10-Year-Old Muslim Boy Probed For 'Terrorist House' Spelling Error (bbc.com)

AmiMoJo writes: A 10-year-old Muslim boy who mistakenly wrote that he lived in a "terrorist house" during an English lesson at school has been investigated by police. The pupil, who attends a primary school in Lancashire, meant to say he lived in a "terraced house." The boy was interviewed by Lancashire Police at his home the next day, and the family laptop was examined. The 2015 Counter Terrorism and Security Act means that teachers have been legally obliged to report any suspected extremist behavior to police since July. Miqdaad Versi, assistant secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, the UK's largest umbrella group for Islamic associations, said he was aware of dozens of cases similar to that of the schoolboy.

Comments

News for Nerds?

[110010001000]

They should change the slogan to "Half-Story Clickbait to Bring the Foaming-at-the-Mouth People to the Site". Not catchy enough?

Re:News for Nerds?

[jdavidb]

They should change the slogan to "Half-Story Clickbait to Bring the Foaming-at-the-Mouth People to the Site". Not catchy enough?

Nerds are frequently concerned with stories about rights and injustice.

Re:News for Nerds?

[110010001000]

Really? Since when? 5 years ago this story wouldn't even have been submitted to Firehose, much less been posted to the front page. However AmiMoJo has a special relationship, so he can post whatever he wants.

Re:News for Nerds?

[AmiMoJo]

However AmiMoJo has a special relationship, so he can post whatever he wants.

It's true. Years ago I bought a $5 subscription to get rid of the ads on mobile (before adblock was available). There was actually a problem processing it and I felt most embarrassed having to get support involved to process it. Strung that baby out for years.

Ever since then I've enjoyed a special relationship with the /. editors. They grudgingly tolerate my impertinence, and occasional wrath directed at them (especially around the who beta era, when my signature was less than cordial). They know I'm cheap, the kind of bastard who subscribes for $5 once a decade, but they also know I spend more time posting here than working and these days that's becoming a rare thing.

Thing is, I just love the down-votes I get whenever I post some SJW bullshit, so I'm kinda addicted now. Sometimes I travel and get withdrawal because I'm stuck on an aircraft with no internet for 12 hours. Well, I mean they have internet, but I'm too cheap to pay for it.

I used to come here for the insightful commentary and interesting debate, now it's mostly just to annoy MRAs and anti-feminists. I can see you have a rather high ID so are probably a millennial who joined yesterday, but the trick is to learn to let go and not read every single story. Just skip over it if you don't like it, or go to firehose and vote for something else. You could even submit some bullshit of your own, and I'll happily down-vote it and then re-submit a more click-baity, left leaning version myself. Your welcome.

Obligatory xkcd.

Re:News for Nerds?

[Qzukk]

Everything changed that day! Including the flow of time.

I'm not seeing the problem here

[BarbaraHudson]

The kid's background doesn't come into it - if any kid had written that they live in a terrorist house, it would be checked out. This is not a case of profiling, no matter how much the Muslim Council of Britain tries, without actually saying so, that it was targeted at a Muslim.

Re:I'm not seeing the problem here

[AmiMoJo]

if any kid had written that they live in a terrorist house, it would be checked out.

Even if that were the case, it's still outrageous that teachers apparently feel they are required to report obvious spelling errors and that the police feel they are worth investigating. At any point someone could have said "this is stupid, it's clearly a mistake, let's not waste time and money or cause unnecessary grief for this family", but no one had the guts. This is what happens when you create a climate of fear, where if some kid decides to go to Syria because J1hadi2011 told him to his teachers get blamed for not spotting it.

Even worse, where is the judicial oversight? Shouldn't searching the family laptop require some kind of check, especially when it is based on such incredibly flimsy evidence? It seems like if someone outside the school/police had looked at it, there might have been a chance for a sane outcome.

In any case, I really doubt the probability of unfortunate spelling errors being reported to the police is the same for a nice 99% white school in rural Hampshire as for a 99% Muslim school in Birmingham. We need to do a test like those identical CVs with Christian/Muslim names on the top, but with two kids called Dave and Mohammed.

Re:I'm not seeing the problem here

[jabuzz]

The thing is legally the teachers had to report it to the police. Failure to do so could lead to prison.

The other thing is that children are horrible at keeping secrets and will grass even themselves up all the time. Therefore it was appropriate to investigate and the fact that he was from a Muslim household in my view makes it extra worthwhile following up. Now that the Irish terrorist threat has all but gone in the UK, statistically that fact makes it more likely that it was not just a mistake and hence worth investigating.

