Fabrice Muamba: Racist Twitter user jailed for 56 days

[dipsydoodle]

A student who admitted posting racially offensive comments on Twitter about footballer Fabrice Muamba has been jailed for 56 days.

Swansea University student Liam Stacey, 21, from Pontypridd, admitted inciting racial hatred over remarks about the Bolton Wanderers player, who collapsed during a FA Cup tie at Tottenham.

A district judge in Swansea called the comments "vile and abhorrent".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-17515992

[Ken Burch]

1. Hopefully, this will humble the little shit somewhat.

then again...it might make him worse...do British gaols and prisons tolerate white supremacist inmates banding together, as U.S. correctional institutions do for some twisted reason?

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. 56 days in prison seems excessive, to me

A bit of community service might be better at broadening his mind. He hasn't, as far as I can tell, a previous record of racism or other convictions.

[enlightenment]

3. I agree.

The young man needs to be taught that there are consequences, but even more, he needs to learn more about others. Tossing him in the clink for two months won't teach him anything but 'don't get caught the next time'.

Community service would help him far more than prison time.

[RZM]

4. I find this a little bit scary, actually

Britain is the not the US. While I don't agree with laws like this, I'm not personally invested in the British legal system and it has no real bearing on how I live my life. If that's how the British want it, fine.

But I shudder to think that such speech laws could be coming here someday. This honestly scares me and it should scare anybody who strongly supports the first amendment. While this particular racist bastard seems like a nasty piece of work, I would never endorse putting somebody in jail for speech like that. Once you start down this path, does anybody really know where it will end? It may start with good intentions about curbing racism. But it's not likely to end there.