11.01.2007

Prosecution warning to muslims

At the end of last week, a protester against the publication of cartoons mocking Mohammed and islam (the 'Danish cartoons') was found guilty of soliciting murder and incitement to racial hatred at a demonstration held in February last year. He faces a lengthy prison term. Jim Moody reports

No-one ought to object to the prevention of murder, of course. But in the case of Umran Javed, the demonstrator in question, both charges of which he has been found guilty were not justifiable. Indeed, at the demo itself, police refrained from arresting anyone, despite the panoply of law available, which suggests that the level of lawbreaking was not considered to be high at the time or was even non-existent.

What happened on February 3 2006 was that a small demonstration of a few hundred was organised by islamic extremists outside the Danish embassy to protest at the cartoons lampooning the prophet Mohammed that had appeared in the Danish rightwing newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, the previous September. Those present were incensed at what they saw as a direct attack on their faith and themselves - demonstrators carried placards praising the July 2005 London bombers and others which read: "butcher", "slay" or "massacre" those who "insult islam".

When the rightwing press expressed outrage at the lack of arrests, a senior Scotland Yard officer is reported to have lamely replied: "We have to take the overall nature of the protesters into account. If they are overheated and emotional, we don't go in. It's like a risk assessment: you have to look at the crowd you are dealing with. If we went in to arrest one person with a banner, the crowd would turn on us and people would get hurt" (The Daily Telegraph February 7 2006). Only after the campaign launched by the Telegraph and other rightwing newspapers and politicians was video evidence of the demo used to bring a prosecution.

Javed was reported to have said: "You have declared war against Allah and his messenger. You have declared war against the muslim community, for which you will pay a heavy price ... you will pay with your blood. Denmark, you will pay. Denmark, you will pay, you will pay. With your blood, with your blood, with your blood. Bomb, bomb Denmark. Jihad is the path of god. Democracy - hypocrisy. Democracy, go to hell. Denmark, go to hell. Freedom, go to hell. Bomb, bomb Denmark... Bomb, bomb USA" (The Times January 3 2007).

During the trial Javed claimed he had not intended to say anything at the protest until a megaphone was thrust into his hands: "I regret saying these things - they were just soundbites, slogans." It certainly could not be described as a reasoned, well constructed speech. Javed had been carried along with the chants coming from those in front of him, he said. He also claimed that when he shouted, "Bomb, bomb Denmark. Bomb, bomb USA", he did not intend anyone to be harmed. The jury disagreed and he was found guilty on both charges (by a majority verdict on the first count of soliciting murder).

Certainly, the ideas emanating from this particular demonstration were reactionary and intolerant. But, no matter how objectionable the ideas, it is infinitely preferable that we hear them than that they are buried away, where they cannot be countered and defeated, due to the workings of the criminal law. That, though, is not the way of bourgeois 'justice'.

The main purpose of the legal system, and both civil and criminal law, is not to keep us all safe from harm, but to protect the current, property-based order and the privileges of those who uphold and benefit from it. It ensures control over the whole population. Of course, we are clearly not in favour of murderers, rapists or arsonists being on the loose to do as they will; nor can we tolerate concrete, real calls to murder people. But capitalist law is partial, and its blind justice is a myth.

After all, it is not illegal to incite killing if that is justifiable to the British state (and, therefore, in law). Thus, support for its killing machine in Iraq, the British army, is perfectly acceptable; some bourgeois commentators would say, of course, even a patriotic duty. No one is going to be prosecuted for calling for support for all and any killing that the British armed forces may take part in. Nor is it likely that the Telegraph would mount a campaign to jail someone who shouted, 'Bomb, bomb Iran' - that is, after all, what George W Bush is actually contemplating and, if he goes ahead, he will be cheered all the way by the same people who clamoured for prosecutions against the muslim protestors.

As recent court of appeal judgements (eg, R v El-Faisal) have outlined, the offence of soliciting murder (section 4 of the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act) as great scope: "Whosoever shall solicit, encourage, persuade or endeavour to persuade, or shall propose to any person, to murder any other person " shall be guilty of a misdemeanour, and being convicted thereof shall be liable to imprisonment for life."

The Joint Committee on Human Rights notes that the "largest words possible have been used" - if "solicit", "encourage", "persuade" or even "endeavour to persuade" are not enough, then "propose to" - "that is say, make merely a bare proposition, an offer for consideration" - shall be considered sufficient (JCHR Third report: the Terrorism Bill).

How many times have demonstrators called for death to this, that or the other as hyperbole? 'Death to the US imperialists', for example, has been seen as very much on a par with 'Down with US imperialism'. Suddenly it seems that this may very well be interpreted as real encouragement to kill, or soliciting murder according to this successful prosecution. Does 'Death to the exploiters' get interpreted by the upholders of law as a direct, actionable threat to kill individual capitalists? Is it in fact soliciting their murder? Who in the working class movement can feel safe from such prosecutions, when our whole raison d'etre is to call for the death of capitalism? How might that be interpreted?

What of incitement to racial hatred? If calls to bomb Denmark or the USA fall into that category, then so must calls to attack Iran or step up military actions in Iraq, you might think. Not a chance. But this case illustrates the danger of giving the state a free hand to decide what constitutes 'hatred' and 'incitement' and what does not. Sections of the left have joined in calls to 'broaden' the so-called 'race relations' legislation - the Socialist Workers Party actually supports the Racial and Religious Hatred Act, which allegedly was needed to plug a loophole in current legislation - allowing muslims to be protected on an equal basis to Jews or Sikhs, who, unlike the former, are have long been officially viewed as racial groups.

In fact the Racial and Religious Hatred Act has not yet come into force and Javed was found guilty of incitement to racial hatred under pre-existing legislation. If it is racist to verbally attack muslims qua muslims, then it stands to reason that for a muslim to verbally attack non-muslims qua non-muslims is also racist. You cannot have it both ways.

Groups like the SWP have failed to see that such legislation can just as easily be used to whip unruly muslims into line behind the British state. This is what has been done with the criminal prosecution of Javed, who, with his foolish and blood-curdling "soundbites", was an easy target. Just as the SWP and other short-sighted leftists have labelled as 'racist' anti-muslim rhetoric and propaganda, so the British state has been happy to take this argument to its logical conclusion. Perhaps it is not surprising that Socialist Worker has not a word to say about the case in its latest issue (January 13).

What has happened, as was predictable, is that calls for the state to clamp down on religious hatred has rebounded on the minority that it was claimed would benefit from it. This echoes the way that the 1936 Public Order Act was brought in supposedly to counter the then rising fascist threat in Britain, but was in fact only ever used against the left and trade unionists.

Every police action in the arena of politics is itself deeply political. And so it is in this case. Muslims are being told in no uncertain terms because of the Javed prosecution that they had better behave. You may only be expressing exasperation and frustration in the heat of the moment, they are told, but if you step out of line, you too will feel the full weight of the law. The moderate and responsible muslims are those who uphold 'British values' and, for example, only express their disquiet at British actions in the Middle East in the most moderate of terms. Those who are too intransigent in their opposition are condemned as militants and extremists and may now be considered fair game.