Count Dankula Sentenced

Good news, bad news in today's sentencing of Count Dankula. The good news is he will not be facing any jail time. He was instead fined £800. The bad news is the conviction still stands, setting a terrible precedent for the state of free speech in the UK.

Count Dankula, aka Markus Meechan, was convicted last month in a Scottish court for posting "grossly offensive" content online under Section 127 of the 2003 Communications Act. The offending content is a video showing his girlfriend's pug doing Nazi salutes and reacting to Nazi phrases. It is clearly set up in the beginning of the video as a joke when he says he wanted to annoy his girlfriend by turning her cute pug into the least cute thing he could think of, a Nazi. The sheriff presiding over the case told Meechan that the fact the video was intended as a joke "is of little assistance to you."

Meechan objected to the ruling saying, "This is a really dangerous precedent to set - for people to say things and their context to be completely ignored and then they can be convicted for it. You don't get to decide the context, other people don't get to decide the context, the court decides. That's dangerous."

Supporters gathered outside the courthouse in Scotland and marched in London to protest the ruling and advocate for free speech. As evidenced by this case, the UK lacks the same free speech protections guaranteed in the US by the First Amendment. A person's subjective offense and feelings are all that matter. Context is literally ruled irrelevant. Even a joke that hinges on believing Nazis are the worst is deemed illegal.

There is no pleasing those who are determined to be offended and their desires to regulate offense must be resisted. Further encroachments on liberty are inevitable otherwise. Free speech must be used to protect free speech. "Use it or lose it."

Meechan plans to appeal the ruling. Hopefully, higher level courts place a greater value on free speech and don't entrench the horrible precedent further.

Count Dankula Sentenced

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