Uk Jails Teenager For Possessing Al-Qaeda'S Online Magazine

[Scott]

This topic is straying way too far off-topic and there are far too many personal attacks on other members. Some posts have been deleted.

Please stay on topic and remember you are under no obligation to answer posts which you do not wish to respond to. Nor are you under any obligation to go back and re-read posts because the poster instructs you to do so. Hijacking a thread is against the rules, which you might want to re-read.

Continued off-topic posts will result in suspensions.

[Credo]

As I had said before, this 'magazine' is not registered so it falls into a grey area of legality. Let AQ register it and then fight the censorship. As long as they don't, they can expect the authorities to act with relative impunity. Governments don't stop doing things until someone tells them to stop. That is human nature.

As far as this case and this kid, well, if he's guilty of nothing more than having the magazine, he should fight it. If however, he is a recruit for an illegal organization, an organization involved in illegal activity or he is aiding and abetting others in illegal activity, then he will have to face the music.

With many, many laws, there is an interpretation and a line has be drawn in the sand. This magazine falls on the illegal side of that line in the sand.

[Steely Dan]

As I had said before, this 'magazine' is not registered so it falls into a grey area of legality. Let AQ register it and then fight the censorship. As long as they don't, they can expect the authorities to act with relative impunity. Governments don't stop doing things until someone tells them to stop. That is human nature.

As far as this case and this kid, well, if he's guilty of nothing more than having the magazine, he should fight it. If however, he is a recruit for an illegal organization, an organization involved in illegal activity or he is aiding and abetting others in illegal activity, then he will have to face the music.

With many, many laws, there is an interpretation and a line has be drawn in the sand. This magazine falls on the illegal side of that line in the sand.

Did you catch the link from the Telegraph I posted earlier stating the guilty man had recently also been prosecuted for posting 'Gay free zone' stickers in East London? This amounted explicitly to threatening behaviour and I don't know whether this was taken into consideration by the judge when passing sentence. It does blow away any defense of just reading out of curiousity.

[JUDAS]

As I had said before, this 'magazine' is not registered so it falls into a grey area of legality. Let AQ register it and then fight the censorship. As long as they don't, they can expect the authorities to act with relative impunity. Governments don't stop doing things until someone tells them to stop. That is human nature.

As far as this case and this kid, well, if he's guilty of nothing more than having the magazine, he should fight it. If however, he is a recruit for an illegal organization, an organization involved in illegal activity or he is aiding and abetting others in illegal activity, then he will have to face the music.

With many, many laws, there is an interpretation and a line has be drawn in the sand. This magazine falls on the illegal side of that line in the sand.

Did you catch the link from the Telegraph I posted earlier stating the guilty man had recently also been prosecuted for posting 'Gay free zone' stickers in East London? This amounted explicitly to threatening behaviour and I don't know whether this was taken into consideration by the judge when passing sentence. It does blow away any defense of just reading out of curiousity.

Correct me if I'm wrong. Are you really saying that someone who is openly homophobic that also reads an extremist online publication cannot just be curious? He must be a terrorist in the making?

[Credo]

He certainly doesn't appear to be the kind of young man for whom a judge is likely to give leniency.

[Steely Dan]

Correct me if I'm wrong. Are you really saying that someone who is openly homophobic that also reads an extremist online publication cannot just be curious? He must be a terrorist in the making?

No, not necessarily, however the Sharia zone stickers came with them an implicit threat of enforcement through violence, as a pub where gays frequented in the borough of Tower Hamlets discovered when it was attacked by Islamic extremists. What I am suggesting is his past record may have caused the judge to conclude on the balance of probability he had violent intent, this has a bearing on the sentencing not on the verdict itself I suspect.

