UK woman jailed for 15 months for a Facebook comment

NEWS AND OPINION: A woman, Julie Sweeney, 53, with no previous criminal record whatsoever, has been jailed for 15 months by (in my opinion) a reactionary establishment judge because she made a comment on Facebook which she said was encouraged by other similar comments that a mosque should be blown up. Obviously the comment was totally unacceptable, racist and quite horrible but the question is whether jailing her for 15 months was proportionate and appropriate and I think it is.

Photo: AP.

The exact comment she made is:  "Don't protect the mosques, blow the mosque up with the adults in it."

She made the comment on Facebook during the recent riots/protests which were a reaction to the killing of young girls in a playground by a 17-year-old Somali teenager who was born in the country (UK - Wales) but social media said that he was an immigrant seeking refugee status.

Yes there are lies all over the Internet about it on social media which helped to fire up the protesters many of whom have now been jailed, some for three years and more.

She pleaded guilty to sending a communication to convey a threat of death or serious harm.

There was a determined effort by the establishment encouraged by the Labour government to squash these protesters and send a clear message to others not to protest or riot.

But this woman I think has been unjustly treated. But the judge, Judge Steven Everett, heavily criticised her in court saying that her comments were inflammatory and disgusting. In addressing her, he said: "You should have been looking at the news and media with horror like every right-minded person. Instead, you chose to take part in stirring up hatred."

Fair enough, she should have been punished for this comment. It was horrific and wrong. She admits she was stupid. She was part of a Facebook channel of which there were 5,100 members. There was quite a big audience to a comment which exacerbated her crime. The judge called her a "keyboard warrior". He said that she had to learn to take responsibility for the her language.

But it was a single comment on a single day and normally she lives a quiet sheltered life in Cheshire and has not troubled the courts in her long life according to the barrister defending her in court.

The question here is about freedom of speech. The Labour government has decided to crack down on these protesters but at the same time they are curbing freedom of speech. The government wants their version of freedom of speech. They will allow certain types of speech and disallow others. According to Frank Furedi in The Times newspaper, in a comment, "It seems the government and its allies in the media and various cultural institutions have declared a war on free speech."

I agree with that. The government is trying to strengthen the current legislation to tighten freedom of speech and to restrict "legal but harmful content". Unfortunately this phrase is subjective and political.

Frank said that "A government that claims a monopoly on determining what is truth and what isn't is a far greater threat to Britain's public life than the targets of its censorship." 

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins. Also: sources for news articles are carefully selected but the news is often not independently verified. Also, I rely on scientific studies but they are not 100% reliable.

U.S. First Amendment gives staff the right to criticize a shelter publicly including on social media

Nathan Winograd, a lawyer, a very prominent animal advocate and an expert on how to run an animal shelter to minimise euthanasia, has kindly, in an email to me, reminded us that Americans have a constitutional right under the First Amendment to speak out against government policies with which they disagree including, the situation in which a rescuer and volunteer wishes to speak out and criticise the shelter where they work because they believe that the shelter didn't do enough to prevent the euthanasia of a dog at the shelter.

Of course, it could be any animal earmarked for euthanasia because the shelter might not be well run and therefore too many cats and dogs are being killed. Let's be clear about that. Euthanasia is often simply killing healthy animals. Euthanasia means the humane termination of life of a chronically and terminally sick animal. Many cats and dogs at animal shelters across the world are killed simply because nobody has adopted them and the shelter is full.

Anyway, to get back to the main topic which is the US Constitution's First Amendment. In this story, a former volunteer has filed a lawsuit against Multnomah County Animal Services (MCAS) in Portland, Oregon, USA for violating her constitutional rights.

She alleges in her lawsuit that the shelter management retaliated against after she had publicly aired her concerns about the shelter's plans to euthanise i.e. kill a healthy one year old poodle.

The volunteer and plaintiff in this lawsuit is Monica Klein. She alleges that the manager of the said shelter, Marian Cannell, terminated her services in July after she had posted on social media her opinion that the shelter's decision to euthanise a dog named Cloud was unnecessary because the shelter management had rebuffed her request to have a chance to find the dog (named Cloud) a suitable home.

The First Amendment most importantly protects American citizens who want to criticise US government agencies, quangos and any other US government organisations. This is been made clear by the US Supreme Court which has consistently ruled that, "speech on public issues occupies the highest rung of the hierarchy of First Amendment values and is entitled to special protection".

The First Amendment prohibits shelter management from forcing employees and volunteers to sign a nondisclosure agreement which prevents them from criticising the shelter publicly. The first amendment also prevents shelter staff from deleting comments online and social media platforms from banning commenters.

The shelter concerned, MCAS, according to Nathan Winograd, is "no stranger to illegal and abusive conduct thanks to years of mismanagement at the hands of managers and elected officials indifferent to animal suffering."

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.