Slashdot Mirror
Three Years in Prison for Posting Hatespeak
Vainglorious Coward writes "In the UK, a man has been sentenced to three years in prison for posting inflammatory messages to a website. Pleading guilty to inciting racial hatred on a site dedicated to the memory of a murdered black teenager, the 30-year old accused stated that he was not racist, and had intended to stir up an argument on the website, but did not believe in what he had written. The defending lawyer described her client as 'isolated and living in a fantasy world, spending hours on his computer in his room where his persona could be as he made it, good or bad.'"
...they'd start charging all the -1 Trolls on Slashdot. Now that would be progress.
3 years for trolling? Isn't it a bit too much?
The blurb (IDNRTFA) makes it sound like he was posting in a private board. If it was, it'd be easy to just have him banned, and require new users to be approved by a moderator.
The GNAA better watch out. The interweb is getting dangerous...
Eeerk, I didn't realise we had laws like that in the UK... I need to step up my "move to sweden" plan.
He got 6 months of his sentence for child pornography charges.
In the former case, some choose to place their faith in the government and legal system, and draw satisfaction at three years incarceration for ignorant speech, at the risk of social fragmentation.
I think the Amish community would have simply shunned such a foul-mouthed fool, without putting money into lawyer's pockets, or wasting real estate on a prison.
Social progress.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
It sounds like the guy needs help. Trolling is one thing, but trolling on website dedicated to the memory of a recently murdered teenager? Combined with the child pornography aspect, it's very worrying indeed.
So how does locking the guy up help anyone? He may have problems but that doesn't mean he's dangerous now; conversely, if he is dangerous now, then he needs psychiatric help, not prison. In either case prison is not the answer.
as if millions of GNAA trolls screamed out in horror then were thrown in prison...
Monstar L
The defending lawyer described her client as 'isolated and living in a fantasy world, spending hours on his computer in his room where his persona could be as he made it, good or bad.'
How did she know that he read slashdot?
Push Button, Receive Bacon
"Hitler started with an idea, slavery started with an idea, so it is good that this was stopped in time."
*Shudder*
Eerie resemblance to "thoughtcrime"...
Bad submitter, bad!
TFA doesn't say anything about what crime in particular he was jailed for, and his sentence may have been partly or completely due to his having 33 images of child pornography on his computer.
TFA is also very lacking in details, and doesn't say anything about the reason for the search warrant, and the aforementioned lack of explanation for his sentence.
Regardless of what you think of hate speech, once the infrastructure for persecuting people on their thoughts/attitudes/opinions is in place it becomes quite trivial to make it encompass your personal/ideological enemies. All you have to do is redefine "hate."
Anti-government speech --> anti-American speech --> hate.
Anti-religion speech --> hate.
Pro-religion speech --> hate. (look at verse X of book Y! so intolerant!)
. . .
Maybe it would would end up being more specific, or more round about, but what matters is that motivating ideology is now on the table as something that can be legislated for/against.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
It's available in Sweden too, labeled "racial hatred incitement" ("hets mot folkgrupp")...
The UK in recent years has been claiming the right to take away the freedoms of its subjects, despite the fact that it was once on the forefront of individual liberty. First, it banned guns, contradicting at least 400 years of common law, and now it's going after people for free speech. The authoritarians can invent a rationale for their tyranny against the people, but they'll never stop going after one freedom after another.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
There is a crisis as Britain's prisons are full...
Just to make this clear, nobody here goes to jail for saying "nigger". You might lose your job if you'd say it to a colleague, but this would be due to company policy, not because you broke any laws.
Being obnoxious is not the same as "inciting racial hate" which has to go a LOT further than just say the "n-word".
Of course the same way you like your freedom we tend to think there are limits to what you should be able to get away with. The fact is that in Europe there exist political parties whose only reason of existence seems to be to get rid of anyone who is "different". Unfortunately it has been shown that if there are people in the public eye who are allowed to spout dangerous ideas about foreigners and people of other races that there are listeners who feel empowered to do something about it themselves.
So lots of European countries have limits on what you can say in public and most of those limits have to do with assuring the safety of the State and ALL of the people living under its protection.
If you knew anything about the case in question, you wouldn't have any sympathy period.
