Collett aquitted

[bluestreak]

incidentally...


FROM OTHER NEWS SITES:
Washington Post* British Jury Clears Two of Racial Charges - 56 mins ago
Telegraph BNP leader faces re-trial - 1 hr ago
Channel 4 News BNP members to face retrial - 2 hrs ago
Daily Mail BNP leader walks free from court - 7 hrs ago
Guardian Unlimited BNP leader faces retrial - 8 hrs ago


so, in the uk, the daily mail is fairly clearly supporting them.

 

[tangentlama]

Sky News: BNP Leader to face retrial

 

[Larry O'Hara]

Actually given the qoutes from below you'd have thought the case against the pair would have pretty air-tight. It's not immediately clear why they were aquitted.

I seem to remember that one of the defences arguements was that they could not have been guilty of inciting hatred because they were delivering the speech to a meeting of BNP members and supporters who already hate everybody anyway!

http://in.news.yahoo.com/060118/139/622c0.html


1) In my view, their racism isn't in doubt. However, sadly, the resonance of this with some members of the jury seems to me to go a large part of the way to explaining precisely why they were acquitted.

2) Re the incitement, this is an important legal point--the BNP argued (as did the NF News paper-sellers in Newcastle 1986) that the views of those in the audience were unlikely to be changed by hearing the speeches, having already been formed.

3) As stated by me on the Griffin/Collett thread (& indeed in print after the 'Secret Agent' programme itself) the programme & the prosecution was a disaster from start to finish.

 

[likesfish]

exaclty how you going to incite members of the bnp to hate any more than the do already?
much as I loathe griff and the rest of the BNP I'd much rather they get done for "real" crimes i.e. violence posession of weapons,drugs, child porn. ( not that i'm suggesting anyone or any organisation plant stuff like that on the facist scum .
than rather dodgy grounds of what they say in private is nasty same as DR hook.
fair enough if he stands out side a synagoue going kill all jews lock him up and throw away the key.
either we are free to say what we mean or we are not

 

[red_hippy]

The whole farce of this trial just goes to prove that the state aren't anti-fascist (as if it needed proving!!) Even if they were found guilty, there is no way that a) they would have got sentences justifying what a pair of putridly racist, fascist scumbags they are b) that it would have done the BNP any serious damage. At the rally after the demonstration outside the court on November 2nd and January 16th it was appalling to hear Weymann Bennett say 'Lets turn BNP into HMP' ...what a load of nonsense. Anybody who thought that the pair were going to get sent down is living in cloud cuckoo land, and anybody who thinks that we should substitute working class action to stop fascism for the actions of the state and the judiciary is not a socialist.

I'm glad the trial is out of the way, and I hope that there isn't a retrial. Protests outside the court have already taken up too much time in relative to what they could ever actually achieve in fighting the BNP. The fact is that anti-fascists don't need the courts to tell us that the BNP delibrately stir up racial hatred, or else why would we be campaigning against them in the first place?

We should be spending our time doing anti-racist work in the communities that the BNP target, taking away the support for 'issues' that make people vote for them in the first place. In places where the BNP are strong (West Yorkshire for example) we should be organising to phyiscally challenege them, and arguing for that within organisations like UAF, no matter how unpopular that might seem at the minute. The BNP might have an electoral front on them... but beating them in the polls isnt enough, they won't dissapear even if they do stop standing council and MP candidates. The times when fascism has really been put on the backfoot in the UK have been when they have been no platformed on mass, and as far as I see see it, the need to do that hasn't changed.

 

[JimPage]

and this election result from yesterday...

Amber Valley Borough - Heanor and Loscoe: Lab 570, BNP 411, Con 317, Lib Dem 61. (June 2004 - Lab 905, C 774). Lab hold. Swing 5.4% Con to Lab.

30.2% for the fash

well doen searchlight....

 

[JimPage]

This represents a huge own goal by the BBC and Searchlight. It is a historic boost for the far-right. All down to a politically and wrong headed politically inspired prosecution. A disaster yes, but a thoroughly well deserved, and not entirely surprising disaster.

i think we are yet to see the full impact of this, but one thing happenned yesterday. for the first time, ever, the fash were getting sympathetic noises from the media - especially in linking this story to the cartoon issue in an all encompassing "free speech" debate

the latest searchlight scheme not only hits the dust- but may well set antifascism back even further than it is at present. any searchlight narks around to defend thsi follishness?

and with 600 bnp candidates standing in may - and the heanor by-election result yesterday ......

 

[detective-boy]

It's not immediately clear why they were aquitted.

And because of the sanctity of the jury room we will never find out.

Whilst I can understand the need not to have the decision of a jury second-guessed I think there is scope for some research into how they reach their decisions (perhaps you could run a shadow jury in some cases, purely for the researchers to observe / interview / etc. but who's decision is totally irrelevant to the case).

 

[ihateblair]

no trust in a racist state

UAF have put the whole emphasis of the ant-fascist protests around Collett and Griffin getting sent down and have repeatedly said that if they got sent down it would be a victory.

If a guilty verdict is a victory then what is an aquittal? Defeat presumably.

Like Red Hippy said, I am glad they didn't go down in some ways, perhaps UAF will learn how utterly stupid their tactics have been and we will now have a chance to argue that a worker and immigrant movement to no-platform fascists is the real way forward, not a reliance on a racist state.

Ironically I was handing out leaflets explaining this on Wednesday at the same time as handing out UAF ones building the anti-fascist protests and a Swoppie nicked my UAF leaflets because he disagreed with the anti-state ban argument ! It's probably a bit too optimistic to expect him to admit we were right and apologise!