Thanks DAG for pointing out this story. The idea of arresting minors instead of just giving them a damn good telling off and lesson in tolerance is absurd.

Also unsurprising to read the usual cultural blackmail about insulting "a billion muslims" and so on.

"You can see that in the way Muslims treat the Koran, washing before touching it and in many Muslim homes you will find it on the top shelf above all other books and we will never destroy the Koranic texts." Says the self-appointed spokesperson for said billion from the group dedicated to, in their own words "empowering Muslims to focus on non-violent Jihad".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_Public_Affairs_Committee_UK

What on earth is the BBC doing talking to antisemites?

These same voices tend not to mind about setting fire to Korans when they are in located in the 'wrong' kind of Mosque in Iraq, Pakistan and so on.

But we are to pretend, for the sake of jailing a minor, that a billion muslims bay for redress with one voice.

What stinking hypocrisy.

The law should have no part in being used to enforce what is essentially good manners, consideration and not being gratuitously insulting. That's especially so within the environments of a school.

There are plenty of other ways of conveying to a 15 year old girl how to behave properly without resorting to the sledgehammer of criminal law.

One also wonders where it would stop. There are perfectly valid reasons for robust criticism of some religious or cultural practices which could fall foul of an over-zealous enforcer of the law.

Of course the arrest will inevitably raise this from being a purely local issue into a national one with any number of self-important pleading special cases. I'm sure there are a dozen columnists who have already filed their copy in for the dailies.

Roughing up peoples' beliefs is quite different roughing up people. It's a basis of such moral progress as we have experienced over the last few hundred years. Take Mill's critique of beliefs about the immutable inferiority of women. There's probably a role for Blasphemy here in undermining sedimented assumptions about the sacred. Religious adherents have every right to protection against assault or discrimination but not against public ridicule or criticism.

swatantra nandanwar
25 November 2010 at 15:26

Burning the Koran or Bible or Gita or Torah is no big deal. You can always get another one. Burning heretics for their faith is another matter.

Spot on... !

ps the fear of burning to death in an oven is generally much worse than the actual event... unless of course you are wicked,then its infinitely worse.

In living color,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qosn893FTdo

Carwyn James, singing,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEYsHm0KoMA

"Dort, wo man Bücher
Verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen."

("Where they burn books,
They, in the end, also burn people.")

Heinrich Heine was probably right, but by the same token, where a book or a symbol or an idea, be it political or religious or whatever, is rendered unassailable, those feeling themselves identified with it will probably also end up burning people. People who burn books for whatever reason merely betray how deeply the books affect them and how incapable they are of articulating their opposition to ideas; there is surely no real advantage in making martyrs of them in their own minds and those of others who think like them.

The only time I would feel a need to burn a book is if I was told by the government that I couldn't.

Raphael Golb was sentenced to 6 months in prison for blogging and emailing satirical, non-threatening/non-obscene material, using variants of names of known persons (academics). He was convicted of 31 offences, including identity theft and criminal impersonation, despite not having gained anything (he didn't steal someone's credit card/bank details), and despite the fact that no one took his postings as having been genuine.

The entire affair stemmed from a scholarly debate about the Dead Sea Scrolls, and this fellow who was convicted, was merely speaking up in defence of his father, Prof Norman Golb's minority academic views, as should have been his right to do, even if it was done in an unconventional way.

He now appeals the conviction, but the whole affair has been extremely damaging to his professional career as a respected lawyer.

This is the logical outcome of what can happen when authorities take too seriously matters that do not present genuine threats, and which don't involve theft of property or services, but rather, which constitute a part of the mode of discourse of contemporary life.

To read Raphael's account, link to: http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2010/11/113225.shtml

This case is important to British readers because many communications sent from various parts of the world pass through servers located in the US, and so writers could easily be targeted for prosecution and extradited to the US to face trial.

Best regards for you all,

Looking forward to your visiting.

http://www.1shopping.us/

Furthermore, is one not allowed to express ridicule and contempt for a collection of either ot both of:
Bronze-Age goatherders' myths ("bible") or Dark-Ages camelherders' myths ("recital")?
And if not, why not?

This is just a re-introduced blasphemy law, and as such it itself, is worthy only of contempt.

Burning a Koran is clearly not incitement to religious hatred under the law as written, as it only applies to threatening words or behaviour; in fact abuse, ridicule, and expression of dislike of a religion are specifically protected under section 29J.

I do wonder if the video had accompanying threatening words, but it's been removed so it's hard to say.