YouTuber Who Trained His Girlfriend's Dog To Be A Nazi Facing Hate Crime Charges In Scotland
from the there's-nothing-not-ridiculous-about-that-headline dept
Across the sea in the UK, offensive speech is still getting people jailed. An obnoxious person who trained his girlfriend's dog to perform the Nazi salute and respond excitedly to the phrase "gas the Jews" is looking at possible jail time after posting these exploits to YouTube under the name Count Dankula. According to Scotland resident Markus Meechan, it was the "least cute" thing he could train his girlfriend's dog to do, apparently in response to her constant gushing about the dog's cuteness.
Meechan's video racked up 3 million views on YouTube, but it really didn't start making news until local police started paying attention.
That April, soon after the video was posted, police knocked on Meechan’s door in Coatbridge, a town in North Lanarkshire, Scotland, he told Alex Jones. The officers told him that he was being charged with a hate crime and that the video could be seen as promoting violence against Jews. They told him to change his clothes, took pictures of his apartment and hauled him off to jail.
There's is no doubt the video is offensive. But offended people have plenty of options to counter Meechan's speech with their own. Unfortunately, the 2003 law being used against him has ensured this counterspeech is solely taking the form of testimony against Meechan.
During the trial, Ephraim Borowski, director of the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities, who lost family members during the Holocaust, said the video was “grossly offensive. It stuns me that anyone should think it is a joke," he said, according to The Times.
"My immediate reaction is that there is a clear distinction to be made between an off-hand remark and the amount of effort that is required to train a dog like that. I actually feel sorry for the dog.”
Meechan says he has no hate for Jews and did it solely to annoy his girlfriend. It was recorded, which means it was meant to entertain YouTube users, some of which likely viewed the video as generally supportive of gassing Jews (which may have helpfully aligned with their own views on the subject). But speech can be offensive without being a hate crime, and the general criminalization of offensive subject matter isn't doing much to curb actual racially-motivated criminal activity. All it's really doing is ensuring UK courts receive a steady stream of defendants who've done nothing more dangerous than publicly display their questionable opinions and terrible senses of humor.
The YouTuber is now facing a year in prison because an unfunny prank came to the attention of local police. Prosecutors are busy trying to prove intent, which should be an uphill battle. Meechan has already issued a public apology, as well as a follow-up video further distancing his distasteful prank from any support for anti-Semitism. Nevertheless, prosecutors are alleging the sole reason for the recording was to cause fear and stir up hatred. That really doesn't seem to be the case despite several bigots deciding the video's release meant they should inundate the local Jewish community council with hateful messages.
Laws enforced in this fashion don't instill a greater respect for rule of law or those who craft bad laws with good intentions. Fifteen years have passed since this law took effect and it's certainly hasn't shown much return on investment. Instead of stomping out hate, it's being used to carve holes in speech protections, ensuring the merely offensive will be given the same punishments as those who actually incite hatred and violent acts.
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Filed Under: dog, hate speech, markus meechan, nazi salute, scotland, uk, viral video
Reader Comments
The First Word
“A joke taken way too seriously
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On the plus side
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Springtime for Hitler
More seriously, we need to look at who is pushing this nonsense and why.
This may just be a stupid prank but the idea that is now in the law is that what matters is that someone feels offended rather than whether the speech in question is actually offensive (and by the way it doesn't even seem to matter if the speech is simply reporting a true fact). This seems to be so open to abuse that it makes me wionder who wants to abuse it..
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Re: Springtime for Hitler
It's politicians, who really do believe that if you can stop the speech you solve the problems. Just look at all the attempts and rhetoric about removing terrorist speech from the Internet.
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Re: Re: Springtime for Hitler
It's politicians, who really do believe that if you can stop the speech you solve the problems
I don't think it's as general as that. Censorship is usually put in place to protect a lie. So what are the lies that the politicians want to protect?
By the way - from the links posted later on about this it seems that not only can you be prosecuted for posting something that someone else finds offensive (no matter how irrationally) but you can also be prosecuted for posting something that someone thinks someone else will think is offensive...
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Re: Re: Re: Springtime for Hitler
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After that they can slowly spread the net wider.
First they came for the Nazis....
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Springtime for Hitler
Wendy Cockcroft's Rule #2: Powers created to protect certain groups can and will be abused.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Springtime for Hitler
First they came for the Nazis....
...then they came for the people who even mention nazis.
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A joke taken way too seriously
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Re: A joke taken way too seriously
Any offense is entirely determined by the receiving party.
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Re: Re: A joke taken way too seriously
In Spain you can get fined (or even in jail) for offending God or the King, for example. In fact, there was a recent ruling from the European Court of Human Rights telling off Spain regarding that.
That, of course, if you don't get into jail for being a puppeteer, twitting jokes about Carrero Blanco (though she got free in the end, she had to go through all the ordeal), rapping against the King (3 years in jail, iirc), the police or the government and a lengthy list of cases.
Of course, threaten by radio to shoot a left-wing politician and nothing happens. Even if the reverse done to a right-wing one would get the person doing it in jail in no time.
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No, seriously, it doesn't seem the guy is a bigoted asshole. It should have been taken as the joke it is. Context matters. There are plenty of content out there making fun of Nazi stuff (including Jewish people) and true bigots, I hope they prosecute all. Won't hold my breath though.
