Fabrice Muamba: Racist Twitter user jailed for 56 days (Right or Wrong)

Originally posted by wmd_2008
reply to post by judus

 

Well how would you feel if a member of your family was in that situation and comments were made based on colour.

The trouble is it's far to easy for idiots with no common sense to make comments on Facebook twitter and the internet in general, so to make a sick comment about someone who could have died, well maybe this will be a warning shot to others.

It was said yesterday his university want nothing to do with him either!

edit on 28-3-2012 by wmd_2008 because: (no reason given)

Bad if I had a family member in that situation.

But as far as been upset by somebody commenting on the color of my skin, I would not give a damm you can call me what you like and I have been called some nasty things as has most people.

Why does it seem that racist remarks only seem to affect certain cultures & races and not others ?

Why not give the guy 56 days of community service where the community gets something out of his punishment, rather than sending him to jail for 56 days, more than likely to be funded by comminty tax-payers.
And how does one decide that 56 days in jail is the correct punishment for racist comments on a site like twitter ? Is 55 days or less to soft, or is 57 days or more too severe ?
There have been hundreds or even thousands of tributes and good will shown to the player and brought the football world together in solidarity, yet they seem to be over shadowed by the media and replaced with some stupid racist comments by ONE person.
For me personally, a racist action is something like bashing or assaulting someone because of colour or denying them a job, income or opprtunity due to colour. If we allow ourselves to be so upset by a few idiotic words then we are in for a life time of being over sensative !
This whole case reminds me of the saying we have here in Australia.........."HARDEN THE F@#K UP !"

personally i think yes he should be locked up for what he has done

is he entitled to his views on whatever peoples race,religion,etc yes he is
BUT
as soon as he made his views he commited an offence in british law simple as that and deserves to be punished

a breif snippet from a CPS (Crown Prosecution Service)

When racial motivation or hostility is proved to be a factor in a criminal offence this increases the seriousness of the offence and results in a heavier sentence. The court must state openly that the offence was racially aggravated.

For racially aggravated offences, the maximum penalty is higher than the maximum for the basic offence without the element of racial aggravation. Where the maximum sentence is life imprisonment, there is no racially aggravated alternative.


i believe this case would fall under
Public Order offences

fear or provocation of violence (Section 4 of the Public Order Act 1986)
intentional harassment, alarm or distress (Section 4A of the Public Order Act 1986)
harassment, alarm or distress (Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986)

source
www.cps.gov.uk...

personally i feel sorry for the ignorant people who need to run around calling ppl for there race colour or creed
must be very hard for these people to live in a colour blind world


“Hatred corrodes the vessel in which it is stored”

Well, let me ask you this:

If the same thing had happened to David Beckham and a black Brit made racial comments about him like calling him a "stupid honky" and other such things, would that person go to jail?

If the UK is anything like the U.S., then probably not. That should answer your question right there.

i think this welsh government pathetic!!

he got 56 days in prison for writing something racist on the internet whilst drunk...... and that plum john terry is still out playing with other peoples wifes and girlfriends when he blatently used racist abuse (whilst sober) to another player live on tv ? and is still trying to deny it?? WTF !
but i dont see him locked up??

its one rule for one and different rules for another!

reply to post by welshbeliever



Exactly.

The law is governed by your social status.

lol so many things, so many points, this case alone highlights a huge amount about the UK as a whole. There's a lot of arguments for both sides that i agree with and i think what it highlights is that the structure of the action taken is at fault and perhaps the severity, but punishment, in my minds is just, but probably not jail time. I'm much more for a type of public humiliation, but that's very much olden days talk. Sticking him in jail i very much doubt will change much, but then i think jail as a whole is a waste of time, it never solves or deals with the problems, our re offending stats prove that really.

the posts about the outcome being based on social status i do agree with, i ask myself, if John Terry had have tweeted a racial comment about Anton Ferdinand, do i genuinly believe he would have gone to jail for it? No i don't, he might have been fined or sacked by Chelsea, but i very much doubt he would have ended up in jail for it, i think the fact that Muamba had a heart attack shouldn't be taken into consideration when considering the crime itself, so i don't see much difference between Terry abusing Ferdinand and this guy abusing Muamba.