[Colin Yai]

http://www.queerty.c...crime-20120121/ Yeah Dan here is another case ,just who the bloody hell do they think they are? and of course those out there who think that these pamphlets should be allowed to be posted in the interests of "free speech" by all means say so, this, make no mistake is an incitement into murdering some one just because of their sexual preferences ,who are they to sit in judgement ? Edited May 15, 2012 by Colin Yai

[endure]

Up until the age of 21 I was a criminal. The criminal acts that I committed could have put me in gaol for 14 years.

I assume you are making a point about you dealing weed or something and how that made you criminal & etc.etc.

I'm talking about "home invasion" & joyriding and other violent crime. Four guys in hoods and scarves breaking into a house with a middle aged disabled woman living there, fracturing her skull & stealing DVD TV PC jewellry etc.etc. Me spending a month in hospital and being scared to go home. Another occasion, walking home from work, joyriders high on drugs decide to run me over in their high powered stolen saloon car. I was younger then and able to run through a ginnel & escape. I suffered hyperventilation and was later in the evening hospitalised for breathing and heart problems.

If the police intercepted communication plans for home invason, plans for vehicular theft etc. then lives could be saved and people could feel safe in their normal lives. I don't know if you've ever been strangled and beaten on the floor of your own home with nobody there to defend you, but I have and I would back any government plan that reduces violent crime (including terrorism) & prevents other people suffering those type of nightmare situations in future.

Likewise terrorism, I don't give a **** about people's rights to read obscure radical literature and militant rhetoric - I only care about normal working people having the right to a normal safe life & to read things that enrich them intellectually and socially. I am a logical positivist, and I see a future based on logic as the only kind of future, logic from the roots up to the treetops, if it doesn't improve peoples lives it is not logically positive and out it goes.

I'm reading this thread and struck by the "all or nothing" mentality. People are saying in several posts - we can never intercept the important stuff & the people monitoring us are fallible etc.etc. and so lets just forget it and let people build low-yield nuclear briefcase bombs and biological jug bombs & set fire to school buses & whatever. My point is that while our intelligence services are not perfect & the net we are fishing with can never get all the fish, its no reason to leave the ship docked and sit round on the shore twiddling our thumbs. For my part I would burn every single militant radical book / magazine on Earth if it stopped just ONE single child from being killed by militants.

My 'crime' was that I was homosexual at a time when it was illegal. I too have been battered senseless and hospitalised although my assailants didn't have the excuse of wanting to steal from me. They simply waited outside a gay club at closing time and battered me over the head with an iron bar for fun. I would have liked them to have been caught and sent to prison but they weren't I wouldn't have wanted them sent to prison for reading anti-gay propaganda though.

[sirineou]

I have being following this thread and I read some scary disturbing stuff, by some who advocate "common sense" while lucking any of their own.

For hundreds of years we have being in their lands, WE have raped and pillaged, interfered in their internal politics, and compromised their lives. All in the name of corporate profits, and personal gain.

And now when the chickens are coming home to roost, all we can think is how to build bigger fences?

Is that common sense?

How about, apologizing for all the wrongs we have committed,

Instead of spending Billions on building fences, and maintaining them, spend some of that money on restitution for all we stole,

getting out of their lands, and living with in our own means?

But that would be impossible, we need their recourses to maintain our own greed and "standard of living".

Edited May 15, 2012 by sirineou

[Yunla]

My 'crime' was that I was homosexual at a time when it was illegal. I too have been battered senseless and hospitalised although my assailants didn't have the excuse of wanting to steal from me. They simply waited outside a gay club at closing time and battered me over the head with an iron bar for fun. I would have liked them to have been caught and sent to prison but they weren't I wouldn't have wanted them sent to prison for reading anti-gay propaganda though.

I'm sorry that you were the victim of homophobic violence.

Will you agree with me that "terrorism" literally means to inflict terror through violence ; "the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce".

