The BBC reports:
Legal action has been dropped against a 15-year-old who faced prosecution for branding Scientology a "cult".
The teenager held up a sign which read, "Scientology is not a religion, it is a dangerous cult", in May outside its headquarters in the City of London.
City of London Police said it had received complaints and warned the teenager to get rid of the sign as it breached the Public Order Act.
More on the incident in this post. Here's my question:
A Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) spokesman said: "In consultation with the City of London Police, we were asked whether the sign was abusive or insulting.
"Our advice is that it is not abusive or insulting and there is no offensiveness (as opposed to criticism), neither in the idea expressed nor in the mode of expression."
Can anyone who is familiar with English law tell me what "abusive," "insulting," and "offensive," which are apparently terms of art, mean? ("Abusive" and "insulting" appears to be the statutory test; "offensive" seems to be the Crown Prosecution Service's interpretation of the terms.)
I would think that calling a religion a "cult" would be offensive and insulting in the lay sense of the word -- it may be quite right, and it should certainly be constitutionally protected, but despite its being offensive and insulting, not somehow "there is no offensiveness" there. So what's the legal rule in England about what's allowed and what's not?
Related Posts (on one page):
- "No Charges Over [Anti-]Scientology Demo[nstration]":
- Possible Prosecution in England for Calling Scientology "Cult" on Sign:
Yes, but calling a criminal conspiracy disguised as a religion a "cult" is praising with faint damns, so I don't see where they've got a real basis for complaint.
It seems relevant also that the words must cause "harassment, alarm, or distress". The statute is unclear as to whether one uses a subjective standard (thin skull) or objective standard (reasonable man) to determine whether words create "harassment, alarm, or distress".
The context in that case was an appeal, which was dismissed, against a conviction for a sign saying "'Stop Immorality', 'Stop Homosexuality' and 'Stop Lesbianism'". I'm not sure how to square that with this case.
The accused in Hammond did admit to a police officer he thought the sign was insulting, which no doubt made things more difficult for his counsel.
The lede: Source of the BBC link is this Slashdot thread.
This belief indicates a substantial ignorance of the actual business practices of Scientology, which in fact ARE a lot more shady than mainstream religion. For instance:
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Cowen/essays/nytimes.html
I wonder what, if any, remedies the protestor has against the police here.
"What we mean by racist or religious crime
Racist or religious incidents
The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Report was published in February 1999, and defined a racist incident as:
'... any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person.'
We accept this definition."
Accordingly, an offensive statement must be one that is perceived to be offensive by the victim?
Possibly. On the other hand, Scientology has not yet, to my knowledge, engaged in a widespread cover-up of child sex abuse by its practitioners.
Comparing the awfulness and absurdity of one religion to another is always such fun.
Perhaps not, but it has institutionalized child neglect (Cadet Org) and once infiltrated government agencies for the purpose of covering up its crimes (Operation Snow White).
This sort of unsupportable generalization from tiny sample spaces is the core intellectual failing behind prejudice and bigotry. Even if this is true, and frankly, I think a lot is left out of the account, it is one church out of tens of thousands. Condemning all churches on the basis of the actions of one is hardly a reasonable stand.
And even if this were true, and all Christian churches did it, Scientology would still be a lot worse.
However, the statutory defence of acting reasonably, and/or the interaction with the Human Rights Act (and its guarantee of free expression in most circumstances) means that any attempt to use these sections to prosecute non-inciting political speech should always be doomed.
It is understandable that a layman (such as the police officer in this case) would not appreciate this from a cursory review of the legislation. One would hope that those in charge of policing demonstrations would be better informed than this, but that appears not to have been the case.
With the prosecution dropped, I'm not sure any legal avenue is open to the kid or his advisers. But a referral to the Independent Police Complaints Commission would seem sensible (I believe this can only be instigated by him or his immediate family)
Bob
Serious Organised Crime and Police Act §§ 132-38
SOCPA criminalizes all unauthorized demonstrations within 1km of Parliament (a term that is not defined) regardless of the content of one's message—although the law has not been applied in anything close to a viewpoint-neutral manner.