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Comment by rlpb | Hacker News Reader

> I am a bit surprised that this can be enforced without the person in question actually taking action.

This is a fundamental tenet of criminal law. Crimes are taken to be against society, not just against the victim, because it is in the interests of everyone to stop criminality, not just the victim. The state prosecutes, not the person in question.

> All in all, the height of the sentence surprises me as well.

Race-related crimes are taken more seriously here (as opposed to the equivalent crimes without a race-hate component).

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I guess I'm just not seeing the crime. I understand it was a racial comment, but I don't get the impression he made any kind of threat or anything. If he was threatening people and/or saying he was going to commit some crimes, I would understand. It sounds like he was being stupid, but relatively harmless.

Is it illegal to be ignorant in the UK?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_and_Religious_Hatred_Ac...

I would agree with this. Since the Stephen Lawrence case in the UK, there's a high degree of sensitivity in the UK towards police handling of race-hate, and hate crimes in general.

It is also maybe difficult to get across to someone viewing in the US what a major news story Muamba's illness has been in the UK, the universal condemnation of the remarks, and more generally the efforts that have gone into eradicating racism from football in the UK. It is very difficult to divorce this from its societal context.

> This is a fundamental tenet of criminal law. Crimes are taken to be against society, not just against the victim, because it is in the interests of everyone to stop criminality, not just the victim. The state prosecutes, not the person in question.

Yes, I am aware of this distinction. But still, saying "*hole" to someone wouldn't most likely be a crime (whats the proper English term for this), so I was just surprised about where the line is drawn.

> Race-related crimes are taken more seriously here (as opposed to the equivalent crimes without a race-hate component).

Yes, but 56 days of jail is a lot. Different countries, different handling. In Germany, this would most likely lead to a hefty fine and social work hours, which would still be a pain for a first offender.

Race-related crimes are also taken more seriously in the US.

I didn't see anything in the reported tweets that would be considered criminal in the US, though. We'd certainly jail someone for making real threats or inciting a crime, but not for mere racism.

Different strokes, different folks. Search "Brixton riots" for a pointer to why the UK is sensitive to racism.

That makes no sense, I'm sure in the US we've had many more race riots and such (The Rodney King riots and the riots when MLK was assassinated come to mind), but we still offer freedom of speech to idiots.

Besides, from my cursory reading of the Brixton riots, the protestors were mad at police inaction, not hate speech.

Half of the Brixton riots were triggered by someone dying in police custody. The other half were triggered by the Met shooting someone. The Met is regularly accused of institutional racism, so you can see where I'm going there.

The fact there was no right to free speech in English law until 1998 may also be related. (",)

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