'Lyrical terrorist' sentenced over extremist poetry

[demoleft]

Source: The Guardian

A 23-year-old former Heathrow shop assistant who called herself the "lyrical terrorist" and scrawled her extremist thoughts on till receipts has been handed a nine-month suspended jail sentence.

Samina Malik became the first woman convicted under new terrorism legislation after writing poems entitled How To Behead and The Living Martyrs.

...

She worked at WH Smith at Heathrow, where she scribbled her extremist lyrics on till receipts. On one she wrote: "The desire within me increases every day to go for martyrdom."

But Malik told the jury she only adopted her "lyrical terrorist" nickname because she thought it was "cool" and insisted: "I am not a terrorist."



Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2222911,00.html

[knitter4democracy]

1. Poetry-impaired judge?

Poets do extreme things in their writing. That's what they do--they're poets. Sheesh.

[balantz]

2. Disturbing

Extreme thoughts are to expressed, not supressed.

[Ian David]

3. Eddie Murphy could be next!

Watch dog bark on a hot summer night,
kill my landlord, kill my landlord,
watch dog bark, though he bite,
kill my landlord, kill my landlord,
slip in his window, break his neck,
then his house I start to wreck,
got no reason, what the heck!
kill my landlord, kill my landlord,
C-I-L-L my landlord.
http://www.faqs.org/qa/qa-11920.html


Kill the White People! A classsic SNL skit with Eddie Murphy pretending to be Bob Marley {Actually, it's Tyrone Green and his Regae Band}
http://www.glumbert.com/media/killwhitepeople

[Blue_Tires]

16. lol....brilliant

great memories of that SNL song...

[johnp]

4. God that was funny!

Yeah I remember that skit, and it was way funny. Anyhow, I am supposing that they don't have free speech in England. Well England, we have it here and unfortunately we have to tolerate all kinds of stupid religious nuts in the U.S. as well, so you should probably tolerate her idiotic religion too. You do know that Islam is the religion of peace?

[ohio2007]

5. nine-month suspended jail sentence

thats a law with teeth



so, how about a few of the lyrics ?

we should be the judge

[demoleft]

6. here they are...

"One poem, called The Living Martyrs, said: "For the living martyrs are awakening/ And kuffars world soon to be shaking."

Another line ran: "Let us make jihad/ Move to the front line/ To chop chop head of kuffar swine."

A second poem was called How to Behead. "It's not as messy or as hard as some may think/ It's all about the flow of the wrist," it read."

The Guardian

is it copyright infringement or terrorism on my part?

oh my, i think i have few minutes left as a free man...

[crikkett]

14. I think that in the US it would be seen as a threat and hate crime

the threat because she's writing it down and handing it to people, and comon that's threatening language.

Hate crime because of the use of 'kuffar swine'

[The Stranger]

17. Political speech is pure speech and should be most protected.

If she took no act -- and the speech remains only speech -- then to imprison her solely for what she says or thinks is unsupportable. In fact, it makes her a political prisoner.

Monitoring individuals' thoughts is Totalitarianism.

[f the letter]

7. recommended :

The last paragraph:

In a statement, the Crown Prosecution Service said: "Samina Malik was not prosecuted for writing poetry. Ms Malik was convicted of collecting information, without reasonable excuse, of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism."

er... ..

[gorbal]

15. hmmm

quoting f the letter

The last paragraph:

In a statement, the Crown Prosecution Service said: "Samina Malik was not prosecuted for writing poetry. Ms Malik was convicted of collecting information, without reasonable excuse, of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism."

If this is true, doesn't throw the rest of the conversation on here out the window. I really don't want to be spreading misinformation when the truth is all we need to show people.

[Heywood J]

8. It's amusing, but...

I agree that she has freedom of speech and that to charge her is a bit ridiculous, but she should have known this might happen. Most airport employers don't take kindly to their employees using company time to talk about desire for martyrdom (synonym for a suicide bombing), nor do airport authorities take it lightly when someone calls themselves a terrorist of any kind or calls for jihad. That someone reported this was not a surprise, and if she didn't want the attention this would bring, perhaps working in an airport was not the best profession choice. Free speech is supposed to be supported by internal filters on one's own mouth.

That said, where it went after that, that's a different matter. This is the kind of thing investigations are supposed to take care of before it becomes a headline.