Imagine his family had disappeared to Syria in a couple of months to join Daesh?

Re:I'm not seeing the problem here

[BarbaraHudson]

They would investigate anyone. The UK has a LONG history of dealing with non-muslim, non-arab terrorists.

2000 1 June: Real IRA bomb on Hammersmith Bridge, London.
2000 20 September: Real IRA fired an RPG-22 at the MI6 HQ in London.
2001 4 March: Real IRA detonated a car bomb outside the BBC's main news centre in London. One London Underground worker suffered deep cuts to his eye from flying glass and some damage was caused to the front of the building.[21] (See 2001 BBC bombing)
2001 16 April: Hendon post office bombed by the Real IRA.
2001 6 May: Real IRA detonated a bomb in a London postal sorting office. One person was injured.
2001 3 August: Real IRA bomb explodes in Ealing, West London, injuring seven people. (See 2001 Ealing bombing)
2001 4 November: Real IRA car bomb in Birmingham.

If you want, you can go back to the beginning of the '70s - just a bunch of white terrorists until July 2005.

Re:I'm not seeing the problem here

[prunus.avium]

...Note that I don't have any learning deficits or other disabilities...

Umm. I hate to be the one to break this to you...

Re:I'm not seeing the problem here

[Anonymous Coward]

They would investigate anyone. The UK has a LONG history of dealing with non-muslim, non-arab terrorists.

2000 1 June: Real IRA bomb on Hammersmith Bridge, London. 2000 20 September: Real IRA fired an RPG-22 at the MI6 HQ in London. 2001 4 March: Real IRA detonated a car bomb outside the BBC's main news centre in London. One London Underground worker suffered deep cuts to his eye from flying glass and some damage was caused to the front of the building.[21] (See 2001 BBC bombing) 2001 16 April: Hendon post office bombed by the Real IRA. 2001 6 May: Real IRA detonated a bomb in a London postal sorting office. One person was injured. 2001 3 August: Real IRA bomb explodes in Ealing, West London, injuring seven people. (See 2001 Ealing bombing) 2001 4 November: Real IRA car bomb in Birmingham.

If you want, you can go back to the beginning of the '70s - just a bunch of white terrorists until July 2005.

OK, so apart from the the Paddies, the Taffs, the Muzzies, animal rights protesters, working class, anarchists, communists, and people from a criminal background; would they have investigated? No. Clear discrimination.

Damn autocorrect

[paiute]

A man received the following text from his neighbor:
I am so sorry Bob. I've been riddled with guilt and I have to confess. I have been helping myself to your wife, day and night whenever you're not around. In fact, probably more than you. I do not get it at home, but that's no excuse. I can no longer live with the guilt and I hope you will accept my sincerest apology and with my promise that it won't ever happen again.
The man, anguished and betrayed, went into his bedroom, grabbed his gun, and without a word, shot his wife and killed her.
A few moments later, a second text came in:
Damn autocorrect! I meant "wifi, not "wife" . . . . .

Officials

[internerdj]

I'm not much of one to sympathize with politicians but I'm pretty certain this is what we sound like to someone in office:
Terrorist attack...
Constituents: "Why didn't you stop all these people from dying? Do something to keep it from happening again."
Does something...
Constituents: "Why are you attacking the freedoms of all these innocent people? You are being racist and evil."
Terrorist attack...
Constituents: "Why didn't you stop all these people from dying? Do something to keep it from happening again."

Fucking hell, the comments here are awful.

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's how you "investigate" the problem. Here's how teachers would have "investigated" things before laws saying that anyone saying something slightly wrong had to be reported to the police.

Teacher: What do you mean by "terrorist" in this sentence?
Boy: Well, the houses are joined together in both sides.
Teacher: Are you sure you're using the right word?
Boy: Um well I'm not sure how to spell it but I thought that was it, I heard it yesterday.
Teacher: Yesterday we used [these words], was it any of these?
Boy: Ohhh! it was "terraced".

Here's how teachers are expected to behave now:

Teacher: A likely spelling error! I MUST CALL THE POLICE OR I CAN GO TO JAIL!

I would not have children in the UK today. I'm terrified by this environment. My father was brought up in a dictatorship, and taught in a school under that same dictatorship, and not even he was supposed to monitor kids like this.