A man who lives just a few miles away from me has been fined for publishing a comedy video to YouTube that was considered offensive. This has massive implications for me and many other people (whether they realise it or not).
Causing deep offence should not be a criminal offence. Causing offence is a criminal offence in countries that are run as tyrannies, where artists are imprisoned for appearing to criticise the government, or the royal family, or where children are put in jail for suspected crimes against religion.
As a student I was a member of Amnesty International, and I used to write letters to tyrannical governments, asking them to reconsider the cases of journalists who had been jailed for speaking out against the government, or playwrights arrested for writing material that was considered to have broken religious codes.
It's deeply disturbing when you wake up one morning and find that your own country, a country that considers itself a moral flagbearer of freedom, has slipped so far down the road towards tyranny that a young man, Mark Meechan, has been fined and convicted for "hate speech" over the publication of a comedy video in which he expressly stated that he was "no racist".
The video, which shows Mark Meechan training his pug dog to do a Nazi salute with his paw, opens with Meechan saying:
"I thought I would turn him into the least cute thing that I could think of, which is a Nazi."
When he made the video, Meechan's YouTube channel had just eight subscribers. It went viral after someone shared it on Reddit.
Then a storm blew up as the video was seen as offensive by many people, especially over the use of the phrase: "Gas the Jews!", which Meechan repeated as he tried to encourage his girlfriend's pug dog to raise its paw in response to it. For a joke.
It seems unlikely that he was intending to take the dog on Neo Nazi rallies.
Meechan responded to the outrage by making a contrite video with his girlfriend, where he offers profuse apologies for any offence caused, saying:
"I just want everybody to know that I don't actually believe in anything that I was saying in the video. The whole purpose of it was just to annoy my girlfriend.
"I actually hate racism in any way, shape or form, and I did not expect everyone to see this video. I only thought it was going to be people who knew me and knew my comedy and knows that I'm not actually like that.
"I don't hate anyone. I don't have any ill will towards the Jewish community or anything like that at all. The entire thing was a joke, and that's what it should be taken as."
Meechan's girlfriend Suzanne Kelly also says in the video that he is not racist.
This contrite apology was published in April 2016. Two years later, Meechan was convicted of hate speech, his apology swept aside by Sheriff Derek O'Carroll at Airdrie Sheriff Court last month. Yesterday Meechan was fined £800.
Comedy can have serious consequences
Meechan's conviction has enormous ramifications for people in the UK. A line has been crossed into dangerous Orwellian territory. We must be very careful what we say, even if it's said as part of an elaborate joke.
When I posted about this on Facebook, a friend privately messaged me to say that she agreed with everything I'd said, but that she was afraid to "like" my post in case people thought she was racist.
This is like something out of China during the Cultural Revolution or Eastern Europe before the wall came down, with people actually being silenced, afraid to speak out on certain issues.
Twenty years ago, Primal Scream made a record called "Kill all Hippies". Would that be allowed today? How many hippies were killed as a result of that record? In the 1980s, The Smiths invited people to Hang the DJ. Did anyone take it as an actual call to action? Were any DJs hanged?
The mainstream media was trying to portray Meechan's supporters as the "alt right"., until left wing and Jewish comedians like Tom Walker (Jonathan Pie), David Baddiel and Ricky Gervais started speaking out on the issue.
I also do not identify with the "alt right". But I will not let fear of being associated with them stop me from speaking out on this issue. It's too serious for that.
Its a scary thought that you can now get arrested fined and or imprisoned for telling a joke that might offend someone. No one should be punished for telling a joke which it clearly was.
Worrying times indeed.
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It is very worrying, especially for anyone who publishes blog posts or videos. If our words are taken out of context and someone finds them offensive, even if we apologise and say we meant no harm, we could be arrested!
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