This letter is also being sent by post to the recipient. The involvement in the Dankula case by a group called the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities worries me. This group should not have got involved in a case that was so controversial, one which has such wide implications for freedom of speech in Scotland. This was a blatantly political case where the Scottish political Establishment has behaved in a monstrously authoritarian manner. I believe that the involvement of this Jewish community group in assisting the State to prosecute Count Dankula was unwise and will cause all manner of troubles for them and for us all.
To: Ephraim Borowski From: Joshua Le Trumpet
The Scottish Council of Jewish Communities Editor, Fahrenheit211 Blog
Glasgow Email: editor(at)fahrenheit211.net
An open letter to Ephraim Borowski – This letter has also been published online
Dear Mr Borowski
I am a British non-Orthodox Jew of a somewhat conservative/libertarian political persuasion, who writes on issues surrounding religion, culture and politics from a location ‘somewhere in England’ via social media and among other places, a site called Fahrenheit211. In particular I write about the cultural, political and legal idiocies that certain government policies, such as multiculturalism, have caused for Britons of all backgrounds and belief systems.
I have been following the trial of Count Dankula (Mark Meechan ) with some interest as this case and the perverse and unjust guilty verdict in it, impacts on matters of freedom of speech and freedom of expression to a significant degree. I have also been observing the involvement of your group, The Scottish Council of Jewish Communities (SCJC), with some alarm and latterly with a considerable amount of disgust.
The involvement of your organisation, and in particular your own personal involvement in this case, is I’m afraid, not doing your group, or the Jewish community in Britain as a whole, very many favours. I consider that the part that you and your organisation have played in the proceedings has helped to bring the British Jewish community into disrepute.
The actions of your organisation in connection with the Dankula trial are also ironically, more likely to increase the level of anti-Semitic attitudes out there rather than reduce them. I believe, from reading your report on the Airdre case of Count Dankula, that you are already experiencing some significant degree of backlash from members of the public. I also know from various social media platforms that there are Jews from Britain, America, Israel and elsewhere, who are as appalled as I am at the involvement of a Jewish organisation in the suppression of free speech just before Pesach.
By focusing your attentions on the Count Dankula video, a video that was most definitely and plainly made in a comedic context, and playing a part in bringing about a situation where this man could lose his liberty, you have given a false impression of the Jewish community. The actions of both yourself and your organisation have given the impression that we Jews are thin-skinned, whiny, humourless and more than willing to act as police informers. I understand that you deny that this is the case regarding the police complaint, but I’m afraid that is the impression that some people out there have erroneously got.
Your actions and /or association with this case may well be giving these negative impressions to non-Jews, in particular to those who have never encountered a Jew in real life. Being the ‘only Jew in the village’ I know acutely what it is like to be surrounded by people whose scant knowledge of Judaism can be roughly summed up as ‘Holocaust-Weird food-Killed Jesus’ and although my locale is quite safe, it is, how shall I say, a very long walk to shul. Being the only person in the pub who says ‘shehakol’ over a beer makes me very aware about how much of minority I’m in, and it is one reason why I am concerned at your group’s contribution to this case and what it could mean. There is a growing and justifiable anger that is building over the Count Dankula case and your group has, admittedly to a less serious extent than Police Scotland has done, contributed to this anger. Quite frankly I, and many others in my position, can probably do without the hassle that may well occur from people seeing a Jewish group planting themselves firmly on the side of censorship and drawing adverse and erroneous conclusions from this image.
This Jew believes in free speech, even for my enemies. I want to know where the people who hate me are, what they’re saying and who they are saying it to; that way I can fight this enemy. Silencing people, even people who make highly or grossly offensive statements, doesn’t make the problem of hateful thoughts go away, it just hides them so that they cannot be mocked, countered or disproved. You cannot legislate against an emotion like hatred and it is highly dangerous for any society to try to do so, since the only way that ‘hatred’ can be controlled by legislative means is by authoritarianism. The Scottish Council of Jewish Communities does not, may I make it very plain, represent either myself or my views. This Jew believes in freedom.
Whilst I understand that your organisation did not report this case to the police, nor call for Count Dankula to be gaoled, your organisation has had some involvement in it and therefore your organisation needs to accept some of the blame for the position that Count Dankula finds himself in. The public opprobrium that you and your organisation now find yourselves in, is also mostly as a result of your decision to become involved in this case.
You and your organisation could and should have stayed neutral in all this and that, to be quite frank, may have been the better and more sensible path. For example, if you had refused to become involved in the prosecution by giving evidence, then you would have kept the Scottish and British Jewish communities well away from what has become an international cause celebre and not just among the ‘extreme right’, but among people of more moderate political persuasions including myself. It may even have been better, not just for you, but for all of us Jews who value freedom for everybody, had you done the right thing and risked arrest by refusing the witness citation from the Procurator Fiscal. That way you would have kept the Jewish community out of a very contentious court case and shown that you are a person who respects the concept of freedom. As you well know, we will shortly be celebrating, at Pesach, the gaining of the freedom of the House of Israel from their cruel enslavement by the Egyptians. Because of this, there is a bitter irony in seeing a Jewish group being mentioned in so close a connection to a trial that could result in the removal of freedom from a man merely for making a sick joke.
