8 No. 57 JUSTICE In August 2014, John Curchod from Sussex England, posted messages on Twitter, including the following: “The world will exterminate you. As Hitler failed to do in entirety”; “We are waiting - got the shotguns man – ready to shoot Jews”; “Why are Jews so despicable”. The following June, he pleaded guilty to sending messages that were antisemitic and of a grossly offensive, obscene or menacing character. He was fined £1,000 and ordered to pay costs at Hastings Magistrates Court, Sussex.21 In February 2015, Mahmudul Choudhury, a married teacher, was fined £464 plus costs at Bromley Magistrates Court, south east London, for posting a picture of Adolf Hitler on his Facebook site with the caption “Yes man, you were right. I could have killed all the Jews, but I left some of them to let you know why I was killing them. Share this picture to tell the truth [sic] a whole world.”22 The cases cited above indicate that prosecutions against antisemitic incitement can now take place across the EU and span offenses across the social networks and electronic media. European law has therefore caught up with the use of the Internet and is applying the law to this medium, as it does with material published offline. Moreover, service providers will no longer be able to plead that they merely act as the unknowing vehicles for spreading criminal incitement against Jews, or any other minority, and that they bear no responsibility for what appears on their platforms. As the process of transposing the EU Directives into national legislation, and as the pressure on states to prosecute hate crime and hate speech that crosses a criminal threshold gain momentum, it is likely that the number of cases will increase. Some states have publicized their determination to prosecute harmful content that crosses the criminal threshold, and the European agreements noted above will underpin their action. In the UK, which has gone further than most states in tackling the problem, a series of warnings and amendments to legislation are facilitating the prosecution of such material. After extensive consultation with the police and civil society experts, The Crown Prosecution Service published Guidelines on prosecuting cases involving communications sent via social media in 2013, and the Ministry of Justice published Complaints about defamatory material posted on websites: Guidance on Section 5 of the Defamation Act 2013 and Regulations in 2014.23 In 2012, the Chief Crown Prosecutor issued a public warning Resolve to use Facebook responsibly this year – or risk jail.24 In July 2014, the House of Lords Select Committee on Communications published its review of legislation available to prosecute incitement and concluded that it is generally appropriate for the prosecution of offenses committed using social media, but that some laws might be adjusted, such as investigation periods extended to twelve months, due to the frequent need to obtain evidence from abroad, and that questions of jurisdiction and access to communications data might be resolved by an international treaty.25 Working with the Social Networks to Reduce Antisemitism In 2012, the Inter-Parliamentary Coalition for Combating Antisemitism (ICCA), an organization of parliamentarians from around the world, asked the American AntiDefamation League (ADL) to convene a Working Group on Cyberhate. The request followed the ICCA conference held in Ottawa in 2010, at which parliamentarians inter alia called for the establishment of an “International Task Force of Internet specialists comprised of parliamentarians and experts to create common indicators to identify and monitor anti-Semitism and other manifestations of hate online and to develop policy recommendations for governments and international frameworks to address these problems.” 21. Fine for Antisemitic Twits, Coordinating Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism, July 10, 2015, available at antisemitism.org.il/article/98128/fine-antisemitic-twits (last visited Sept. 9, 2015). 22. Teacher fined for posting pro-Hitler image on Facebook aimed at Jews, THE TELEGRAPH, Feb. 18, 2015, available at www. telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11419645/Teacherfined-for-posting-pro-Hitler-image-on-Facebook-aimedat-Jews.html (last visited Sept. 9, 2015). 23. Guidelines on prosecuting cases involving communications sent via social media, June 2013, CPS, available at www. cps.gov.uk/legal/a_to_c/communications_sent_via_social_ media/ (last visited Sept. 9, 2015); Complaints about defamatory material posted on websites: Guidance on Section 5 of the Defamation Act 2013 and Regulations, January 2014, Ministry of Justice, available at www.gov. uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_ data/file/269138/defamation-guidance.pdf (last visited Sept. 9, 2015). 24. Resolve to use Facebook responsibly this year – or risk jail say Chief Crown Prosecutor, CPS, January 4, 2012, available at blog.cps.gov.uk/2012/01/resolve-to-use-facebookresponsibly-this-year-or-risk-jail-says-chief-crownprosecutor.html (last visited Sept. 9, 2015). 25. Social media and criminal offences, 1st Rep. of Sess. 201415, Select Committee on Communications, House of Lords (UK), July 29, 2015, available at www.publications. parliament.uk/pa/ld201415/ldselect/ldcomuni/37/37. pdf (last visited Sept. 9, 2015).
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