Anthony Walker was a nice black kid, waiting at a bus stop with a couple of white friends when a bunch of thugs starting shouting racist abuse at them. After they attempted to walk away from the abuse, the thugs chased then down, and murdered Walker by plunging an ice pick into his head.
It was a shockingly brutal and unprovoked attack that shocked the vast majority of people in the country.
Then less than a week after this happens, this guy anonymously posts on a memorial website that white people should celebrate the murder, that Anthony's family should be burned and made references to slavery and a "banana boat".
While I am all for Free Speech, there is a limit when someone starts actually calling for murdering specific persons. According to TFA, the perpetrator posted in response to the killing of Anthony Walker, a black teenager:
That's incitement to murder, hardly a category of protected speech.
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
Is this sort of law universally accepted by people in the UK or is there any sort of sizable opposition to it?
There is no sizeable opposition to any laws ever in the UK.
As long as Brits can get to work without "leaves on the rails delaying the trains" in autumn, and can go out to the pub in the evening or switch on the gogglebox, they couldn't give a toss if they're shafted daily through the ass with a bulldozer.
And that's why we are now living in a police state. Apathy.
I don't know about the UK, but I never heard of any movement in Holland that wanted to get rid of this law.
:-)
I must admit that I have no idea what you'd have to write on a website to get you in that much trouble, but I'm pretty sure that if you'd go around spreading leaflets about how the Holocaust was an okay thing to do and that we should in fact continue to send Jews to their deaths you'd wind up in jail pretty soon and most people would be relieved to have you off the streets.
But of course I'm not The Dutch People so I might be wrong
Huh? Maybe you're just trolling, but I'll try anyway. I'm in fact not trying to stop you from saying anything, but if it hurts, you shouldn't be anonymous. Yes, you can call me an idiot in the subway, but then everyone there sees you do it, as do I. If you do that a lot, people get to know what kind of guy you are, and will ignore you. That's my point: the payback for being a verbal dinkus is that no one will take you seriously. About the 16-year-old: that's physical, and currently illegal. About big brother protecting us from mean people: I'm not saying big brother should stop people from freely speaking garbage to unconsenting minors, etc., but that big brother shouldn't protect your anonymity you if you choose to do it. Basically, there are a lot of people that have suffered systematically from speech acts, like say, women and visible minorities, and for millenia.
Is just one step worse then trying to legislate morals.
.. pretty simple. ( yes, i know , its all about state control of the population, but i dont have to agree with it )
Its my right to hate who ever i want, for any reason i want, AND to tell people about it. You dont like what i say? Then dont read/listen
---- Booth was a patriot ----
We do have a bit of a problem with that in the UK. (This is a general comment, without reference to the particular case under discussion about which I know nothing other than what has been in the news.)
... but we no longer have anywhere else.
Once upon a time people who were unable to lead a normal life in society were locked up in mental hospitals. But we've closed all those and replaced them with "care in the community". This policy, which in fact is implemented as "neglect in the community", has a variety of outcomes for the people concerned.
Some do actually cope with life on the outside (maybe they didn't need to be in the mental hospitals in the first place), with or without any extra support that they are lucky enough to receive. Some don't cope, and end up homeless and living on the streets, maybe dying of drug overdoses or exposure in winter. Some cope fine with keeping themselves alive but end up in prison because their behaviour, which they can't do anything about, is unacceptable to society.
Prison is generally reckoned not to be a suitable place to keep these people locked up, as you say
There was a bit of noise made when the law was changed recently, as previously only racial groups were protected from hate speech, and this was extended to religious groups. The law was basically the government trying to salvage some Muslim votes after the Iraq war, rather than addressing an urgent issue - since we have in the UK a credible third party (the Liberal Democrats), a small swing of votes away from Labour to the Lib Dems as a protest vote can hand the seat away to the Conservatives - this happened at least in the Shipley constituency at the last election - the Tories took the seat from Labour even though the Conservative share of the vote was down.
Back to the main point, the protest was quite high-profile, with several comedians claiming that it could stop them satirising religion (no more Monty Python and The Holy Grail, etc.). As it has happenes, religion is still (currently) satirised and criticised, despite the occasional violent protest.
I'm scared of numbers that can't be written as a fraction. It's an irrational fear.
I may not agree with what you say, but to your death I will defend your right to say it
- Voltaire
A quaint idea in todays world.
