British Teen Arrested for Anti-War Comments on Facebook

A teenager will appear in court after being arrested for allegedly making comments on Facebook about the deaths of six British soldiers in Afghanistan last week.

Azhar Ahmed, 19, is said to have posted the comments on his profile page and has been charged with a racially aggravated public order offence.
A West Yorkshire Police spokesman said Ahmed, of Fir Avenue, Ravensthorpe, was criticising the level of attention the British soldiers who died in a bomb blast received compared to Afghan civilians who have died in the war.
The spokesman said: "He didn't make his point very well and that is why he has landed himself in bother."

news.sky.com...

racially aggravated public order offence.

Where is the racial part?
Wow, is this a peek of things to come? I have seen much worse(subversive) dialogue here than his post on FB. Expressing lament over foreign(enemy?) deaths is considered an arrest-able offense?
Man, I am starting to worry about the frankness in some of my posts, and I was already being careful.

spec

ETA: I wonder if his name had anything to do with it? I can't find the word for word post so I guess it is hard to fully assess.

2nd ETA: Found his posts: If it is a TC violation, I apologize, just leave the link I guess.

: “People gassin about the deaths of
: soldiers! What about the innocent familys
: who have been brutally killed.. The women
: who have been raped.. The children who have
: been sliced up..! Your enemy’s were the
: Taliban not innocent harmless familys. All
: soldiers should DIE & go to HELL! THE
: LOWLIFE FOKKIN SCUM! gotta problem go cry at
: your soliders grave & wish him hell
: because that where he is going..”

members5.boardhost.com...

Yea, that might be considered inflammatory. I feel relieved from personal worry because I do not feel this animosity, nor would I ever post anything like this, and do not I see such posts here, lasting anyways.

Originally posted by speculativeoptimist
Man, I am starting to worry about the frankness in some of my posts, and I was already being careful.

Don't. If the bastards are going to take you, let them. I self-censor for the sake of the moderators at times, but I never will for the authorities. Them arresting people for expressing dissent, doesn't demonstrate anything other than how deeply threatened they feel by such dissent.

If you're worried about them killing you, stop thinking that this physical existence is all there is. That is exactly what they want you to believe.

It does not tell you WHAT his comments were, it just tells you what the root point of his comments were meant to convey and that he didn't make those points very well .. in other words, he obviously said SOMETHING more than just "Gosh it's a shame these troop death's get more attention than afghan civilian deaths" .. I see posts like that on FB all the time and there's no police raiding houses or making arrests..

You don't have the whole story .. until the full text of his posts are made known, it's not wise to assume he's guilty but you shouldn't also assume they just decided to pick on him for no good reason either.. I seriously think we'll find his posts to be far more than than just casual statements.

delete

Why are you quibbling about the racial part or what the kid said or whatever? What difference does it make? Don't they have freedom of speech in England?

A bit of searching of the net found a link to what Azhar Ahmed said...

casualsunited

Originally posted by alfa1
A bit of searching of the net found a link to what Azhar Ahmed said...

casualsunited

Definitely more charged than "gosh it's a shame the troops deaths get more attention" as I suspected.. perhaps the "all troops should die and go to hell bit" set off a red flag.. and I bet you'd find there's more posts attributed to him that would cause them to think maybe we should worry..

Not to mention a healthy ( unhealthy ) dose of racial profiling .. his name probably didn't help him

Originally posted by alfa1
A bit of searching of the net found a link to what Azhar Ahmed said...

casualsunited

Making comments like these, puts the police in a genuinely bad situation. If they don't charge him with something themselves, they will likely have to deal with someone else committing crime against *him*, in terms of him being bashed by them or something similar.

It's likely a measure to prevent vigilantism, which I can understand. Given the nature of the charge, I doubt he will be punished severely; but the point is to give him *some* punishment, so that nationalistically minded thugs within the English population do not feel justified in hospitalising him themselves. In that sense, the cops are actually doing him a favour.

reply to post by miniatus


if thats what he posted i dont think he should been arested for it,thats has taken away his opinion and at least 6 others who"liked it",

that being said i dont agree with his comment i have freinds who are over there right now.

I'm not suggesting he shouldn't have freedom of speech and freedom to voice his opinion but in the times we live in .. if you've got a middle eastern sounding name and you're posting emotionally charged messages on facebook saying that all troops should die .. especially if you've posted stuff in the past ( we don't know.. I've not looked ) ... might logic tell you to expect a knock at the door? .. that's what I'm suggesting..