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But a bit of an asshole? Definitely.
Deserving of jail time? Only in a totalitarian police state.
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In fact, Every actor and actress who portrayed a Nazi in the series was Jewish in real-life.
The Nazi's did a lot of bad things, but so have many others in human history. If you try to hide History, you're bound to repeat it. I don't really care that this guy did what he did. It's a little in bad taste, but so what. It's a joke. If anything it kind of makes Nazi's the butt of the joke.
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1. Cohen is himself Jewish so he gets an automatic pass that no non-Jew would ever get.
2. A multi-million dollar Hollywood production, no matter how offensive, gets an automatic pass that the typical working-class Youtuber would never get.
Call it High Court/Low Court or whatever else, but that's how the system works.
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A joke taken way too seriously
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Re: A joke taken way too seriously
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-43478925
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/cri me/pug-nazi-salute-youtube-video-owner-guilty-hate-crime-mark-meechan-lanarkshire-a8265301.html
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Re:
, there's a suggestion that he is rather less the "Jack The Lad" he makes himself out to be...
Funnily that's not what I got from your two links - quite the reverse in fact.
I got a telling statement from his solicitor:
Mr Brown said there was no evidence of a complainer in the case, adding Police Scotland was not contacted by anyone who found the video "grossly offensive or menacing. He added that it seems that the police pursued the matter themselves in an attempt to establish their diversity credentials.
I also got a statement of support from Ricky Gervais and a comment that Jewish comedian David Baddiel had also supported the accused.
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Re: Re:
That's my view as well. The UK has itself become a bit of a joke in itself. Take this, a popular, beloved TV show in 1975, the same period where the slightly subversive Monty Python was being aired on one of the other UK's 2 TV channels:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ra96Q4_qlHI
"I was working in this catholic club last night, in Wigan, and I could tell it was a Catholic club because they called the Bingo numbers out in Latin so that the Protestants couldn't win...".
In 1975, quite funny. In 2018, a crime. If you watch the whole thing, try counting the Irish jokes... You'll soon run out of fingers.
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What Meechan did was stupid and obnoxious but jail time? Save it for the banksters. Being a prat shouldn't be a crime.
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Re: Join Neo Nazis
And...where are these neo Nazis you speak of? Do they have some meeting place outside of prisons in America?
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Re: Re: Join Neo Nazis
My general wondering is why it's wrong to teach a dog a Nazi salute, but perfectly okay for people to join Neo-Nazi groups. (At least here in the UK.)
Even Holocaust Denial isn't a crime here.
Would the same thing have happened if had he taught the dog to deny the holocaust?
It's very idiosyncratic.
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I am most interested in if the uk police are going to go after John Cleese and/or Prince Harry who have both dressed up like Nazis.
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Much ado about nothing...
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Wrong Target
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Re: Wrong Target
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Acting like the Nazi's they so hate.
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Minion has FACT wrong: already convicted!
Anyhoo, lesson is: don't teach your nasty little dog nasty little tricks.
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He hasn't been sentenced yet, so it's (presently) incorrect to say he is facing a year in jail.
Also, as a Jewish person, I have to say I found the humor funny and not offensive in the least. I interpreted it as comparing heinous Nazi ideology as something harmless and inoffensive as a pug. It's mocking Nazis.
I long for the days when people stop being offended on the behalf of others of my faith and heritage. I'd be glad to debate Ephraim Borowski on the matter if given the opportunity, but until then I have to chide people to condemn ridiculous, over-the-top humor as hateful.
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Lack of free speech in the UK.
Neil Gaiman has noted on multiple occasions the lack of free speech guarantees in the United Kingdom. He's had to make trips to the United States to acquire and read a number of books The 120 Days of Sodom for instance.
This is something that Parliament has refused to relinquish: the people of Great Britain cannot be trusted to hold their tongues when appropriate. Brits cannot be trusted with dangerous knowledge (such as the process of making explosives). Nor can they be trusted to mind their propriety of letters. So if an official is offended by a new book, it can get banned. If a lord is offended by what you someone says in public, he can be arrested for it. And if a specific bit of literature is too racy / too enigmatic / too political for the Queen, it can be prohibited for publication or for reading.
So criminal charges for teaching a dog to Nazi-salute is actually something that Scots can anticipate.
As Gaiman has noted in the many times he's had run-ins with UK speech control, it isn't necessarily right. Authorities have a lot of say as to what is proper public discussion and what isn't, and as a result many Brits are punished for exercising what would be freedoms in the US. But for now, it is the norm.
Heart and hand for Caesar
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Re: Neil Gaiman
It was Neil Gaiman's nephew who was involved in a groundbreaking Supreme Court fight five years ago to get Scientology recognized as a religion in the UK.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/couple-get-married-in-britains-first-scientology- wedding-9147501.html
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Based on some comments I saw elsewhere by some Scottish people, he allowed a doctor who possessed over 5,000 images of child pornography - which, can actually mean anything these days - to walk free.
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Many doubts
"There's is no doubt the video is offensive."
Speak for yourself. He clearly mocked Hitler and nazism, which was pure hilarity until the state got involved.
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