A free speech appeal
June 30th, 2012 at 9:15 am by David FarrarStuff reports:
Comedian Stephen Fry has attended a court hearing to support a British man appealing his conviction over a tweet saying he would blow a snowed-in airport “sky high”.
Paul Chambers, 27, from Doncaster, was convicted in May 2010 of sending a “menacing electronic communication” for a tweet that said: “Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your **** together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!!”
Chambers has attracted the support of several British comedians and he was accompanied by Fry and stand-up comic Al Murray to his High Court appeal on Wednesday.
Fry said the outcome of the case would be “very important” for freedom of speech, the BBC reported.
I agree that it is. We all understand you do not joke about bombs at airports. But joking about them on Twitter is rather different.
“God I hope common sense and natural justice prevail,” he later tweeted.
Chambers was fined NZ$1962 for his tweet, which he wrote when a snowstorm closed the airport and stopped him from flying to Northern Ireland to visit a woman he’d just met.
The Guardian reported the tweet was seen a week later by an off-duty airport worker who passed it on to authorities.
This is the astonishing thing. If the tweet had been seen at the time and taken seriously, I could understand why they might proceed. But they saw it a week later. Massive over-reaction.
The Guardian said Mr Cooper said if jokes were tested in courts, poet John Betjeman may have thought twice about writing “Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough”, adding “and Shakespeare when he said ‘kill all the lawyers’.”
The Lord Judge replied: “That was a good joke in 1600 and it is still a good joke now.”
Sounds like the Judge has a sense of humour, and may let sanity prevail.
Related posts:
- Religions and Free Speech
- Canadian Airports
- More free speech under attack from Immigration Act
- Steyn on free speech
June 30th, 2012 at 9:23 am
Is this what modern life has come to? Petty paranoia.
Vote:I hope the Judge uses wit and discernment, and orders the defendant to an hour’s community service, perhaps distributing Chocolate Bombs at an airport food court.
June 30th, 2012 at 9:51 am
An oldie but a goodie; Thou Shalt Always Kill:
Vote:June 30th, 2012 at 12:57 pm
Why am I not surprised that Fry isn’t defending the ree speech of all the Christians who have been persecuted in that once great Christian realm?
Free speech is to be protected if it comes into the domain of idiots who tweet.
Free speech for me but not for thee.
Vote:June 30th, 2012 at 9:54 pm
>The Guardian said Mr Cooper said if jokes were tested in courts, poet John Betjeman may have thought twice about writing “Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough”,
Logic doesn’t really work.
John Betjeman was presumably already a famous figure, known for light-hearted poems, and the rest of the poem made clear he was saying the place was ugly rather than actually advocating summing up an air force.
If one of these comedians said it as part of their act, people would know they weren’t being serious.
Some idiot no one has heard of says “.. or I’ll blow it up” and someone has to at least verify that he is just a idiot, venting off idly.
Or every wannabe terrorist would be able to post stuff like that and then claim “I was only joking”.
>This is the astonishing thing. If the tweet had been seen at the time and taken seriously, I could understand why they might proceed. But they saw it a week later.
The bloke gave them “a week and a bit”. So had it been a real threat, it was still active.
The airport worker who read it had no way of knowing she wasn’t in danger, unless she knew the guy and that he was just an idiot.
It had to be investigated, to see if WAS a real threat. So it wasted time and resources that could have been put to better use.
The conviction may be steep. A slap on the wrist for wasting time and scaring airport staff would have sufficed.
If free speech is not shouting fire in a crowded theatre, bomb threats in a country where terrorists have targeted airports before is never going to be funny. But the so-called joke seems like more a tantrum to me anyway: snow shut the airport, his flight cancelled, waa, waa, waaa.
Vote: