic abuse outside the Turkish embassy.

"[Judge McGarva] said that burning a religious book, although offensive to some, was not necessarily disorderly, but that other factors (including Islamophobic comments made in police interviews) made it so on this occasion."[0]

> Multiple cases of people being arrested for silently praying around abortion clinics.

I could only find three - two had their charges dropped[1] and one was charged for not leaving a safe zone after being advised[2] (not silently praying.)

> Arrest and conviction for dressing up as the Manchester Arena bomber for a private Halloween party.

Definitely agree that one would have been better as a warning not to be such a twat rather than arrest and conviction.

> Arrest and jailtime for sharing offensive memes publicly

> Arrest and jailtime for sharing offensive memes between a group on WhatsApp

"offensive" is doing a lot of work there given they were, in the first case, "racially aggravated online social media posts linked to national civil unrest" and, in the second case, just plain racist.

I'm ok with racist content being policed, personally?

[0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce9v4e0z9r8o

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gze361j7xo

[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g9kp7r00vo

[andybak]

You're either misinformed or being deliberately disingenuous in how you've framed all of these.

Which is it?

[ndsipa_pomu]

You are being incredibly disingenuous and missing out the very important points that ALL of those instances were designed to be provocative and make people feel in fear for their own safety.

e.g. the people being arrested for silent praying (wasn't it just two people?) were breaching specific PSPOs that are specifically designed to provide a safe buffer zone around abortion clinics so that people can receive their health services (i.e. abortion and related services) without fear of being harassed. By stating "silent praying", you make it look as thought they weren't being deliberately provocative in order to make a protest - the exact type of thing that the PSPO is designed to protect against.

[Duwensatzaj]

>provocative

So what?

>make people feel in fear for their own safety.

Private chats and bad taste Halloween costumes are designed to make people fear for their own safety?

At least you're honest about your censorship and oppression of anything anyone dislikes.

[ndsipa_pomu]

Well the point is that we don't want people forcing religious views on a mainly secular society. If people have strong views on abortion, then they should abide by those views themselves, but we don't want them harassing people using legal health services. It's fine to protest about abortion etc, but not in a specific buffer zone which has been set up (via a PSPO) to protect vulnerable people visiting the clinic.

I don't know what you're on about with Halloween costumes - I can't see the relevance. Are there PSPOs designed to prevent scary costumes and has anyone been prosecuted for deliberately flouting the PSPO?