The problem obviously is that, when a guy says something in public that millions of people are watching, it's very hard to not take tough action, just to deal with the huge outcry from the people, it's the mob mentality and TPTB knowing they have to act on it and deal with it to satisfy the mob and keep them happy, it may well not be the right outcome of a pure "this is what he did" situation, but when added together to become a "public outcry issue" the punishment will always be increased, which is wrong in my opinion, but i can see and understand why it happens. The way i think of it is this:

we've put ourselves into a position where we have put an open mic up, and millions of people listen to it, and we say that every single person must have the right to be able to go up to the mic and say whatever they want, because that's the only way to make it fair for all. The problem, obviously, is that at some point some guy is going to stand up and say something that offends a huge majority of people. We don't all think alike so at some point there will be an outcry if we are determined to provide an open mic to all.

If someone said something stupid into the mic i wouldn't put them into jail for it, it's just pointless and doesn't resolve anything, they're just incredibly dumb and lacking in intelligence, putting them in jail will not improve their brain. Like i said before, i would be more creative in the punishment and try to think of something that will make the person feel deeply ashamed or embarrased. I think 1 or 2 days of that would do the trick, no need for 56? (i think i read here) days in jail.

But yes, because he made the decision to say something in public, type the words out and publish them, i do feel he needs to be punished for it, but the interesting thing to come out of this is reading both sides of the argument and the squabbling going on in this thread, quite fascinating really. At the end of the day, like most things, we have a system in place that doesn't work properly. Status does have an effect on the outcome of your crime, which is sad. If i call someone a "black boy" i'm a racist, yet black people saying "white boy" seems to be completely ignored and not considered the same as "black boy", which in reality is completely insane. White people are about the only race that can be racially abused without anyone really caring.

Interesting thread anyway reading the different points of view. My best wishes and thoughts go out to Muamba, i really feel like he's been pulled back from certain death by an absolutely incredible job by the staff at the ground and the doctors, virtually all of these cases end up in death and i'm glad they got to him so fast that they were able to kick him back into life.

i would like to have a little "chat" with this chap....but thats more a personal thing
no he shouldnt be locked up and its ridiculous the question even has to be asked
he wasnt inciting violence (i havent read his comments but if he did then thats entirely different)
you can say whatever you want no matter how asinine it may be so long as youre not advocating violence

he should fear reprisal from individual people for being an loud ignorant piece of # (ie. refusing to do business with him) but no he he should not be thrown in jail for voicing his retarded opinions ....to me that sounds like government sponsored social conditioning

Can I flip this argument round and say if he was a White male footballer and it was a Black male who made the racist comments? How would that pan out? And before you all jump in and say he would get the same treatment, would he really? In our country that seems to make the minority the majority and vice versa.

My opinion lets do away with race, creed, colour or whatever and just focus on the fact that beneath your skin we all have the same inner workings and are all human beings regardless.

Originally posted by lucifuge
Can I flip this argument round and say if he was a White male footballer and it was a Black male who made the racist comments? How would that pan out? And before you all jump in and say he would get the same treatment, would he really? In our country that seems to make the minority the majority and vice versa.

My opinion lets do away with race, creed, colour or whatever and just focus on the fact that beneath your skin we all have the same inner workings and are all human beings regardless.

Actually there are some facts and figures available about how many arrests have been made around this and perhaps you may be surprised...

www.bbc.co.uk...

reply to post by neformore


But you ARE free to hate anyone you want.


Are you suggesting otherwise?

There have been four cases in the last twenty years of footballers dying on the pitch. hope for his sake he's not Muamba no. 5

Actually I can see some logic tin the sentence. A magistrate in Swansea has told the 21 year old who posted racist comments on Twitter about Fabrice Muamba, that he really needs to integrate & get closer to the black community. He then gave him 56 days in prison.

reply to post by judus


Last time I checked there was a lil thing called freedom of speech. Maybe that doesn't exist anymore in reality, but, if it did, the fact is that popular speech does not need protecting, unpopular speech does. I don't care how much this guy's tirade hurt your delicate sensibilities, noone deserves to go to jail merely just for saying something. If you disagree, than I would have to ask that you reexamine your priorities as they are quite out of whack.

This thread demonstrates a perfect clear line between those ATS members who truly believe in liberty and those who believe in tyranny (but possibly don't know it yet).

I feel that an old thread of mine - The Freedom To Not Be Offended - is particularly pertinent.

That's all I've got to say.

reply to post by judus


Lets compare this case which is headlining the news right now:

A DRIVER mowed down a young woman on a pedestrian crossing and dashed off — because he was late to collect his benefits.

Balram Singh, 21, had no licence or insurance when he was rushing to pick up his Jobseeker's Allowance.

He ignored a red light and ploughed into Kate Allan, 23, who crashed into his windscreen before landing in the road.

