was it too much or not enough

[billy]

were the jail sentences handed out to much or too lenient? should the act they committed actually be a crime

from the guardian newspaper. Three men have been jailed after becoming the first to be convicted of stirring up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation for handing out a leaflet calling for gay people to be executed.

Ihjaz Ali, Kabir Ahmed and Razwan Javed gave out the pamphlet, entitled The Death Penalty?, which showed an image of a mannequin hanging from a noose and quoted Islamic texts that said capital punishment was the only way to rid society of homosexuality.

Ali was jailed for two years and Ahmed and Javed for 15 months each.

Following a trial at Derby crown court last month, they were convicted by a jury of distributing threatening written material intending to stir up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation – the first prosecution of its kind since legislation came into force in March 2010.

Two other men, Mehboob Hussain and Umar Javed, who were also charged with the same offence, were found not guilty.

i personally believe we should be able to voice our opinions to each other in conversations. that we should be able to debate our positions via discussion, and that two sides of any coin should be heard. i don't agree that opinions, be they race hate, gender hate or religious hate be forced on us as we walk down the street, nor should it be on bill boards or in public meeting. i think hate crimes are a fact in our society and i do think they are real crimes. i'm not sure two years was right but that they were jailed i think a fair outcome. there should be no room for public displays of hatered to our fellow citizens (black and white, muslim and catholic) as was shown by those who were sent to prison. jmo

[popeye]

I feel they should be deported to a country where that sort of thing is acceptable, but I reckon the threat of that would scare them shitless, bullies are always cowards and can't bear the same treatment that they like to dish out, the loss of freedom and the intolerance of their like minded friends would soon sort them out!

[Erthona]

I think the crime is if they had intent to stir up violence. This is no different than shouting "FIRE" in a movie theater. It endangers the public. Hatred, no matter how repugnant, should not be a crime.

What if I hate Christians because two men who said they were Christians killed my wife, and one day I and a friend are sitting at a open cafe. I begin telling him somewhat loudly that I wish all Christians were dead, because they are just a bunch of murders. A cop overhears me, and I am arrested and sent to jail for five years, while my children are sent to an orphanage.

If the focus of the law is based on hatred towards something/someone then anyone like in the above scene could be charged with a hate crime, given the right circumstances. If the law is based on the idea of public safety being endangered for whatever reason then it would preclude someone just voicing hatred from being charged. Of course one would lose the satisfaction of calling it a "hate crime", which seems to me has gotten all to chic.

Dale

[. . . .]

Give me 5 minutes alone with each one of them. They will never walk the same way again.

[srijantje]

i reckon you can write down anything you want,[it exposes them for the idiots they are]it can be countered with debate or pamphlets ,however when they put the deed to the word,lock'm up and let...... have ago at them