[pitohui]

13. you don't have freedom of speech at the airport

maybe things are wide open in england but in the united states you do not have freedom of speech at the airport and never have -- even telling jokes is prosecuted

scribbling threatening remarks about "how to behead" and how one is seeking "martyrdom" on receipts at an airport is indeed terrorism by u.s. standards and would be prosecuted as threat speech -- you're not allowed to yell "fire" in a crowded theater either

i am not surprised that activity that is illegal in a u.s. airport is just as illegal at heathrow

if you want to write poetry, try doing it at home on your own computer not on the receipt you're handing to someone at the airport, where the recipient is going to be justified in reporting a potential threat to the authorities

if i got a note scribbled with "how to behead" crap on it, at an airport bookstore, i would be pretty pissed off because it would be my duty to report it

[The Stranger]

18. No, telling jokes isn't prosecuted, it is only investigated.

There is no such thing as "threat speech" under U.S. law. The U.S. Constitution prohibits the Congress, and by extension, the federal government, from abriding freedom of speech, or of the press.

Notwithstanding the shock value of her screeds, it constitutes pure speech. Without any act towards violence or a crime, it is fully protected under the First Amendment.

[pitohui]

20. if you don't understand it's illegal to make terroristic threats, god help you

your post is factually incorrect and you must know it if you get out in the world at all

[The Stranger]

21. God help all of us, actually.

That's funny, now you are changing the facts from "telling jokes" to "terrorist threats."

In any event, a "threat" may be prosecuted under the Constitution only if it is a "clear and present danger" to "incite or produce imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action:"

These later decisions have fashioned the principle that the constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.

Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969)(per curiam). By the way, the decision was 9-0 (the concurring opinions went even further than the majority to uphold free speech).

The fact that I have to post this on a Progressive internet board addressing "terroristic threats" to remind people what it is to have free speech under a Constitutional system of justice shows how fucking far we have fallen from Constitutional notions of free speech. If that isn't far more "terrifying" than I don't know what is.

God help us for that.

[datasuspect]

23. if this is in britain

she doesn't exactly have freedom of speech the way we understand it here in the united states.

[alcibiades_mystery]

9. Yikes...I guess Kimoze Ini would have to stay out of England

Nah, na na na nah...
Here comes the hotstepper (murderer)
I'm the lyrical gangster (murderer)
Pick up the crew in-a de area (murderer)
Still love you like that (murderer)
No no we don't die, yes we mul-ti-ply
Anyone test will hear the fat lady sing
Act like you know, Rico
I know what Bo don't know
Touch them up and go, uh-oh!
Ch-ch-ching ching

[fascisthunter]

10. Wow... I Thought This Was from the Onion (nt)

[zbdent]

11. there have been cases about someone writing his fantasies in his diary

(not ACTING ON THEM) and being charged ...

and yet, B.S. O'Reilly writes a novel about a 15-year-old performing a sexual act, and he's still on TV!!!

[ohio2007]

19. the guy that chopped up peoples bodies and put them in the freezer kept a diary

I forget the guys name . ( Dahlmer ? )
Didn't the unibomber keep a diary and it was his brother that turned him in due to the notes the unibomber wrote.

anyway,
its a case of damned if you do ( this woman that hates "Kaffirs" )
and damned if you don't ( most US school shootings failed to act on warning signs )

As of yet her rantings on receipts can't be called hate crime because using the "K" word hasn't been banned by the PC correct crowd the way the "N" word has been so over played.

btw,
what would mohammad bear say about bashing kiffers? ;)

[Teaser]

12. Me, I'm a lyrical gangsta

I just want to flow, ya know?

[muriel_volestrangler]

22. The sentence was for the terrorism-related materials

but I think the point about the poetry may have been that it wasn't just random internet surfing that had got her looking at this stuff - she really had a desire to be a terrorist:

They also found a poem written by Malik on the back of a WH Smith receipt saying she desperately wanted to be a religious fighter.

The poem included the lines: "The desire within me increases every day to go for martyrdom. The need to go increases second by second".

Among the manuals found in Malik's room were the Al Qaeda Manual, the Terrorists Handbook, the Mujahideen Poisons Handbook, a manual for a Dragunov sniper rifle, the Firearms and RPG handbook, and a document entitled How to Win hand-to-hand fighting.

The Old Bailey jury found Malik guilty of possessing documents likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing acts of terrorism.

http://www.wimbledonguardian.co.uk/news/topstories/display.var.1886418.0.lyrical_terrorist_gets_suspended_sentence.php

[High Plains]

24. Guilty of possessing a book?

[muriel_volestrangler]

25. Yeah, that is the dubious part

Most jurisdictions accept that conspiracy to commit crimes is itself a crime - you have shown your intent by organising with others. What this law has done is extend this to a personal intent - with the 'evidence' being the possession of books, and writings on internet forums. It's tricky - I suppose you can say they just should have kept her under surveillance.