Like you, Mr Borowski, I found the video ‘M8 yur Dugs a Nazi’ not to my taste. I must at this point concede that the video could have given offence to some individuals, but ‘offence’ should never be used as an excuse, either to silence people or end up with them being criminalised or potentially losing their liberty. This is because the matter of ‘offence’ is so subjective and often so very personal and unique to the individual who is offended, that it is a very bad guide to make legal and especially criminal law decisions on.
I take issue as well with your group’s claim that this is a ‘fire in a crowded theatre’ case. It is not. There was no credible malice towards Jews or anybody else in Count Dankula’s video and there was definitely no realistic incitement to violence against Jews, just the repetition of the admittedly tasteless slogan ‘gas the Jews’. As regards your organisation’s comments about the Holocaust Denial and anti-semitism that appeared in the comments below the video ‘M8 yur Dugs a Nazi’, this is not anything that Count Dankula is responsible for. He is not responsible for the words of others not one little bit, only those who speak or write those words are responsible for them. Do I find such comments as are flung out by Jew-haters offensive and hurtful? Well of course I do, I would not be human if I did not find such sentiments hateful and offensive. But I accept the sometimes abhorrent views of others, because I wish also to have the right to speak on matters that concern me without hindrance. Basically if one person is censored then we are all censored.
Your organisation’s involvement and association with this highly contentious trial, one with massive implications for the issue of freedom of speech, has been a complete and utter shambles. It has also been notably counterproductive. The association that has been made with this case and the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities has turned your organisation into a object of public mockery. You have helped to stir up a hornets’ nest that has brought every lunatic ‘Rothschild’ conspiracy theorist out of the woodwork (as I understand your group is currently experiencing) and given the impression that mainstream Jews are favourable to the idea of authoritarian free speech bans.
Your organisation has created a massive shanda fur de goyim, a gigantic scandal in front of the majority non-Jewish community. I feel personally ashamed of your group’s association with this case. You’ve helped to make many innocent people, people who are equally respectful of the idea of freedom as I am, look very bad indeed.
To conclude: This partially self-inflicted boil that the SCJC has grown upon itself because of this case, needs most urgently to be lanced. May I suggest some courses of action that may protect the SCJC and also walk back the impression that has been given that Jews are against freedom of speech.
Firstly you could consider whether you should resign your position as a Director of the SCJC. You’ve been the public face of SCJC’s involvement in the Dankula case and because of that maybe your departure will bring some credibility back to the SCJC, credibility that this case has helped it to lose. Secondly it would be helpful if SCJC could put out a statement supportive of the concept of free speech and against the restrictions on this freedom that various ‘hate speech’ laws bring.
By taking these two steps, this sorry and increasingly tense situation could be ended and any erroneous impression that people may have got over the issue of Jews and free speech could be corrected. It is never a good policy, as your organisation has done, to align the Jewish community with authoritarian movements or policies such as the restriction of free speech. We who benefit from freedom should not be in the business of shutting down the freedom of others. You need to rescue the image of your organisation and remove the false impression, an impression that you have helped in your own small way to give, that Jews are against free speech, and you need to do this soon.
Sir, I await your reply to this letter either by email or via the comments section of the blog.
Yours Sincerely
Joshua Le Trumpet
Editor Fahrenheit211
I do not see UK hate-crime concept and law as inherently problematic in their existence, rather that there have been some serious miscarriages of application. The prosecution of Mark Meechan (whose YouTube video “M8 Yer Dugs a Nazi” (trans: “Mate, Your Dog’s a Nazi”) with his girlfriend’s pug, drew others’ Jew-hating comments online) is an example.
Mr Meechan obviously finds Nazism abhorrent but his joke, which was not to be taken literally, was prosecuted literally, on top of which the court decided to ignore context. Found guilty of communicating a “grossly offensive video” under Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003, Mr Meechan is awaiting sentence. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqf1pr36OCg (23:56); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAopshGFYNo (8:27))
I think there is a case for ‘hate-speech laws’ but this was not one of them. The Scottish Court’s decision to ignore context in Mr Meechan’s trial seems to fly in the face not only of justice but also of the intentions of our legal system! Here is some relevant material by the Crown Prosecution Service (https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/social-media-guidelines-prosecuting-cases-involving-communications-sent-social-media). I would draw attention to the section on the case of Chambers v DPP [2012], where “the Lord Chief Justice made it clear that:
“‘Satirical, or iconoclastic, or rude comment, the expression of unpopular or unfashionable opinion about serious or trivial matters, banter or humour, even if distasteful to some or painful to those subjected to it should and no doubt will continue at their customary level, quite undiminished by [section 127 of the Communications Act 2003].’