In the US if you were thinking the wrong thing at the time you commit a crime, your guilty of a hate crime. In France you can be charged with a crime for selling, and or distributing NAZI items. This UK example isn't unique to that isle. The ideal of free speech is being eroded, and nothing shows that more than the self censorship and reaction to the Mohammad cartoons.
It causes myself to ask questions like -
If we do not shun, or speak out against vile (but currently legal) speech, do we eventually loose the right to hear such speech because the state steps in?
Why are we (as a society) so afraid of words and their potential impact? Are we so imature, violent and framented that speech alone will destroy the cohesion of our societey?
While there are aspects of this case that seem to cry out for some attention, on the face of it, this guy committed a thought crime and is being sent to jail for it.
cluge
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
I'm guessing the limit on the child pornography charge was 6 months so the judge, out of disgust, gave him the maximum on the inciting charge...we see things like that all the time in the states.
Marky Mark Killed Jason Bourne!
While such comments are totally unacceptable, the establishment does seem to be very selective in who they punish. For instance why are the people who made these statments not being locked up. Does political correctness only apply to white anglo-saxon protestants.
"I believe the whole of Britain has become Dar ul-Harb (land of war)," the Syria-born Mohammed said. Therefore, "the kafir (non-believer) has no sanctity for their own life or property," - Omar Bakri Mohammed
was Re:Crap, we have laws like that?
davecb5620@gmail.com
This is what happens when editors don't do their job and actually *edit* the title to reflect what the article is about.
/. community for protecting freedom of speech and thus all the responses are diverted away from the actual topic.
The article says that the offender was charged with speech to incite murder. Not just hate, but calling upon other people to kill the remainding family members. In addition he also was charged with carrying child pornography on his computer.
However, the title tries to incite the deep feelings of the
The UK had hardly any gun control laws prior to about 1920, when the government began to worry about Bolshevik uprisings.
Prior to that, there had actually been a history of private firearm ownership *and legal protection for same*. See an historian's book about UK/US firearm regulation history for details. The Glorious Revolution produced a charter of rights guaranteeing weapons posession (by Protestants only, but that's another issue). This is all well documented but almost forgotten.
(Not to mention that our notions about using force in self-defense come from UK law).
The US may be unusually devoted to free speech, but our reasons come from your own philosopher John Stuart Mill. For one thing, the arguments on the side of good (e.g. cooperation among racial groups) need to be refined and tested against counter-arguments to make sure they will convince people and thus improve society. For another, it's important to know how widespread racism actually is. Driving something underground only gives you the illusion of safety. For another, it's also good speech that can be unpopular. In 1830 you abolished slavery, after decades of abolitionists speaking against the "property rights" of slavers and calling them names. Fortunately the abolitionists were not suppressed for "hate speech".
The US also has a problem that makes regulation of speech dangerous. Some people here are far too quick to label any criticism as being racist. Fallacious scientific research, objections to affirmative action, and references to the Mafia have all drawn allegations of racism. Hernstein and Murray deserve to be exposed as wrong, not to be imprisoned. Affirmative action may not be working the way it's supposed to and that's a subject that needs careful discussion to protect everyone's rights.
It's the people who don't inspire any sympathy that wind up as test cases for free speech.
The issue here is not whether people should sympathize with the troll, it's whether people should imprison him for three years. Of course he's contemptible. That can be different from being criminal.
For every post, there is an equal and opposite re-post.
That's incitement to murder, hardly a category of protected speech.
Just calling for violence doesn't automatically exempt speech from protection - SCOTUS ruled in 1969 that "[f]reedoms of speech and press do not permit a State to forbid advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action."
One can hardly argue that a posting on a web forum is an incitement to imminent lawless action - if he had been speaking at a rally of armed white supremacists who were already whipped into a race-hate frenzy, his ass would be hanging out in the breeze, but in this situation he would be untouched in the US. I doubt there would even be an investigation. One of the few good things left about this country - I don't agree with his beliefs; I find them downright repugnant, but I believe he has every right to express them and certainly don't think he's crossed the line in this case.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
ah, but that's what the purpose of a metamod system is. If an individual truly IS a fanatic with an agenda, he/she will find themselves unable to moderate for much longer. Plus, if mods are browsing at -1 as they should be insightful comments unfairly modded down should be modded back up in short order.
