This is absurd and astonishing – I damn well hope that all onliners donate to the cause for an appeal, this is a real threat to freedom of speech and just downright bizarre. We seem to live in more of a police state than we thought… can someone bring this up at PMQs!?!?!

I don’t have a twitter account. What would happen if several thousand tweeters tweeted saying this makes them so mad, they’re going to blow up Parliament?

This is ridiculous, the judicury were the only good thing about this countries administration, now they’ve gone absolutely potty.

I’m going to have to blow Judge Jacqueline Davies sky high.

This is the BBC headline

LATEST:

Man who posted message on Twitter threatening to blow up South Yorkshire’s Robin Hood Airport loses appeal against conviction

begging the question somewhat over the ‘threatening’

To me, this is the most pertinent element of the Graun article:

The Crown Prosecution Service caused controversy by using a law aimed against nuisance calls – originally to protect “female telephonists at the Post Office” in the 1930s – rather than specific bomb hoax legislation, which requires stronger evidence of intent.

Suggests the CPS were looking to prosecute from the off IMHO.

I can’t decide whether the literary allusion should be Kafka’s “The Trial” or Milan Kundera’s “The Joke”. Either way this verdict is insanity and shows either how incompetant the CPS are (as someone pointed out: no prosecution for the murder of Tomlinson) or how much the establishment hates Twitter. Twitter is at present an unregulated anarchic place to be and as Jan Moir knows (and Stephen Fry with his “women don’t enjoy sex” comments) it has a curious sort of power, which is always worrying to those in charge (unless they play safe and get on-side (hi, mumsnet)).
But to lose your job, be given a criminal record and fined £1000 for making an off-colour flippant joke is absolutely ridiculous. I shall certainly be donating.

Luis Enrique hereby wins the Mortimer Prize for correct use of the phrase “begging the question”.

It’s utterly ridiculous to prosecute somebody for what is obviously a fucking JOKE!

I’m so angry I’m going to stone Yasmin Alibhai-Brown to death.

@8

No need. Your name alone probably constitutes an intent to commit violent assault.

Whilst I’m in total agreement that this ruling is a disgrace, the article that earwicga links to is even more shocking:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/nov/09/woman-jailed-dropping-rape-charges

This will turn your stomach.

Paul,

This will turn your stomach.

It did. Words can’t express my disgust.

Paul, still on the subject of rape, this disgusted me today: Officers broke the rules by dismissing rape claims, says Met.

A ridiculous decision. It was an obvious joke.

As ridiculous as arresting someone for twittering that someone should stone Yasmin Alibhai Brown to death. We all get a little exasperated with Yazza from time to time, but it was a tasteless and unpleasant jibe, maybe one that should get him thrown out of his party (is that union guy who shared his fantasies about killing Thatcher still in post ? I presume so) – but no one believes that he was actually inciting murder – particularly a form of murder that usually takes a crowd to perpetrate.

I await with interest Sunny’s take on this one. I hope he’ll do the right thing, but after all, the guy’s a political enemy, isn’t he ?

If the Compton story broke on a different week we’d be seeing calls for his prosecution here but unless he’s got gay porn on his laptop I doubt he’ll get a mention.

There was more freedom to satirise and parody under Torquemada or Stalin than we have in 21st Century Britain.

If someone phoned up the airport, or directed a message to them, saying this, prosecution would seem appropriate.

But where someone has merely stated this to a friend, with no intention for the airport to see the message, I find the idea of prosecuting absolutely astounding and chilling.

I posted on YAB on Twitter earlier today

http://twitter.com/sunny_hundal/status/2764050467389440

I apologise if that doesn’t fit into other people’s expectations and/or prejudices.

Well good on you, Sunny. Always nice to have one’s pessimism confounded.

“There was more freedom to satirise and parody under Torquemada or Stalin than we have in 21st Century Britain.”

I doubt it very much. And while the Chambers decision is utterly outrageous and he’s lost his job, he’s not being burned alive or getting 10 years hard labour in Siberia.

Didn’t Jeremy Hardy call on the BBC for BNP members to be shot in the back of the head, while Jo Brand suggested posting excrement to them (also on the BBC), and Billy Bragg wrote in the Guardian that they should be ‘duffed up in the streets’ ?

No prosecutions there …

Is this a case of a judge making a really bad decision, or one of a judge having no option but to apply a really bad law? or a bit of both?

“There was more freedom to satirise and parody under Torquemada or Stalin than we have in 21st Century Britain.”

Sigh.