My contention here is that all violent crime is terrorism to greater or lesser degree. The terror an old woman feels during a mugging by strong young men, is no less "terror" than a person feels when they are in the penumbric blast of a politically motivated bomb. In both cases, severe physical damage is caused to the victim,and terrorised psychology that never goes away. For me, after being chased on foot for 15 minutes by a stolen car, which swerved at me repeatedly, has left me with nervous disorder when I hear a car engine start behind me unexpectedly I literally feel the 'fight or flight' instinct kick in, which is the result of being terrorised in the past, even though it was over 20 years ago.

In order for the police to arrest violent criminals & political/religious terrorists, they need to be able to monitor media channels, and they need to prevent the spread of violent ideologies to young impressionable kids. Just as a white hot fire requires oxygen to burn hot, violent ideologies require the oxygen of media to spread their message and to legitimise themselves. If a child reads a glossy well-produced booklet saying it is ok to murder gays, or murder muslims, or break into peoples homes and batter disabled women, then the young reader will feel it is a legitimised action - it is in the media mainstream and vouched for by adults who can produce and distribute books. Many adults are educationally substandard and they are just as impressionable as children when faced with a powerfully-worded marketing campaign.

Edited May 15, 2012 by Yunla

[endure]

As far as I'm concerned they can read whatever they want.

My 'crime' was that I was homosexual at a time when it was illegal. I too have been battered senseless and hospitalised although my assailants didn't have the excuse of wanting to steal from me. They simply waited outside a gay club at closing time and battered me over the head with an iron bar for fun. I would have liked them to have been caught and sent to prison but they weren't I wouldn't have wanted them sent to prison for reading anti-gay propaganda though.

I'm sorry that you were the victim of homophobic violence.

Will you agree with me that "terrorism" literally means to inflict terror through violence ; "the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce".

Yes I'll agree with that but reading a book is looking at words. If I read the book that this guy has been imprisoned for should I be put in gaol? I'm a white middle aged non-Muslim. If I shouldn't be put in gaol for reading a book why should he?

[Yunla]

Yes I'll agree with that but reading a book is looking at words. If I read the book that this guy has been imprisoned for should I be put in gaol? I'm a white middle aged non-Muslim. If I shouldn't be put in gaol for reading a book why should he?

I believe the law should apply to the book itself not the ethnicity of the reader, and the punishment should be based on you having a banned book. The non-muslim thing is mute because people convert all the time - usually after reading something or listening to a speech which is just an audiobook really.

I'm not anti-muslim at all, I'm an antitheist, not atheist because belief is not an issue, I believe in all kinds of stuff once it has been proven scientifically. I refuse to even entertain the notion of there being a God until he shows himself and answers a LOT of questions that I have written down ready to ask him.

For that reason I don't object to Islamic books or books of other faiths as long as they don't condone the breaking of laws that are designed to protect people. Sadly many books & 'educational materials' from different faiths do just this.

Edited May 16, 2012 by Yunla

[sirineou]

Yes I'll agree with that but reading a book is looking at words. If I read the book that this guy has been imprisoned for should I be put in gaol? I'm a white middle aged non-Muslim. If I shouldn't be put in gaol for reading a book why should he?

I believe the law should apply to the book itself not the ethnicity of the reader, and the punishment should be based on you having a banned book.

George Orwell where art thou

[Yunla]

But if you are disputing all this, please feel free to exclude Sweden and your self from the list of responsible parties.

I was referring to 500 years ago, because in your first post you talked about how "we" have committed these terrible sins "for hundreds of years".

If you prefer we talk about the last 50 years , or last week, that is fine by me.

You miss the point. I am not Swedish, I was born there and carry the passport out of legal necessity, but I have lived allover the world & I consider myself literally a citizen of the universe, for the sake of this argument a citizen of Earth. I do not consider myself a Swedish person, I am an Earth person. For that reason I don't care about your nationalistic stuff - you feel ashamed because somebody from your nation committed a crime last week or ten thousand years ago - that is your right to feel that way. But you lumped everyone together "we raped and pillaged" ; actually we did not - those people present that that scene of rape /murder were the ones who did those crimes - not we.