If he had just posted something lower key like I suggested above ..he'd probably be at home watching tv right now instead of standing to face court to explain himself.. Plus, as I keep suggesting.. for them to take this measure, there MUST have been some kind of history there.. either of past posts, forum posts.. or something.. I could be wrong about that..

Originally posted by haven123
reply to post by miniatus

 

if thats what he posted i dont think he should been arested for it,thats has taken away his opinion and at least 6 others who"liked it",

that being said i dont agree with his comment i have freinds who are over there right now.

Read my last post .. I realized I probably need to expand on what I was saying a bit .. I personally don't think it warrants any attention at all .. he should be allowed to say whatever.. but what I am saying is he shouldn't be surprised.. and I suspect there might be more to this yet.

'Divide and Conquer' going on, IMO.. I'm sure there are plentyof other Hate-posts they could have picked out but THIS one could cause racial riots.. All it needs is a spark and the whole country is going to go up! THEN, "What a good thing this Martial Law is"...

Originally posted by speculativeoptimist

: “People gassin about the deaths of
: soldiers! What about the innocent familys
: who have been brutally killed.. The women
: who have been raped.. The children who have
: been sliced up..! Your enemy’s were the
: Taliban not innocent harmless familys. All
: soldiers should DIE & go to HELL! THE
: LOWLIFE FOKKIN SCUM! gotta problem go cry at
: your soliders grave & wish him hell
: because that where he is going..”

Unbelievable, you can get charged by making such a statement?
He is 100% exercising freedom of speech and no where is implying that he himself will kill the soldiers, so there is absence of any threat from his statement

If anything I agree with what he is saying overall... not that I want more bloodshed, but seriously?
We hear stories of atrocities being commited against civilians and covered up on a consistent basis, wouldn't you expect someone to get angry and call for the death of the soldiers as well?

I can recall dozens of times I've seen people online call for the extermination of muslims or middle-easterners or explicitly nuking the middle east off the face of the planet, are they ever brought to justice?
Should they be? They have the right to say it IMO, and taking that into consideration, this guy does too

reply to post by petrus4

Thanks petrus4, now that I found the actual posts, I am personally relieved, somewhat.

reply to post by miniatus


Good points miniatus, thanks and I agree. Glad we found the actual posts.

peace

reply to post by Hillarie

Why are you quibbling about the racial part or what the kid said or whatever? What difference does it make? Don't they have freedom of speech in England?

I did not realize I was quibbling, just re-iterating the report. His name, objectively may be racial profiling, but that is reality, for better or worse.

peace

While not fully agreeing with everything he said, WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO FREE SPEACH!!!

reply to post by RandalFlagg

While not fully agreeing with everything he said, WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO FREE SPEACH!!!

It is being swept away by the Patriot Act? It is attracting labels that start with a T?
Man that T word has really been the catalyst for unravelling so many rights, and justifying wars. Yes, I know the T actions are horrible too, but when is enough enough? I'm with Ben Franklin, I don't want to give up freedom for security.

You know what, here is proof of what he is trying to convey

Look at how Skynews highlights the massacre that occurred recently against 16 Afghan civilians

Afghan Slaughter 'May Be Disastrous For US'

It is hard to fathom what could have gone through the mind of the US soldier in Afghanistan who put a gun to the foreheads of nine children and pulled the trigger, nine times.

But as a staff sergeant attached to the American Special Forces 'Green Berets', he would have been aware of the consequences of his actions.
These days, every American soldier is well-drilled in the notion of the 'Strategic Corporal' - the low-level commander whose actions can have strategic consequences which decide whether a mission is a success of failure - setting the conditions for victory or defeat.

news.sky.com...

Notice the title? Afghan slaughter... disastrous for US?? Well no #!
But thats not the actual disaster at hand with the incident!!! The slaughter itself is the disaster! This is the kind of deceitful reporting he is trying to talk about, and its right here. They go on to talk about their military strategy jargon...

But when its of their own, "more" human beings, its straight to what actually happend

Six UK Soldiers Killed In Afghanistan Blast

news.sky.com...

Don't get me wrong, the lives lost on both sides are to be equally cherished! Both soldiers and the civilians are victims of a much larger scheme of special interests who don't value human life 1 bit, we need to stop these wars NOW!!