Speaking of “hate speech,” here’s a fun story from a country that has no codified protections of free expression:
The Goldsmiths diversity officer embroiled in a racism row could lose her job after allegedly tweeting with the hashtag “kill all white men”.
Bahar Mustafa, the university union’s welfare and diversity officer, has received death threats as well as a barrage of abuse after asking white people and men not to come to an event about diversifying the curriculum.
She defended her position on camera, telling students ethnic minority women could not be racist as they do not stand to benefit from inequality.
But now some students have started a petition to have her removed from her job.
“The current welfare and diversity officer has used hate speech based on race and gender,” the union petition, which closes on May 26, reads.
“For example, the consistent use of hashtags such as #killallwhitemen and #misandry, and publicly calling someone ‘white trash’ under the official GSU Welfare and Diversity Officer Twitter account.”
The twitter account has since been shut down.
That country, if you hadn’t guessed already, is Britain.
For the record, I couldn’t care less if Mustafa loses her job. That’s between her and Goldsmith’s. Unlike Brendan Eich, the Benham Brothers, and Phil Robertson, what Mustafa said was not irrelevant to her professional position, but closely related to it. If she isn’t what the school wants in a diversity officer, they’re free to get rid of her. No skin off of my nose.
But what about sending her to prison? Is that acceptable? According to the Change.org petition that her critics have put together, the answer is “yes.” Per the petition’s authors:
Bahar Mustafa should be arrested for hate speech and calls for murder using the Goldsmiths University name.
This disgusting little wish is cast over and over and over again within the missive’s text. It appears here:
As a university recognised in the United Kingdom and in receipt of endowment you should recognise that this type of hate speech is unforgivable in terms of hate crime legislation in the United Kingdom.
And here:
In fact, the seriousness of the crime would constitute it being brought forward to the EU & Crown criminal court for inciting racial hate and genocide, this firmly puts Ms Mustafa’s actions beyond a simple vote of no confidence.
And here:
In regards to your own university codes of conduct we refer to the following which face such penalty, and further courses can be taken with regard to hate crime in the eyes of the law if needs be followed.
And here:
Beyond the breaching of the Racial Hatred Act 2006 is Ms Mustafas call to kill all white men, it is in fact white people being attacked in their own streets by radicals, the murder of Lee Rigby as he walked down the road is a fine example of what can happen to someone that is in the wrong place at the wrong time and happened to come across a person that publicly expressed these type of views. Should a student of Goldsmiths University partake in any extra curricular form of hate crime or speech, we will know where it has originated.
And here:
I am not sure if you follow the news at all, but it seems inciting racial hatred on university campuses has become quite a common thing and perhaps the direct involvement of Scotland Yard and GCHQ may be essential, whether it is Ms Mustafa’s attempts to become a martyr of her cause for personal gain and infamy should be looked into but also radicalisation of students at Goldsmiths University.
And here:
With regard to the criminal proceedings to follow with, I prove the following:
Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006
Acts intended to stir up religious hatred
29B Use of words or behaviour or display of written material
Terrorism Act 2006
1 Encouragement of terrorism
(1) This section applies to a statement that is likely to be understood by some or all
of the members of the public to whom it is published as a direct or indirect
encouragement or other inducement to them to the commission, preparation or
instigation of acts of terrorism or Convention offences.
(2) A person commits an offence if—
(a) he publishes a statement to which this section applies or causes another
to publish such a statement; and
(b) at the time he publishes it or causes it to be published, he—
(i) intends members of the public to be directly or indirectly
encouraged or otherwise induced by the statement to commit,
prepare or instigate acts of terrorism or Convention offences.
As of today, almost 15,000 people have signed the petition — a large enough number to enable its author to brag that he has “enough votes to bring it to the attention of the police”:
The salient question here: What sort of culture has Britain come to enjoy? The alarming answer: One in which students feel comfortable shopping their classmates to the police — in the name of “diversity,” natch. The petition’s creator, Andy Keene, writes that he worries “about the future of Britain, free speech and the ability to be whom you are if this is what is being offered through the education system.” I agree wholeheartedly. But the big problem here is him, not Bahar Mustafa. All in all, I daresay that merry old England can survive the on-campus silliness of a few trumped up social justice advocates. But it cannot survive this form of reflexive totalitarian excess. Here we have a young man who has seen a tweet that he dislikes, and who believes that an appropriate response to try to imprison its author. How does one begin to combat that instinct? In a country in which there are laws on the books that indulge such an approach, I’d venture that it’s almost impossible.