I refuse to be judged on the actions of other people on the grounds that I am born on one piece of this big blue marble & 50-->5000 years ago some people on that same piece of the marble did bad things. I don't do bad things so I will not be tarred with their brush on the grounds of common nationalism.

Edited May 16, 2012 by Yunla

[Yunla]

Yes I'll agree with that but reading a book is looking at words. If I read the book that this guy has been imprisoned for should I be put in gaol? I'm a white middle aged non-Muslim. If I shouldn't be put in gaol for reading a book why should he?

I believe the law should apply to the book itself not the ethnicity of the reader, and the punishment should be based on you having a banned book.

George Orwell where art thou

If you think George Orwell would support the publication of books that legitimise the bombing of children and cutting women's legs off to stop them straying from the Path, then you have missed his central drive which was about protecting human rights including the most basic human right ; to not be beheaded or blown up in the name of some phantom god.

Edited May 16, 2012 by Yunla

[sirineou]

But if you are disputing all this, please feel free to exclude Sweden and your self from the list of responsible parties.

I was referring to 500 years ago, because in your first post you talked about how "we" have committed these terrible sins "for hundreds of years".

If you prefer we talk about the last 50 years , or last week, that is fine by me.

You miss the point. I am not Swedish, I was born there and carry the passport out of legal necessity, but I have lived allover the world & I consider myself literally a citizen of the universe, for the sake of this argument a citizen of Earth. I do not consider myself a Swedish person, I am an Earth person. For that reason I don't care about your nationalistic stuff - you feel ashamed because somebody from your nation committed a crime last week or ten thousand years ago - that is your right to feel that way. But you lumped everyone together "we raped and pillaged" ; actually we did not - those people present that that scene of rape /murder were the ones who did those crimes - not we.

I refuse to be judged on the actions of other people on the grounds that I am born on one piece of this big blue marble & 50-->5000 years ago some people on that same piece of the marble did bad things. I don't do bad things so I will not be tarred with their brush on the grounds of common nationalism.

This not about you

Edited May 16, 2012 by sirineou

[Yunla]

This not about you

Then don't use phrases like "WE raped and pillaged".

[Colin Yai]

I have being following this thread and I read some scary disturbing stuff, by some who advocate "common sense" while lucking any of their own.

For hundreds of years we have being in their lands, WE have raped and pillaged, interfered in their internal politics, and compromised their lives. All in the name of corporate profits, and personal gain.

And now when the chickens are coming home to roost, all we can think is how to build bigger fences?

Is that common sense?

How about, apologizing for all the wrongs we have committed,

Instead of spending Billions on building fences, and maintaining them, spend some of that money on restitution for all we stole,

getting out of their lands, and living with in our own means?

But that would be impossible, we need their recourses to maintain our own greed and "standard of living".

Actually you are talking about "ancestral shame" ; we should feel shame because of the actions of our colonial / slaver / pillager ancestors.

Because you are born the same race, country , family tree as somebody who five centuries ago did something terrible, therefore it is your fault personally and you should walk through life under a cloud of self-loathing. But this is a total Logic-Fail.

You can feel shame about what somebody else did if you really want to, but I will not. Its like a catholic fetish thing, "I feel so ashamed". Its almost kinky. I'm from Sweden and so I will spend today feeling guilty about what Thraarg the Slayer did in some village 10,000 years ago.

The way you say "WE raped and pillaged" did actually set me off here, I've never raped anyone or pillaged either. I've never even been to most of these warzones.

This is shame is all tied up to nationalism, to be born in a nation means to be responsible for that nation - to feel proud of its triumphs and shamed of its misdeeds. But that doesn't apply to me, I'm not a nationalist I am a citizen of Earth, and I am neither proud nor ashamed of the actions of people long since dead.