Singh then raced off in Brentry, Bristol — missing her head by a fraction.

In a victim impact statement, Miss Allan told a court: "If I had not moved my head out of the way of the car he would have driven over me."

She escaped serious injury but was left with pain to her right leg, neck, ribs and down the left side of her body.

Bristol Crown Court also heard she was still suffering pain two months after the crash last December.

www.thesun.co.uk...

Now in the case above, this Mr Singh wasn't jailed for his offense and to me this is worse offense than calling someone by a derigatory name although i don't agree with certain types myself.... but i'm entitled to my own opinion....

I think i can say here that i don't like Fanatics.... does this deserve to be bought to the court of law??? I don't think so....

Anyway.... calling Muamba a xxxxxxxxx or whatever was wrong really as he was suffering and could have died.... was there really a need to get offensive about such things at this time?

If Muamba had had no problems at all during the game do you think anyone would have commented on the player? I doubt it....

I don't like racist people. I don't hate them, because its just how they were raised.
Being hateful toward everyone just isn't my thing.

But on another note, he knows right from wrong. So he deserved this. AND MORE.

Originally posted by Cythraul
This thread demonstrates a perfect clear line between those ATS members who truly believe in liberty and those who believe in tyranny (but possibly don't know it yet).

I feel that an old thread of mine - The Freedom To Not Be Offended - is particularly pertinent.

That's all I've got to say.

edit on 28/3/2012 by Cythraul because: (no reason given)

So do something about it, get educated, become a lawyer and look to put a precedent in place to say why you should be able to abuse people with no expectation that your words would have any consequence or shut up. Seems you have two options really doesn't it?

Strange, do you notice the very site you are making your comments on here has Ts and Cs that forbid you to use some of the language that is being discussed - are you being tyranised by ATS? If you don't think so then what is the difference? Make a stand, leave, don't come back, they don't allow you to say what you want so surely your principles should make you want to leave?

I'm shocked that any of you actually support this sentence. Do we know what specifically he said? Or are we just blithely taking the MSM's word for it without even so much as asking for evidence?
Freedom of speech isn't there to protect popular ideas, it's to protect those that are unpopular. Did he threaten Muamba or just call him names? Who decides what words are "racist"?
I see a gap the size of the grand canyon in the logic and set of double standards arising applied in this case.
We cannot change people's hearts by throwing them in jail. Racism is based on ignorance and knowledge is the only solution to it.
This is the slippery slope where freedom of speech can be destroyed bit by bit in the name of "sensitivity, diversity and inclusion". The next step is you won't be able to criticize certain groups and interests including the government or you will be labeled as anti-social (and dangerous!)

You hurt someone's feelings so you should go to jail.
Are you sure you really support this idea?
The government will start having feelings too.
Better check yourself.

It's sad this guy is in the hospital fighting for his life but are we going to jail everyone for insensitivity? (something I'm sure we've all been guilty of at some time)

Originally posted by Asktheanimals
I'm shocked that any of you actually support this sentence. Do we know what specifically he said? Or are we just blithely taking the MSM's word for it without even so much as asking for evidence?
Freedom of speech isn't there to protect popular ideas, it's to protect those that are unpopular. Did he threaten Muamba or just call him names? Who decides what words are "racist"?
I see a gap the size of the grand canyon in the logic and set of double standards arising applied in this case.
We cannot change people's hearts by throwing them in jail. Racism is based on ignorance and knowledge is the only solution to it.
This is the slippery slope where freedom of speech can be destroyed bit by bit in the name of "sensitivity, diversity and inclusion". The next step is you won't be able to criticize certain groups and interests including the government or you will be labeled as anti-social (and dangerous!)

You hurt someone's feelings so you should go to jail.
Are you sure you really support this idea?
The government will start having feelings too.
Better check yourself.

No, I know what he said, words that I don't believe you allow to be used on ATS as part of your terms and conditions (so, that raises a question in itself, doesn't it?) and also telling black people (not using those words) to 'go and pick some cotton' or words to that effect. This isn't about MSM, please don't paint it as such. If there wasn't evidence that could be presented in a court of law that violated a law then the sentence wouldn't have been passed.

Edit to add, this case in and of itself isn't a precedent in the UK, please see...

www.bbc.co.uk...

I notice you are American and will claim, possibly, that the first amendment covers much better. I've done some reading on that and the amount of times that amendment and cases that show how it is being abused are really quite incredible. But I suppose when the First Amendment was written you couldn't really tell people what they were allowed to call their slaves could you? I know how some people like 'continuity' rather than progression