These weren't "hurtful" in the sense of hurting their self esteem, but in the sense of threatening to kill them. Since their son had actually been killed by racist thugs, this wasn't something that could be ignored.
See also Red Herring.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
"they have no First Amendment in the UK"
Why the heck would the United Kingdom need a First Amendment of the Constitution for the United States of America?
FatPhil
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
That damn Dubya! Always taking away the freedoms of Americans that us Europeans enj--
Oh, wait...
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
The issue is not that his posts were appalling or offensive. The problem is that what he said was a real threat. This was even bigger than a death threat. This was posting a public notice calling all racists, telling them that the boy's death should be celebrated, and that they should murder the rest of the family. There was already a group crazy enough to stab the boy through the head for no reason, are you saying that there's no chance a group is watching this and wanting to make a public statement about "how they feel about black people" or whatever it is they want to say?
Bringing free-speech into this is the same as saying "he just happened to say out loud that he'll pay such and such an amount to anyone who kills this certain person" and a hitman just happened to be in the room. Even in that case it could be partly forgiven if it was found that the person honestly didn't mean it and was speaking out of anger or frustration or whatever. But you don't make national, even global announcements by accident. You clearly knew what you were doing and it took too much thought to be a passing moment of jest. This racist prat deserved everything he got. In fact, he probably deserved attempted murder rather than just incitement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killing_Fields
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Purge
I fully believe that 6 million Jews died during the Holocaust. However it seems that a lot of people want to deny genocide occurred under Communist rule. When you take both the actions of the Communists and the actions of the National Socialists into perspective, you come to the realization that the type of government not the beliefs of the government are responsible. Socialism is the belief that everyone would live in an egalitarian and peaceful world if there were not a small group of people who were conspiring to keep control. The Nazis believed that it was a race who were responsible and most Socialists are racially neutral. But the results are the same.
You can't ban Socialist speech. If someone wants universal health care or the right to form a union, you can't throw them in jail. Yet we all have to acknowledge that if Socialists were to gain absolute power, they are capable of genocide. Just as a racist with absolute power would be capable of genocide. The key is to prevent anyone from gaining absolute power.
Genocide requires that a government has complete control. It requires that it cannot be stopped by courts, demonstrations or free public speech. One of the key elements of any totalitarian society is the idea that no one can speak freely. All speech is government approved. To have free speech in a society is to undermine totalitarianism.
Would reading Huckleberry Finn also be a crime in Britain since it contains the N word and an aborted lynching scene?
Reading a book with the word "nigger" in it (oh GROW UP already, it's just a damn word), is nowhere, not anywhere, not even close to being near what that jerk did. That jerk went on a board set up in support of a guy that was murdered and he claimed it was great, and the the victims' family ought to be murdered too.
I'm pretty sure the point of the aborted lynching scene is NOT that all niggers must burn, and that you wouldn't make anyone genuinly feel threatened for their safety by reading your book.
You can't take the sky from me...
I heavily favor egalitarian ideals, but I'm sorry: Racism is a manner of thinking, an attitude. Tyrrany has its seeds in the idea that citizens' attitudes qualify as "problems" that the state needs to solve via criminilazition. The ideal of tolerance can be elevated in ways that are less threatening to a free society. China can call anything that glorifies democracy "incitement to violence" if you allow enough indirection in the definition of the crime.
Incitement to violence is a legitimate thing to criminalize, but the ideal of a free society isn't compatible with loose construals thereof as was done here. A necessary (but not necessarily sufficient) test for guilt on this charge should be that violence was actually incited.
All manner of horrors are committed by states in the name of "protecting the public," so we can't just say "well this instance may be a bit extreme, but we can all agree that the public needs to be protected," and by extension agree that the basic concept of outlawing hate speech is valid and only the implementation is left to quibble about. The concept is not valid, and the justifcation for it is more insidious than that which it purports to protect society from.
Pi Ran Out
Exactly. If you don't want contact with racial abuse, you shouldn't browse sites that you consider racist. Words that may sound reasonable to some people will sound hateful to others. The problem with all "hate speech" laws is where to draw the line. Would you call Josef Ratzinger, a.k.a. "Benedict XVI", a racist? Many people in the Middle East would.