Yunla with respect this line is leading to no where!,thats why I am not answering Sirineou's posts cos IMHO its pure ridiculousness, should the Russia's be ashamed for what took place under Stalin, should the Chinese feel shame for what took place Under Mao ,Should the Germans feel shame for Hitlers Activities against the Jews , and within 15 kms of me to the Cambodian border should they be ashamed of Pol pots genocide , one could go on and on lamenting about PAST injustice's , Japan was once deadly Enemies with the USA, Australia and the UK, now they are active trading partners ,OK lessons should be learned but there is a limit as to just how far we should go,Time to move on and not be eternally stuck in the Past. Edited May 16, 2012 by Colin Yai

[Scott]

Stay on the topic and cease personal comments directed at other posters.

We can drop the history lessons as well.

[Yunla]

Yunla with respect this line is leading to no where!,thats why I am not answering Sirineou's posts cos its pure ridiculousness, should the Russia's be ashamed for what took place under Stalin, should the Chinese feel shame for what took place Under Mao ,Should the Germans feel shame for Hitlers Activities against the Jews , and within 15 kms of me to the Cambodian border should they be ashamed of Pol pots genocide , one could go on and on lamenting about PAST injustice's , Japan was once deadly Enemies with the USA now they are active trading partners ,OK lessons should be learned but there is a limit as to just how far we should go,Time to move on and not be eternally stuck in the Past.

Yes I agree 100%, my original point was related to this news story broadly, in that the theory was put forth that we are 'reaping what we sowed' in previous decades/centuries, and the reason radical literature which condones & supports actions agaiinst the West should be tolerated is because "we asked for it" in previous generations. I contest this whole theory passionately. Hate-literature should not be allowed from any source regardless of what nation X did to nation Y in the past. The people who died in 7/7 were not guilty of rape/pillage of the middle east, they were just office workers & school kids etc.The very notion that we are responsible for 'chickens coming home to roost' etc. is illogical & repressive - it is to say that we are guilty by association along national lines, not guilty by acts we ourselves committed.

Literature that most accurately describes the current situation are 'quality newspapers' which are not banned in UK. A quality newspaper will allow reporting of all sides of the story, airing different opinions and provide historical looping for people to better understand the backgrounds & to form their own conclusions. History books are available online and in libraries. Ideological publications do not provide context or rebuttal or accurate history. The irony of all this "freedom to print anything" nonsense is that in the UK the quality newspapers do print the truth in largely uncensored form re; the actions of the state at home & abroad.

Edited May 16, 2012 by Yunla

[Colin Yai]

Thanks Yunla for your Answer, of which I have no disagreement with whatsoever

[Pakboong]

My 'crime' was that I was homosexual at a time when it was illegal. I too have been battered senseless and hospitalised although my assailants didn't have the excuse of wanting to steal from me. They simply waited outside a gay club at closing time and battered me over the head with an iron bar for fun. I would have liked them to have been caught and sent to prison but they weren't I wouldn't have wanted them sent to prison for reading anti-gay propaganda though.

I'm sorry that you were the victim of homophobic violence.

Will you agree with me that "terrorism" literally means to inflict terror through violence ; "the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce".

My contention here is that all violent crime is terrorism to greater or lesser degree. The terror an old woman feels during a mugging by strong young men, is no less "terror" than a person feels when they are in the penumbric blast of a politically motivated bomb. In both cases, severe physical damage is caused to the victim,and terrorised psychology that never goes away. For me, after being chased on foot for 15 minutes by a stolen car, which swerved at me repeatedly, has left me with nervous disorder when I hear a car engine start behind me unexpectedly I literally feel the 'fight or flight' instinct kick in, which is the result of being terrorised in the past, even though it was over 20 years ago.

