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A teenager has been arrested on suspicion of inciting religious hatred after allegedly burning an English language version of the Koran.

The 15-year-old, who lives in the West Midlands, allegedly posted the video, filmed two weeks ago on her school premises, on Facebook.

The video was reported to the school and subsequently removed, police said.

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So much for freedom.

I'm kinda split on this.

Burning books is a deeply uncivilised thing to do, IMO.This girl is a bloody idiot, and deserves condemnation glaore.

But you either have freedom of expression or you do not. So far as has been reported this girl did not incite anybody to violence or encourage them to break to law; she simply burned a book. Muslims may regard it as holy, and never to be disrespected; these are excellent reasons for muslims not to go around burning then. But this girl was not a muslim, and she's not bound by what offends them.

Well, depending on her intent, like, if she told a Muslim friend of hers, hey come here and watch this, and burned it, then I would say she was attempting to incite something, maybe not necessarily violence, but a negative response of some sort.

GrahamKennedy wrote:Burning books is a deeply uncivilised thing to do, IMO.This girl is a bloody idiot, and deserves condemnation glaore.

But you either have freedom of expression or you do not. So far as has been reported this girl did not incite anybody to violence or encourage them to break to law; she simply burned a book. Muslims may regard it as holy, and never to be disrespected; these are excellent reasons for muslims not to go around burning then. But this girl was not a muslim, and she's not bound by what offends them.

Same thing about representing Muhammed. The point of not representing him is never to come to idolize him, the way we did with Jesus. But non-Muslims have no chance of ever idolizing him, so the whole argument is baseless to prevent the depiction of Muhammed.

As far as I care, she can burn all the Korans she wants so long as they are paid for by her. If someone wants to put rules on burning Bibles and American flags then I worry about it.

I suppose it depends mostly on the reason she burned the book. Was it to make a statement about the religon, or some other reason?

I think the "incite to hatred" thing comes from the fact that she posted a video of it on Facebook. Depending on who she tagged in the video (ie, her Muslim friends), it could be more than just freedom of expression.

stitch626 wrote:I think the "incite to hatred" thing comes from the fact that she posted a video of it on Facebook. Depending on who she tagged in the video (ie, her Muslim friends), it could be more than just freedom of expression.

Incitement to violence which is generally the punishible offense generally is taken to mean that the person doing something was pretty explicit in bascially requesting that someone do harm to others. Doing something that is intentionally offense, however immoral and obnoxious it might be, generally does not meet that standard.

If I don't like someone and I shit on something they do or believe in that's just because I disagree to that extent. However burning a flag is a matter of protest which isn't the same as inciting violence.

Thats why I'm split, because I understand both sides...

I have a hard time seeing burning a book as inciting violence unless you want to argue that muslims by virtue of being muslims have no self control.

If this were a group of Muslims burning Bibles, no one would even bother with it. Its my thought that they may be looking to crack down on Racial and Religious tensions but they have to start with someone White and Christian before they can go after anyone else. Otherwise you're a racist.

Deepcrush wrote:If this were a group of Muslims burning Bibles, no one would even bother with it. Its my thought that they may be looking to crack down on Racial and Religious tensions but they have to start with someone White and Christian before they can go after anyone else. Otherwise you're a racist.

But if that allows them to go strongly against the muslim nuts, I can't say it's entirely a bad thing...

Problem is being PC never solves a problem. It only makes new enemies of policy.