'United Patriots Front' Leader Charged With Serious Religious Vilification

[rug]

Three UPF members charged with beheading effigy outside Bendigo council in mosque protest.

13/12/2016 10:01 AM AEDT | Updated 9 hours ago
Josh Butler
Associate Editor, HuffPost Australia

Three members of the far-right group United Patriots Front have been charged with serious religious vilification among four offences stemming from a 2015 protest where they allegedly beheaded a dummy which spurted fake blood, in protest of a mosque being built in Bendigo.

Blair Cottrell, leader of the UPF, said on Facebook that he had been charged with four offences related to "a video which 'incited serious contempt for, revulsion or ridicule of Muslim people'".

Cottrell said the charges were around an incident in October 2015, where members of the UPF went to Bendigo, Victoria, to protest a planned mosque. As part of the demonstration, Cottrell and several other members of the group, including one wearing a Middle Eastern-style headscarf called a keffiyeh, filmed a video outside the Bendigo council building.

United Patriots Front
on Saturday

‪So the Victoria state police have charged me with 4 offences against the law for making a video which 'incited serious contempt for, revulsion or ridicule of Muslim people.'
‬
Do you think we should be able to criticise a religion, it's adherents and practices freely – or should that be a crime?

facebook

http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2016/12/12/united-patriots-front-leader-charged-with-serious-religious-vi/

[guillaumeb]

1. Apparently there is a difference of opinion when defining "criticism".

Recommended.

[nil desperandum]

2. Another reason

to be grateful for free speech rights...

Despicable opinions unfortunately should still be vigorously defended as the ACLU does so very often. Infringements upon the bill of rights here in the US lend credence to the idea that "reasonable" restrictions can, or should, be made by our more enlightened fellow citizens...never realizing how quickly the tide can turn against you and your own "reasonable" restrictions now used against you...

Letting things stand like the Patriot Act or reintroducing a harsher version as our soon to be lunatic in chief advocates is a dangerous path that should concern us all.

Australians may(or may not, I'm somewhat less familiar with their constitutional system) lack those basic protections, and while this individual might indeed be quite reprehensible making speech a crime is a dangerous path for any so-called free society.