P.J. Denyer
Penultimate Amazing
Let's hope Starmer gets the chance to welcome Jimmy Lai back in a similar way.
Wow, UK has lost freedom of speech
- Thread starter Hercules56
- Start date
angrysoba
Philosophile
That’s a strange thing for a self/declared “centre-left” poster. Shouldn’t “barely right-wing” still be right of you, yet you make it sound as though it is a criticism.
Let me guess, this “barely right-wing” formulation is something you are parroting from all the GB News you consume.
arthwollipot
Observer of Phenomena, Pronouns: he/him
Interesting scapegoat for someone who claims to not be on the right.
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
Instead of all the distractions, diversions, misdirections, whataboutisms, personal attacks and questioning of my political position, how about actually addressing the issue, which is....
On the one hand you have Lucy Connolly, who makes a SINGLE post in anger in a response to the Southport riots and the cold blooded murder of three little girls aged six, seven and nine. She thinks better of it and deletes it quickly. But not quickly enough - the ever watchful UK Thought Police know about it. She is arrested and charged with the offence of inciting racial hatred. Gets a 31 month prison sentence.
On the other hand you have Alaa Abd El-Fattah, posting dozens of posts over a period of four years, inciting and indeed, encouraging the murder of Jews, while males and policemen. Never regrets posting any of them - some of them are still up. These are in plain view of the UK Thought Police.... what happened to him? Nothing! Nada! El Zippo! He gets a free pass.
Do any of you agree with allowing this scumbag into the country? "Because he is a British Citizen" will be regarded as a cheap cop-out and will not be accepted as a valid answer. I want to know what YOU personally think, not what your echo-chamber tells you to think.
I know you won't. Not ONE of you lefties is at all interested in HONESTLY addressing such difficult issues - ones that challenge your belief systems.
On the one hand you have Lucy Connolly, who makes a SINGLE post in anger in a response to the Southport riots and the cold blooded murder of three little girls aged six, seven and nine. She thinks better of it and deletes it quickly. But not quickly enough - the ever watchful UK Thought Police know about it. She is arrested and charged with the offence of inciting racial hatred. Gets a 31 month prison sentence.
On the other hand you have Alaa Abd El-Fattah, posting dozens of posts over a period of four years, inciting and indeed, encouraging the murder of Jews, while males and policemen. Never regrets posting any of them - some of them are still up. These are in plain view of the UK Thought Police.... what happened to him? Nothing! Nada! El Zippo! He gets a free pass.
Do any of you agree with allowing this scumbag into the country? "Because he is a British Citizen" will be regarded as a cheap cop-out and will not be accepted as a valid answer. I want to know what YOU personally think, not what your echo-chamber tells you to think.
I know you won't. Not ONE of you lefties is at all interested in HONESTLY addressing such difficult issues - ones that challenge your belief systems.
arthwollipot
Observer of Phenomena, Pronouns: he/him
From my brief reading on the subject, I believe that neither of these paragraphs is an accurate reporting of the facts and are instead deliberately framed as outrage-bait, a typical rhetorical tactic of the right.
For a start, Lucy Connolly was jailed for multiple instances of incitement to violence, not for making a single innocent and quickly-deleted post. The post that you are referring to in fact was not deleted for three and a half hours, and received 310,000 views in that time.
Secondly, El-Fattah did not get a "free pass". He spent 12 years as a political prisoner in Egypt, a country that is not famed for their humane treatment of political prisoners.
In fact both situations are considerably more complicated than the extremist righties would have you believe. To the right, everything is either black or it is white. Everything is either good or it is evil. Everything is either the simplest, smartest, and most sensible thing in the world, or it is a radical leftie woke communist authoritarian ideology poisoning society and leading inexorably to the downfall of civilisation. The above two paragraphs illustrate this stark and politically puerile dichotomy very well indeed.
Was Connolly's sentence overly harsh? Probably. The judge who sentenced her has received strong criticism. Were El-Fattah's 10+ year old tweets racist and antisemitic? Certainly. But he is a British citizen who was unjustly detained for more than a decade overseas. Nothing is simple. Nothing is black-or-white.
The right constantly distorts reality with dishonest framing. They never admit when they're wrong, and when challenged they always accuse the "woke left" of tribalism and ideological purity while demonstrating exactly the behaviours they say they hate most.
angrysoba
Philosophile
Why will this not be seen as a valid answer?
arthwollipot
Observer of Phenomena, Pronouns: he/him
He is a British citizen, detained unjustly overseas for over a decade. I think it's very relevant. Should countries not work to free their citizens from political imprisonment overseas? His history of antisemitic postings was not uncovered until after he was repatriated.
Last edited:
angrysoba
Philosophile
Yeah, I have no idea about the timeline, but if he was granted British citizenship then... he's a British citizen, duh!
The British government is, or is supposed to be, against torture and so obviously should have supported their citizen getting intolerable treatment abroad. So instead of it being "unconscionable" to allow a British citizen back into the country, it would be worse to allow more torture to be meted out.
As for the double standard, it is smartcooky who is drawing the parallel and then saying he favours one rule for one person and a different rule for another person, even claiming that the incitement of violence by one person who he sympathises with is merely a "thought crime". Why is it a thought crime in one case and not in the other?
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
Your reading was too brief, and flawed, so you are wrong - as you will soon see
The framing is irrelevant - Only the facts matter
And your claim of "rage bait" is waddle.
Wrong again. Lucy Connolly was charged with a single count of inciting racial hatred, an offence contrary to Section 19(1) of the Public Order Act 1986.
That charge stemmed from material she published in a single social media post on X on July 29, 2024. This material was described as "threatening, abusive or insulting" and was intended or likely to stir up racial hatred. The content included statements such as calls for "mass deportation now" and for people to "set fire to all the f****** hotels full of the b******* for all I care"
That single post was the only evidence presented at trial.