OTOH, if there exists a critical mass of racists in a society, then the problem is real and it's a problem of the *community*, not of a dissenting voice. Racism is not a problem if there are only a few maladjusted people who are racists.
Unfortunately, it's never the big leaders, the ones who have a real following, the Ratzingers and Ahmadinejads, who get jailed for "hate speech". Get a dozen followers and you'll go to jail, get a dozen million followers and you can say anything at all. The true crime is never "hate" speech, it's *minority* speech.
For example I don't think that "overrated" gets meta modded. At least I don't recall seeing it in there. That also, perhaps not coincidentally, is what my posts tend to get moderated most often when they go against the groupthink on Slashdot. I like Windows so I make posts that are unpopular from time to time. So I'll find a post getting moderated up insightful or informative, and down as overrated. Only happens to the posts that go against the groupthink, when I make one propping up OSS, or some that simply deals with another topic I never find it happening.
Basically people are modding it down since they disagree with what I'm saying, and I don't think meta moderation catches them.
Even if it does, that's no guarantee, again because of the whole groupthink thing. If a bunch of metamods decide that they don't like what I said and give props to the overrated mod then nothing happens (supposing it even shows up).
The system isn't bad, but it still has the problem that the quality of moderators is checked by other moderators.
Well, the obvious difference in this case and Ratzinger's is the forum, or the function of the expression. Ratzinger wasn't speaking to Muslims to hurt them, he was speaking to a different group of people, and clearly quoting as an example (here's a translated excerpt). When a bunch of Muslims are offended by it, it's because they are manipulated, not because the Pope himself hurled abuse at them.
I agree with you that there is a problem to where to put the line as to what can be said, and that's why I don't want a semantic limit to freedom of speech. I want to consider it functionally: You should be free to express any idea you want to, but not to harm people (you already have that 'shouting fire in the theater' rule). As someone who's taken his nick from South Park, I obviously don't consider this line as where something is merely offensive.
This is a copy of a post I made some time ago, but still is worth mentionning because it directly relates to free speech, of which, you will notice, I am a stark proponent in the finest (cough) libertarian sense :
;-)
Well, this may be a bit off topic, but what the heck. I've just been out with some friends, and, as always when we get moderately drunk, we talked about politics, religion, philosophy etc. (when we are real drunk or when no babes are present, we usually talk about sex
Well, anyhow, being all european, and all friends (birds of a feather) we fully agreed on a lot of topics. Israel, Iraq, USA, etc...opinions didn't differ much there. But then it came to a typical european concept of free speech, which, I presume, may strike USA-citizens as a bit weird. While, seen at large, we have the same concept of free speech as in the USA, this opinion, curiously, always seem to shift to a more restricted idea of free speech when it concerns things as racism. In this respect (one of the few, I might add), I think the usa concept of it is much more honest and fair. This has undoubtably to do with our historic heritage, notably WWII.
I was argumenting that revisionistic books, as an expression of an opinion, should be allowed. Thus, not agreeing with the law(s) in most euro-countries, where such books are forbidden. To my astonishment, many of my friends agreed with this censorship, however. This is something I do not understand; you CAN NOT claim to be for free speech and expression of opinion, and then say "exept when it's *that* opinion". Allowing free speech only if you agree with it, but forbid it when you totally disagree with it, is not allowing free speech at all. I've tried to argument it, but it just didn't seem to get through to them; they started with the premise that it's wrong, and therefor it should be forbidden, whatever. The fact that this leads to hypocrytical contradictions was something they ignored too. One said: 'it's a fact, and thus it shouldn't be disputed' another said 'it hurts the jews'...but, are that, on itself, enough reasons to forbid an opinion? Is there a 'fact' so absolute, it can't be disputed? Can't anyone feel hurt be an opinion of another dude, and should we thus, forbid everything that someone claims is hurting their feelings?