“Prosecutors are reminded that what is prohibited under section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988 and section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 is the sending of a communication that is grossly offensive. A communication sent has to be more than simply offensive to be contrary to the criminal law. Just because the content expressed in the communication is in bad taste, controversial or unpopular, and may cause offence to individuals or a specific community, this is not in itself sufficient reason to engage the criminal law. As Lord Bingham made clear in DPP v Collins:
“• ‘There can be no yardstick of gross offensiveness otherwise than by the application of reasonably enlightened, but not perfectionist, contemporary standards to the particular message sent in its particular context. The test is whether a message is couched in terms liable to cause gross offence to those to whom it relates.’
“• ‘The Justices must apply the standards of an open and just multi-racial society’.
“• ‘The question is whether … [the defendant] used language which is beyond the pale of what is tolerable in our society’.
“• ‘[Is there anything] in the content or tenor of [the] messages to soften or mitigate the effect of [the] language in any way’?”
…And…
“[P]rosecutors should only proceed with cases under section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988 and section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 where they are satisfied there is sufficient evidence that the communication in question is more than:
“• Offensive, shocking or disturbing; or
“• Satirical, iconoclastic or rude comment; or
“• The expression of unpopular or unfashionable opinion about serious or trivial matters, or banter or humour, even if distasteful to some or painful to those subjected to it.”
Just a week earlier there was the case of Lauren Southern being banned from the UK for having previously been “involved in the distribution of racist material in Luton”. “Racism” is defined in UK as referring “to less favourable treatment on grounds of colour, race, or ethnic or national origins”. The utter madness of describing her pamphlets as “racist” beggars belief! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxjH5hZYTbQ&t=46s (6:56))
Just before that was banning entry to Martin Sellner and Brittany Pettibone. From what I can make out, Generation Identity (GI, of which Mr Sellner was a co-founder) sprang up as a non-violent resistance group in the face of Islamisation and the impact of globalist open-borders policies on local populations. Their website states “Generation Identity does not provide a platform for any kind of national-socialist [NAZI] or fascist groups or views”. Pressed to give himself an ‘identity’, in video-interview Martin Sellner has described himself as “ethnopluralist” and described GI as wanting to “preserve a national identity but in a way that is not chauvinistic; in a way that is not considering others inferior or that you need to exterminate them. We want to preserve our ethnocultural traditions but not at the cost and expense of others…We, for example, reject the old racist chauvinistic ideologies that are very often linked to the demand to preserve our own culture and identity…This buzzword ‘white supremacy’ and ‘supremacist’ that is floating around all the time”, people are afraid of it, and I think that it’s very, very important for us internally, but also externally and I think authentically, make a big division-line between preserving our identity, our borders and our traditional ethnocultural heritage, and having a supremacist, universalistic, new conservative basically, globalistic ideology that wants to unite and dominate the whole world.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIZ3DVozFv8 (31:05))
I have not seen copy of his official Home Office “Notice of refusal of leave to enter” but Generation Identity is referred to as a “right wing organisation” in that of Brittany Pettibone (perversely UK mainstream media have referred to Martin Sellner as “far right” and Reuters has smeared him as a “white supremacist”). Ms Pettibone’s notice remarks that she was seeking to interview Tommy Robinson, described therein as “a far right leader whose materials and speeches incite racial hatred” (more merda-tauri again) and that Mr Sellner had in his possession leaflets “with scenarios regarding possible violence at his speech” (GI state that the leaflets were “a strict code of conduct prohibiting violence or anti-social behaviour in face of expected hostility from left-wing extremists at an event”: https://www.generation-identity.org.uk/bbc-fake-news/); the person issuing the notice stated belief that Ms Pettibone’s “planned activities whilst in the the United Kingdom bear a serious threat to the fundamental interests of society and are likely to insight [sic] tensions between local communities in the United Kingdom” (some have offered a ‘translation’ of this as “we suspect that mobs of individuals might get very angry and possibly react violently as a result of viewing this material and so we cannot let you in because the UK is now ruled by these angry mobs but we would rather the blame fell on you”).
…And here we have what so many people are sick of in the UK: the effects specifically of Islamic immigration and birth-rates on our civilisation and infrastructure, the Islamic blasphemy/psuedo-‘slander’ laws being effectively supported through secular liberal actual libel/slander that informing others about classical (Sunni/Shia) Islamic doctrine is somehow “racist” incitement against Muslims (yet the appalling double-standard would be apparent to anyone who looks into the supremacist, even genocidal, apartheid globalist doctrines of classical Islamic ‘orthodoxy’), and government agencies do as above.