If you are being told there is more to it than this, your echo chamber is lying to you. Your claim is hereby debunked.
And?
Irrelevant, and you are now deliberately misrepresenting facts, and intentionally mischaracterizing what I said, which was that he got a free pass for the X posts I was referring to, and which I repeat here as a reminder to you
I don't give a fat rats arse what happened to him in Egypt.
Oh, do please elaborate on these "complexities" you claim exist. I can't wait to read about them!
The only thing you have said so far that is correct and makes any sense
Not entirely true.
Abd El-Fattah began a five-year sentence in February 2015, from which he was released in late March 2019. In September 2019, during the 2019 Egyptian protests, was re-arrested by Egypt's National Security Agency and taken to State Security Prosecution on unknown charges (speculation was that, among other things, he had organized and unauthorized protest, assauled a policeman and again threatened Egyptian government official)
During all of that time he was NOT A BRITISH CITIZEN. He was not awarded British citizenship until 2021. How the ◊◊◊◊ a foreign-born criminal, still in a foreign prison, with a proven track-record of activism, anti-Semitism, and inciting the murders of others can even get British citizenship is beyond my understanding. What, are they giving British passports away in Shredded Wheat packets now?
arthwollipot
Observer of Phenomena, Pronouns: he/him
Well, I'm not about to argue with you about the facts since like I said I did only the briefest of research on a subject that I previously knew nothing about, and unlike some I am reluctant to argue from a position of ignorance. But framing is everything. Framing is incredibly important - the furthest thing from "irrelevant" that it could be. Check this out - it's a semi-random but still on topic article I picked from Ground News (not an ad):
Headline:
US Imposes Visas Bans on Thierry Breton and Four European NGO Figures Over Alleged Online Censorship
From the left:
From the right:
Summary:
Same facts, very different framing. Two people, each reading only one side, would end up with quite different views on the subject. This is the danger of the internet information bubble, and the very thing that Ground News was created to combat. "Framing is irrelevant" is a profoundly ignorant and naïve statement. Framing radicalises people. And rightists have weaponised it.
I tried to do this comparison with the story about Lucy Connolly, but it turns out that there is nothing from the left. Everything being said about her currently is coming from the right. And I think that fact alone should tell you something.
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
Who cares? Certainly not me.
The fact that there is "nothing from the left" tells me the left wing media know they're going to be on a hiding to nothing because there is no way they will be able to spin the established facts to fit their preferred narrative.
I suspect what it tells you will be vastly different from what it tells me.
NOTE: You don't seem to want to discuss or acknowledge where I debunked your defective claims and corrected you where you were wrong. Never mind - I didn't expect you would.
arthwollipot
Observer of Phenomena, Pronouns: he/him
Of course you don't care. You're the victim of it. You willingly and deliberately close your eyes to the way the right-wing media frames issues to stoke outrage, and in doing so you unconsciously adopt their methods, including being completely resistant to anything that is outside your narrow ideology. This statement by you is a demonstration of it.
I said I don't want to be arguing from a position of ignorance. It's a trait that many people should cultivate.
angrysoba
Philosophile
Forget about the sentencing and the comparison with someone else for a second. Do you think that this tweet is incitement? Yes or No?
Edited by jimbob:
Last edited by a moderator:
Again you demonstrate ignorance of the facts you base your prejudices on. Fattah is a secular pro-democrat. He has promoted LGBT rights in Egypt. His main political stance is pro-democracy, pro-freedom of speech in Egypt. You have made the racist assumption that someone with an Arab name is an Islamist.
I suggest the fact that no one has uncovered a tweet about Jews means he was not making any anti-Jewish comments. Although some may claim criticism of Israel and zionism is anti-semitic and should be exempt from critical review, both are political institutions and should be subject to political analysis.
As said I do not condone any calls for violence, or violence.
Andy_Ross
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Jun 2, 2010
- Messages
- 66,818
Don't forget her appeal was rejected.
Giving a written judgment on Tuesday, three Court of Appeal judges said Connolly's principal ground of appeal "was substantially based on a version of events put forward by the applicant which we have rejected".
Giving a written judgment on Tuesday, three Court of Appeal judges said Connolly's principal ground of appeal "was substantially based on a version of events put forward by the applicant which we have rejected".
And don't forget she pleaded guilty to the offence. The appeal was only against the sentence she received.
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
Just as we say, 'when you parrot the talking points of Nazis, that makes you a Nazi" so its also reasonable to apply that to Islamists - when you parrot the talking of Islamists - kill white people (infidel) kill Jews, kill Israelis, kill Zionists, that makes you an Islamist.
The tenor of his social media posts makes him an Islamist.
Again you demonstrate ignorance of the facts you base your claims on.
The majority of El-Fattah's Tweets are in the Arabic language. Throughout those Tweets, he consistently uses the term "Yahudi" (written in Arabic script as يهودي if you wish to search his Arabic postings). This is a term which, in Arabic verbal and written communication means "Jewish", but is conflated across the board to "Jews," "Israelis," or "Zionists" If he really wanted only to say "Zionist", he would say "sahyuniun" (صهيوني) - he doesn't. If he wanted to only say "Israeli" he would say "iisrayiyliun" (إسرائيلي) - he doesn't.
In effect, El-Fattah makes no distiction between them, when he says kill Yahudi, he literally means Jews, Israelis and Zionists, making no distiction betwen any of them
Side Note: This is the same thing BBC Arabic was criticized for in Prescott's report on their political bias.
I should hope not
FYI, here are some more of his "delightful" Tweets
Last edited: