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Madinat al-Muslimeen Islamic Message Board
| First conviction on religious hatred |
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| Anonymous |
| 10/15/02 at 03:41:42 |
| October 04, 2002 Man guilty of religious hatred after Sept 11 row By Simon de Bruxelles A MAN who had an argument in the street with a supporter of Osama bin Laden became the first person to be convicted under new laws on religious hatred yesterday. Magistrates in Exeter were told that Alistair Scott, 33, was arrested after an argument with his Arab-born neighbour, Muhammad Hudaib, who was said to have shouted that bin Laden was great, September 11 was a great day, all Americans deserved to die and called him a ?Zionist pigf****r?. Scott, a telecoms engineer who admitted three charges of religiously aggravated threatening behaviour, is the first person to be prosecuted for the offence under the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act, which was introduced after the September 11 attacks. He faces a maximum of seven years in jail. The magistrates ordered pre-sentencing reports. Mr Hudaib, a postgraduate student at Exeter University, told the court: ?Scott put his face against mine. He said my teeth were yellow. He said America has spent $400 million on security because of terrorism. He wanted to know what Islam had contributed to the world. ?He said he would do things to my daughter and when I told him I did not have a daughter he said he would do things to my mother. He said he hated Arabs and he hated Muslims. I felt insignificant and I felt threatened. I had never experienced this kind of behaviour.? Questioned by Sean Brunton, for the defence, Mr Hudaib accepted that he had picked up a stick or stake and had spat on the ground during the argument, although he said this was to clear his throat. He said: ?I could have said Osama Bin Laden was a great man and that all Americans deserved to die and are stupid.? But he denied calling Scott names. PC Richard Mallett, who was called to the disturbance, said: ?I asked Scott what the problem was and he said he wanted to know what kind of person Mr Hudaib was after September 11. He went on to say he hated Muslims and he agreed Mr Hudaib may have been intimidated by him.? Scott told the court that he had been upset by the events of September 11 because a friend?s father was one of the firefighters killed in the twin towers. He said: ?I deny being a racist although I would say I am a faithist. I accept the way I went about it was wrong and unacceptable. If everyone did that nobody would ever get any peace in their own home. ?I was talking about the Islamic religion and it was clear we did not see eye to eye on anything. I wanted to know how a religion could promote hatred. I said Islam is negative and that the whole world was like a sinking ship with 80 per cent trying to plug the holes and 20 per cent trying to create new ones.? Mr Brunton said: ?However wrong Scott was and whatever he said or did, it pales by comparison to what Mr Hudaib said in his cross-examination. ?What he said about September 11 and the Americans were the most offensive things that may be said to a right-minded person. This defendant is not a racist but he has strong views about religion. He showed a remarkable amount of restraint when terrible things were being said, perhaps by both sides, but certainly by Mr Hudaib on his own admission. ?This defendant is not a senseless thug who has jumped on a bandwagon to have a go at a minority. He is not some unthinking skinhead who is not interested in discussion, he is an intelligent, hard working, well-qualified professional man who has never been in a court before in his life. His crime is to have strong convictions and to have taken people to task in an inappropriate way at a sensitive time.? |
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