To think Christian fundamentalists that preach Allah is the devil should be charged

[PosieParker]

with a crime of some description?
I watched these people describe 'proper' muslims as violent and hate filled. Nothing in the news at all, it disgusts me,. One was even saying there will be a civil war in the UK because of muslims living here.
Are they entitled to that opinion or are they just ridiculous people that should be ignored???

they could be charged with the new "enticement to racial hatred" or whatever it is.

Eek! Where did you hear this? Who was it?

Any fundamentalism should be treated with contempt... usually just xenophobia in another disguise...

Is this about the television programme from last night, Posie?

Um, no.

As long as they are not expressly inciting violence, they are allowed to express such an opinion.

Yes, they could be charged with an offence under either or the Public Order Act 1986 or (more likely) the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 both of which make deliberately provoking hatred of a racial group or making inflammatory public speeches an offence. There is no need to expressly incite violence per se (although it tends to go hand in hand in most cases).

The difficulty, as always in these cases, is balancing an offence under these acts with the right to freedom of expression enshrined in the European Convention of Human Rights and subsequently the Human Rights Act 1998. Typically, the judiciary seems to err on the side of freedom of expression unless, as expat says, the language is particularly inflammatory or specifically incites violence.

Humphrey, yes I only saw bits of it. I found the people both stupid and frightening!!

I suspect that tboth the producer and the publisher will have passed it by their lawyers before broadcast.

If someone says something stupid, the correct response is to debate with them and demonstrate that their belief or statement is untrue. Not to run for the police.

I think they didn't just say it but preached it. I just wonder how it would have been treated if they had said it about another religion, or if muslims had said it about Jewish people, for example.

It just shows how ignorant they are!

Well, when you consider the origins of Islam, its the same God, so if I were them I'd be more worried about how they were going to explain it to "Him upstairs"!

I watched that (dispatches) programme last night and i was shocked that people could have such narrow veiws of the soceity (sp)and the world.

I was more shocked by the school which taught from the bible and all science was wrong for example for world is only 6000 years old and not millions, let alone telling 5/6year old that they would go to and burn in hell also if they lied that they would turn into a pillar of salt.

According to the people in the programme last night that unless you are born again then everything you believe in is against god.

Allah is a false prophet and their god is the only real god according to them.

Meh... fundamentalists.

The key point with fundamentalists is that the loud frothy ones aren't the problem. There was an old guy who would stand in my old uni with a sandwich board proclaiming that "sodomisers and fornicators will burn in hell". And no-one took the slightest bit of notice because he was weird, hairy, smelled bad, and was clearly out of his mind.

It's the non-frothy ones who will keep their beliefs either private or watered down, and attempt to gain power, and influence, and seek to push their agenda through more stealthy means. They need to be exposed and resisted.

Being a fucknut and screaming at crying children is nature's way of telling us "These people are fucknuts. Stay away!"

It's the hypocrisy of it all, just because they weren't hijab or black beard supporting religious types they are no less damaging to our society.

Clarify, I mean as fundamentalists not that muslims are damaging.... phew.

I think this country is a tolerant country because we can speak our minds. In countries like China there isn't the same freedom of speech and people just disappear because of their beliefs.

I am always deeply saddened when people hear something, however unpleasant then say that the person should be criminalised for having an opinion.

I watched the programme, there were quite extreme views, the programme makers were in part mocking these people for their views in a way that I doubt they would have done had they been muslim extremists.

However painful it is surely it is better to hear and debate rather than stifle and further enrage?

yeah, I'm a dangerous fundamentalist (well, actually, just a mentalist, most of the time) and I'm always amused by the frothing hysteria that carefully edited programmes like this can elicit.

FWIW, I wouldn't have gone to the church (far more liberal than me, ta very much) and I thought that a lot of them gave an appalling witness and were very theologically squicked up.

But, by 'eck, since when does one religion believing another religion is in error amount to a crime in a secular free society?

they are both entitled to that opinion and are ridiculous people who should be ignored