So, Bahar Mustafa has been charged with RMMC (according to the Guardian)

[Fallow]

As you may or may not recall, Bahar Mustafa was the loony "diversity" officer that segregated at least one "diversity" meeting based on gender/ethnicity.

Well, today the Guardian reports that she has been charged [http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/oct/06/london-woman-charged-over-alleged-killallwhitemen-tweet] with sending threatening communications, and likely two accounts of it, with at least one being described as "racially motivated".

Reactions have not been lacking, and the hashtag #IStandWithBaharMustafa is collating many of them, if you want to get your slacktivism on.

Perhaps surprising to some, Milo Yiannopoulos of Breitbart fame has written something on freedom of speech [http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/10/06/bahar-mustafa-should-never-have-been-arrested-for-tweeting/] in response to this judicial activity, and why it's meaningless unless applied equally to everyone, especially those with which you disagree.


From this I hope we can have a unifying experience, as it looks like an issue where many people that would normally disagree on the topics that are often raised around here would be on the same side of the fence for once.


So, what do you think? Should Bahar be charged?

 

[Thaluikhain]

Hmmm...saying "killallwhitemen" is a crime?

Now, I agree that that isn't something you should go around saying, I don't see that as something you should charge people for. We keep getting people saying we should go kill everyone in country X all the time, and I don't see them being charged with it too often.

Now, losing a job over it, that seems reasonable.

 

[Strazdas]

Im kinda with Milo here. I agree that she should not be arrested for tweeting. Instead i think she should be arrested on racial segregation while performing her duty as diversity officer, which is an actual crime.

 

[RJ 17]

Instead i think she should be arrested on racial segregation while performing her duty as diversity officer, which is an actual crime.

Oh but didn't you know? Women and minorities can't be sexist or racist, so clearly no crime was committed.

/sarcasm

 

[The Lunatic]

I'm kinda torn on the issue.

Whilst, a tweet is a tweet, I certainly don't think people should be arrested for saying things on twitter. Her position of power and use of prejudice against another race certainly carries more with it than just a random person tweeting. Ultimately, given her position, and her actions in an official role, it can't really be boiled down to "She was just saying stuff on twitter", as there was more to it than that.

However, at the same time... It is just some crazy woman saying stupid shit. And whilst I don't think crazy people doing and saying stupid shit should be anywhere near any positions of power, I don't really know if I'd say it's illegal.


So... I guess all I can really say is that, beyond my own opinions, it's perhaps best to just wait and see what comes of the case.

 

[Queen Michael]

Eh. There was no call for her to use the #KillAllWhiteMen hashtag. If she can't do the time, she sholuldn't do the crime. No group should be more okay to threaten to kill than any other.

 

[klaynexas3]

To go with what Milo said, freedom of speech should apply to everyone, even those you disagree with. However, others have been arrested for threatening tweets and social media posts before her. So, the consequences of what you say should also apply to all people, even those you do agree with. In other words, there is a precedence for this that has been set and she should have no special treatment.

 

[Dizchu]

This is the person that said that "women of color" can't be racist or sexist, right?

To be honest it'll take pretty severe consequences for me to feel sorry for her.

 

[EternallyBored]

100% deserve it, whetether it's black, jew, muslim, chinese, etc. even joking about mass murder should not be accepted under any circumstance. She should be punished for it, and no she's not protected by "free speech" at all.

And saying that some people do it and don't go to court is not an actual defence.

In the UK, you're right, she's not protected, in the U.S. However, what she said is considered free speech. The USA has different standards for what's considered actually illegal speech, and to. E considered threatening she would have had to be making imminent threats against a specific target, generic threats about how a specific group needs to die without an immediate call to action are still protected by the first amendment.

I think that's where a lot of the divide in opinion is, by UK standards she broke the law, but by U.S. Standards she isn't even close. It makes an interesting look in to the difference between how two countries view something like freedom of speech.

 

[Ogoid]

So, if I have this straight... the letter of the law is being applied here with no regard to gender and/or ethnicity? Well, then I guess Ms. Mustafa must be positively thrilled; equality is what she's all about, isn't it?

Seriously, though, it's still arresting people for saying stupid things on Twitter. It's dumb at best, an incredibly troubling precedent at worst.

 

[Redd the Sock]

Idealistically, yes, no one deserves arrest for the stupid shit they say online.

More realistically, Given how far some people want to push an anti-harassment agenda, it's generally benifical to have a reminder that "punching up / punching down" or "no bad tactics only bad targets" is not in the law and as such, their own hostility and negativity will come back to bite them if they actually get these measures in place.

If the arrest is just just trying to make that point, more power to it.

 

[Asita]

Doesn't really surprise me. Free Speech is almost always recognized as having limitations. Not the least of these is that it doesn't protect incitement, hate speech, or - since we're talking about the UK here - incitement to ethnic or racial hatred, any of which can at least arguably apply to the tweets, especially in the very literal-minded world we've been living in.

 

[chocolate pickles]

Signed the petition, and couldn't be happier. Hope the piece of shit gets a grumpy judge when it comes to sentencing

 

[Ihateregistering1]

I'm a firm believer in free speech, and so in principle I don't believe that she should be arrested (I don't think anyone should be arrested for saying something unpopular or controversial).

That being said, she did violate the law in her country, and even though I don't agree with the law, as long as it exists it should be applied equally, so I agree with the decision to arrest her.

 

[Casual Shinji]

So wait, the #killallwhitemen is what's considered threatening communications? Enough for her to be charged? I mean, it makes her look like an absolute lunatic, but come on...

Though maybe this is just me being a whitemen, and therefor feeling completely unphased by racial slures directed at me, seeing as being white in the west makes one unvulnerable to such things.

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

I feel like arresting her is a bit too far, and she shouldn't be charged. But I'm not from the UK (US).

Ideally everyone would just stop paying attention to her. People like her thrive on hate and attention. Won't happen though.

 

[Mechamorph]

I believe that freedom of speech is definitely not freedom of consequence. If you break the law by using hate speech, incite violence or defame another person, then you should be charged. End of story.

I hope that the readers from the United States understand that the USA has extraordinarily lax laws regarding public expression. In my country, she would have been in the slammer long ago as her mass communications can easily be construed as an incitement to violence. The United Kingdom also has relatively lax laws about this as well so I doubt that the consequences will amount to little more than a slap on the wrist. Now imagine if she had been saying "kill all Jews" in Germany. She would be in the dock faster than you could blink. If she were in the civilized parts of Asia, she would also find herself in much, much more trouble than if she were in any part of Western Europe. Go ahead, rail publicly about the "Patriarchy" in Japan, South Korea or China, see how far that takes you.