Lady GaGa has been forced to cancel her Indonesian concert, as promoters claim the threats made against her were too serious for the show to go ahead. The Born This Way Ball, which was scheduled to take place on 3 June, has been at the centre of a campaign from Islamic hardliners, claiming the show could undermine the country’s moral fibre. Promoters had suggested negotiations were taking place to tone down the gig, ensuring it could go ahead safely, but the pop diva’s management stated there would be no compromise to quiet the religious conservatives. GaGa tweeted an apology to her fans.
Lady Gaga has been refused a permit to play her sold-out concert in Indonesia following demonstrations from religious protesters. The permit for the Born This Way Ball, scheduled to take place on 3 June, was refused after Islamic hardliners, lawmakers and religious clerics spoke out against the pop star’s racy clothes and dance moves. Indonesian critics have said that the nature of the show could undermine the country’s moral fibre. Lady Gaga’s promoters in Indonesia will fight for the performance to go ahead, despite threats that protesters will use physical force to prevent her getting off the plane.
Swansea Student Liam Stacey has been sentenced to 56 days for a “racially aggravated public order offence” after tweeting a very poor taste joke about footballer Fabrice Muamba followed by several racist and inflammatory comments.
The 21-year-old claimed he had been drinking all day and was quite drunk by the time he’d sent tweets. This is most likely true. It was St Patrick’s Day and the last day of the Six Nations rugby championship, and quite a lot of people would have spent that day in the pub. But while it may be true, it’s hardly a defence.
Is Stacey a racist? A troll? A drunk and mouthy young man? Possibly a little of each. But none of these are illegal. Stacey’s conviction is for a public order offence.
One can understand why public order laws exist. The police may need to be able to take people off the streets to prevent imminent violence, and be able to punish people for causing disruptions.
But was there actually any risk that Stacey was threatening public order? I don’t think there was. A row on Twitter is not the same thing as shouting abuse in the street, where there may be immediate physical consequences. Twitter may be like a pub, in the sense that it’s a space for social interaction, but it’s definitely not the pub in that when tempers fray, no one’s going to get glassed. The worst that will happen is someone will block you.
Only one of Stacey’s tweets was violent in nature, and that did not contain any racial abuse. So has he been jailed for eight weeks solely for being offensive at a time when people on Twitter were congratulating themselves for the outpouring of goodwill to the fallen Muamba? If so, then people who care about free expression should be very, very worried.
Yorkshire 19-year-old Azhar Ahmed is facing charges of “racially aggravated public order offences” after he posted an angry Facebook status update about the reporting of the latest British Army fatalities in Afghanistan.
Ahmed’s sentiment (see pic) was not unsual. He starts off with the widely repeated complaint that deaths of British soldiers are given blanket coverage, while deaths of Afghans barely merit a mention. This is true, and hardly controversial.
Ahmed’s mistake, apparently, is to continue to vent his anger, and suggests that British soldiers should all die and go to hell. Strong language, but does it tip into incitement to violence? I think not. Nor, for that matter, do West Yorkshire police, who have not pursued Ahmed on this charge. Rather, they have sinisterly construed Ahmed’s comment as “racially aggravated”.
Serving British army soldiers do not count as an ethnicity. So why angry words about them could be seen as racially aggravated is a mystery. But perhaps unwittingly, those responsible for this charge have revealed something dark about the way the war in Afghanistan is now viewed.
Unconditional support for soldiers is now expected, even as we become increasingly unsure of what they’re doing out there. From the most ardent supporter of the war to the most strident critic, everyone claims to be acting in the interest of Our Brave Boys. This is now not a matter of politics, but loyalty. This question is compounded in Ahmed’s case, as the six soldiers killed were all from the local Yorkshire Regiment. Ahmed’s home town Dewsbury was also home of Britain’s best-known suicide bomber, Mohammad Sidique Khan, in the months before his attack on London. Suspicion of young Muslims voicing anti-troops opinions in the area is predictable.
But still the “racially aggravated” charge doesn’t stick, unless one is willing to buy into the notion that Afghanistan is part of an ethno-religious war between “Islam” and “the West”. This is the line that the likes of Anjem Choudary have been pushing for years. And now it seems West Yorkshire police agree.