These arguments do not make any sense, and what's more, to forbid an opinion is EXACTLY what ultra-right wing or despotic governments would do with the opinions that my friends (and I myself) hold dear; that of being non-racist, etc. The difference is, they start with the presumtion that they (the idea they have about it) are right, and thus oposing views can be forbidden, while I think people are allowed to have racist opinions, even when I totally disagree with them... After all, that is EXACTLY what a dictator (or ultra-right-winged-government) would do, if he ever got the power: claim something is a 'fact' and forbid oposing views. The REAL difference, thus, between a democracy and a dictatorship is that that the one alows (or should allow) diffirent opinions, while the other does not. Thus, in conclusion, this is a treat, not of democraccy, but of a dictatorship, and unworthy to be used in a democracy, IMHO. It also shows that laws are not always justified, and, again IMHO, should not ALWAYS be regarded as an absolutism, something that should be followed blindly. (Of course, it happens to be my opinion that revisionists are telling crap too, but the point is I think they have a right to express that opinion).
I got a bit worked up about it, really, because, after all, it restricts other people, because of the mere opinion of others, who think they have the right to forbid it (and have the power - which is the dangerous part, because; what if the power shifts?). Why am I writing all this? Well, because it made it clear to me again, why I'm doing all this trouble for a project such as Freenet. Sometimes, with all the tech babble and the problems and all that, I ask myself why I'm doing all this. And I gues
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
With exemption for the smaller local fish, such as mayors, etc, I - nor anyone in my social circle - have never personally had dinner with, shook hands with, met, or otherwise associated with somebody whom is or has been in the upper balances of government. Moreover, if I had, said person would be very unlikely to have had any time for me.
Why? Because I'm not rich, famous, influential. I am a normal citizen, possibly about average financially for my age, but by no means wealthy nor powerful. Don't kid yourself that I am other common folk are on the same scale as most politicians in this manner, as most come from wealthy or otherwise heavily influencial and/or powerful families.
The last time I heard of a more common man in government in this continent, it was after the people rose up and overthrew the existing government.
As for making an example of somebody, believe it or not but that is part of what the criminal system does. Not everyone gets a speeding ticket, not everyone gets a prison sentence, but the possibility that one might is supposed to be part of the dissuasive factor in the system. No, jailtime might not make this individual a better person, in fact I'd side with "probably won't", but it may dissuade others with similar notions.
Thoughtcrime is in your head. The premise was that cops with brain-scanners could read your mind as you thought seditious thought. This was out-load-and-person, in a public forum dedicated to the victim, calling for further violence against his family. I couldn't say yes or no as to whether the idiot who posted it was kooky enough to try something, or gather others, but I could see people such as KKK members and other gathering to this call.
When somebody is stuffed in jail for thinking - just thinking - of something, then it will be thoughtcrime. When he's arrested for mentioning it to a friend or two, that's still a step beyond. When he posts on a FUCKING FORUM, visible to the world, and setup by the family's victim, it is not thoughtcrime. When the posting calls for violence against the family, it's can go beyond even hatespeak into the areas of conspiracy to commit murder (not used). You don't know if that's what the guy intended, I don't know, but personally I'm pretty damn happy that they slammed him before he ended up on front page news for following it through.
3 years, there's a criminal system and that's the punishment it decided on. Maybe you can judge on that. If you think what the guy did, threatening the family in an area dedicated to the victim - akin doing the same at a funeral - is something he, or anyone else should be allowed to do, then I'd say the world outcome is no better than Orwell's. In fact, with the increasing amount of people desensitized to this sort of things, that's likely exactly you'll get.
Regardless, it's not fucking thought-crime, at least not in the oft-quoted Orwell variety.
Now some bastard may mod me down because I dropped an F-bomb too many times, but perhaps those who keep using the same b.s. cliches will at least learn WHEN they apply.
Britain's got a serious problem with Muslim whack jobs trying to take over the country.
Only according to white-supremacist whack-jobs.
Most of the Muslims I've known have just wanted to keep their heads down, work hard, and contribute to our society as much as they can without being targeted by racist mobs. If any of them are planning to lead a bloody jihad across the nation, they haven't shown much inclination yet.
If they applied that standard to everyine, all the "kill the infidel" crap that gets posted to UK Muslim web sites would be prosecuted too.
Uh, Abu Hamza got 7 years, remember? Radical Muslims are being prosecuted too. Hate speech is illegal regardless of what community you belong to, and Muslims aren't getting special treatment, whatever the racists might desire.
As for the smug Americans sneering that we don't have proper freedom because we have chosen to outlaw certain forms of speech, I'll accept criticism on issues of freedom from Americans when they clean up their own act. Is three years in jail for hate speech really worse than life in jail for petty theft?