In order for the police to arrest violent criminals & political/religious terrorists, they need to be able to monitor media channels, and they need to prevent the spread of violent ideologies to young impressionable kids. Just as a white hot fire requires oxygen to burn hot, violent ideologies require the oxygen of media to spread their message and to legitimise themselves. If a child reads a glossy well-produced booklet saying it is ok to murder gays, or murder muslims, or break into peoples homes and batter disabled women, then the young reader will feel it is a legitimised action - it is in the media mainstream and vouched for by adults who can produce and distribute books. Many adults are educationally substandard and they are just as impressionable as children when faced with a powerfully-worded marketing campaign.

The fly in the ointment seems to be "probable cause".

[Pakboong]

Who was it that said those that give up freedoms for security deserve neither?

This quote has been generally attributed to Ben Franklin.

[koheesti]

Back to the topic at hand...

While I believe censorship is needed in the case of publications like this one that advocate and instruct on how to kill many people, I think ONE YEAR in prison for just possessing such material it is too much. Unless there is some other evidence that I don't know about?

[GiHadOrange]

If you think George Orwell would support the publication of books that legitimise the bombing of children and cutting women's legs off to stop them straying from the Path, then you have missed his central drive which was about protecting human rights including the most basic human right ; to not be beheaded or blown up in the name of some phantom god.

What kind of publication you are talking about? What is the source of your information?

[Colin Yai]

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/guideDesc.asp?catid=107&type=issue How does this measure up?

[Steely Dan]

It offers instructions on bomb-making, weapons training, security measures as well as encryption lessons for beginners. It also offers extremist heavyweight Qur'anic commentary and rudimentary propaganda.

Well, call me curious, but I would like to see a copy to understand what 'heavyweight Qur'anic commentary' is. We are repeatedly told by the powers that be that Islam is a peaceful religion and those who commit violent acts in it's name somehow misunderstand Islam, to this end Islamic terrorism is now referred to in the UK as Anti-Islamic activity.

But sundry Imams worldwide seem to have the same misunderstanding of text which is supposed to be the literal word of God. I expect my imagination is just running away with me and many moderate Imams from the four schools or Islamic jurisprudence could point out the relevant fatwas making the 'anti-Islamic activity' just that. There is an alternate explanation, which is the extremists are accurately following the word of the Quran and applying it correctly and the majority who are moderate have not yet faced the Elephant in the room and updated their jurisprudence in a manner which began for Christianity when Galileo was locked up for heresy. I would be interested to know the truth as Western governments may be making policy based on a totally flawed view of the problem they are facing.

P.S I'm sure our Orwell fans out there would approve of the term Anti-Islamic activity.

Edited May 16, 2012 by Steely Dan

[Colin Yai]

If you think George Orwell would support the publication of books that legitimise the bombing of children and cutting women's legs off to stop them straying from the Path, then you have missed his central drive which was about protecting human rights including the most basic human right ; to not be beheaded or blown up in the name of some phantom god.

What kind of publication you are talking about? What is the source of your information?

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/network/alqaeda/manual.html This one may suffice.

[Steely Dan]

If you think George Orwell would support the publication of books that legitimise the bombing of children and cutting women's legs off to stop them straying from the Path, then you have missed his central drive which was about protecting human rights including the most basic human right ; to not be beheaded or blown up in the name of some phantom god.

What kind of publication you are talking about? What is the source of your information?

http://www.pbs.org/w...eda/manual.html This one may suffice.

I just love no 12 on the list under lesson 3.

The validity of the falsified travel documents should always be confirmed.

Edited May 16, 2012 by Steely Dan

[GiHadOrange]

If you think George Orwell would support the publication of books that legitimise the bombing of children and cutting women's legs off to stop them straying from the Path, then you have missed his central drive which was about protecting human rights including the most basic human right ; to not be beheaded or blown up in the name of some phantom god.

What kind of publication you are talking about? What is the source of your information?

http://www.pbs.org/w...eda/manual.html This one may suffice.

That has instructions like:

18. Not park in no-parking zones and not take photographs where it is forbidden.

I read nothing about "cutting women's legs off"