UK "extremist" gets nine months for thought crime

The Age Of Thought Crime Has Begun

UK : 'Extremist' Poetry Worth Nine Months In Jail

By Darryl Mason

So it's official. Thought crimes in the UK now do exist, and you can receive long jail sentences for committing a thought crime.

This isn't Orwell's 1984. It's worse :

23-year-old former Heathrow shop assistant who called herself the "lyrical terrorist" and scrawled her extremist thoughts on till receipts has been handed a nine-month suspended jail sentence.

Samina Malik became the first woman convicted under new terrorism legislation after writing poems entitled How To Behead and The Living Martyrs.

Malik, described as an "unlikely but committed" Islamic extremist, was last month convicted by an jury at the Old Bailey of a charge under the 2000 Terrorism Act.

She worked at WH Smith at Heathrow, where she scribbled her extremist lyrics on till receipts. On one she wrote: "The desire within me increases every day to go for martyrdom."

But Malik told the jury she only adopted her "lyrical terrorist" nickname because she thought it was "cool" and insisted: "I am not a terrorist."

Malik had tears in her eyes as she left the dock, while her mother wept during the court hearing. The judge said Malik's crime was on the "margins" of the offence of which she was found guilty. He said Malik was of "good character" and from a "supportive and law-abiding family who are appalled by the trouble that you are in".

"The Terrorism Act and the restrictions it imposes on the personal freedom exist to protect this country, its interests here and abroad, its citizens, and those who visit here. Its protection embraces us all. Its restrictions apply to us all, whatever our personal religious or political beliefs."

He told Malik that if she had been convicted of the more serious charge of possessing an article for terrorist purposes - of which the jury cleared her - she would have faced a jail term. But he said, while a custodial sentence was merited, she had already faced "extremely rigorous" bail conditions which were "tantamount to house arrest".

The court heard that she also spent five months in custody after being arrested in October last year. Malik's sentence was suspended for 18 months, with the condition that she be supervised for the whole period and undertake unpaid work.

Some examples of the 'Lyrical Terrorist's poetry :

"For the living martyrs are awakening/ And kuffars [non-believers] world soon to be shaking."

"Let us make jihad/ Move to the front line/ To chop chop head of kuffar swine."

A second poem was called How to Behead. "It's not as messy or as hard as some may think/ It's all about the flow of the wrist," it read.

Another section said: "No doubt that the punk will twitch and scream/ But ignore the donkey's ass/ And continue to slice back and forth/ You'll feel the knife hit the wind and food pipe/ But don't stop/ Continue with all your might."

You don't have to agree with or need to defend the ideas and intent of the poem in question.

Most people would, perhaps rightly, be appalled by the writings of the 'Lyrical Terrorist', but so what? If you're offended by gangsta rap songs about revenge by AK47, do you want the writers to do nine months in jail?

Stating opinions and beliefs that are deemed offensive or against the state are now worth nine months in jail in England. Or in the case of the 'Lyrical Terrorist', five months in custody waiting for trail.

Does thought crime prosecution stop there? With the persecution of stated beliefs and opinions? What happens when the state decides to seize the Letters To The Editor archives of a newspaper and trawl through a decade's worth of unpublished anger to find and charge every letter writer who ever penned words like these : "That bastard Tony Bloody Blair! I could cut his head off!"

Is the work of Shakespeare safe? With his calls for "The first thing we do, is kill all the lawyers..."?

And what about those half-drunk late nights when perhaps someone like you visited a blog or online newspaper, was outraged by what was read, and raged on about revenge and violence and threats of death? Digital archives held by the likes of Google, and data-mining agencies, stretch back six or seven years, or in some cases, much longer.

Could you be tracked down and persecuted for something you don't even remember writing three or four years ago?

This is not about punishing a dangerous person, this is about intimidating the masses and getting people used to the reality that they can be prosecuted for the thoughts in their head, if they dare to put them into written words.

The Age Of Thought Crimes has begun.

Posted by Darryl Mason at 12:59 AM

Labels: lyrical terrorist, thought crimes

2 comments:

Mythy1 said...

It's not a thought crime, she wrote that crap down....anyone that stupid deserves jail.

2:02 AM

Greenwash said...

Mythy1

It's a thought crime. There was no terror plot uncovered. She didn't have weapons or bomb making equipment. The UK terror laws are a shocker. You should read them.

I think she's stupid, too. But did she deserve five months in prison waiting for her trial? No. Did she deserve a nine month suspended sentence and home detention? Fuck no.

It's a bullshit prosecution and every sane person can see that.

3:08 AM