The only thing about this that keeps my jaw from dropping, is that I just can't be sure, without further confirmation, that it's true. To quote Homer (Simpson), "That can't be true. If it was, I'd be terrified."

"After questioning on suspicion of committing a section five racial public order offence..."

Tell me that's not the creepiest, most impenetrably Orwellian name for an "offense" you've heard in a long time. They might as well have said she was questioned "on suspicion of crimethink".

Well, that pretty much demonstrates that a new ethnic/racial upper class has been established in Britain. The dhimmi girl should never have dared to be so uppity.

By racial of course I mean "Asian", which is also an Orwellianly euphemistic term. Something tells me that Urdu-speaking Asians are not likely to be Nenets, Japanese, or Thai.

Maybe some Brits misunderstood 1984... Someone should tell them the political system represented is NOT the ideal. Simple misunderstand is all.

[Codie's] comments afterwards raised further concerns, for example allegedly referring to the students as "blacks"

Is "black" a dirty word over there?

"Well, that pretty much demonstrates that a new ethnic/racial upper class has been established in Britain."

Alternatively, it demonstrates that poorly thought out, overbroad regulations are subject to abuse by oversensitive teachers, resulting in distressing stories like this one. Let's not get carried away here.

"By racial of course I mean "Asian", which is also an Orwellianly euphemistic term. Something tells me that Urdu-speaking Asians are not likely to be Nenets, Japanese, or Thai."

It's neither Orwellian, nor euphemistic, nor a recent innovation; it's just the word used in the UK to describe people whose heritage traces back to the Asian subcontinent. As such, "Asian" is distinct from "Oriental" - although the UK may now have followed the (relatively recent) US convention and decided that the latter is not an appropriate term.

From the UK penal code:

"A racist incident is any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person"

http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/section6/chapter_a.html

Huh? Doesn't that just make the hair on the back of your neck stand up in amazement.

When I was a sophomore back in the Pleistocene era, we had weekly lectures in theoretical mechanics. We then attended three classes per week (with a quiz every time) on the lecture material. The lectures were way over our head plunging immediately into tensors and dyadics, so we needed the classes to make sense out of the lectures. I had two instructors one Chinese and the other was Indian. Their English was so bad that the classes were absolutely incomprehensible. I complained to the honcho giving the lectures. Initially he didn’t believe me, but he did sit in on one class. He immediately replaced one of the instructors with one who could speak English. If I did that today in the UK would I be guilty of a race crime?

"A racist incident is any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person"

This is not from the penal code, it is from a procedure manual and is used as an initial screen by prosecutors, not as an element of the offense. In other words, it appears that a prosecutor will investigate a potential "racist incident" if the victim perceives it as such.

There is still lots to criticize even as a screen, but not quite what is depicted in these comments.

It appears the girl knew she was taking a risk when she asked.

"I'm not being funny...." Means she knew the request might be poorly-received.

She was almost at the point of self-censoring a perfectly reasonable request.

I guess a good many have learned their lesson now.

Here is the section five being talked about:

http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/section11/chapter_a.html#12

Section 5

(Stones 8-27724)

Whether behaviour can be properly categorised as disorderly is a question of fact. Disorderly behaviour does not require any element of violence, actual or threatened; and it includes conduct that is not necessarily threatening, abusive or insulting. It is not necessary to prove any feeling of insecurity, in an apprehensive sense, on the part of a member of the public: (Chambers and Edwards v DPP [1995] Crim LR 896). The following types of conduct are examples, which may at least be capable of amounting to disorderly behaviour:

* causing a disturbance in a residential area or common part of a block of flats;
* persistently shouting abuse or obscenities at passers-by;
* pestering people waiting to catch public transport or otherwise waiting in a queue;
* rowdy behaviour in a street late at night which might alarm residents or passers-by, especially those who may be vulnerable, such as the elderly or members of an ethnic minority group;
* causing a disturbance in a shopping precinct or other area to which the public have access or might otherwise gather;
* bullying.

.....

By virtue of section 31 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, section 5 is capable of being racially aggravated refer to Racially Aggravated Offences, elsewhere in this guidance. Racially aggravated section 5 is a summary only offence, with the maximum penalty being a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale.

A level 4 fine is 2500 pounds.

A Denver-area man filed a lawsuit today against a member of the Secret Service for causing him to be arrested after he approached Vice President Dick Cheney in Beaver Creek this summer and criticized him for his policies concerning Iraq.

Attorney David Lane said that on June 16, Steve Howards was walking his 7-year-old son to a piano practice, when he saw Cheney surrounded by a group of people in an outdoor mall area, shaking hands and posing for pictures with several people.

According to the lawsuit filed at U.S. District Court in Denver, Howards and his son walked to about two-to-three feet from where Cheney was standing, and said to the vice president, "I think your policies in Iraq are reprehensible," or words to that effect, then walked on.

Ten minutes later, according to Howards' lawsuit, he and his son were walking back through the same area, when they were approached by Secret Service agent Virgil D. "Gus" Reichle Jr., who asked Howards if he had "assaulted" the vice president. Howards denied doing so, but was nonetheless placed in handcuffs and taken to the Eagle County Jail.

The lawsuit states that the Secret Service agent instructed that Howards should be issued a summons for harassment, but that on July 6 the Eagle County District Attorney's Office dismissed all charges against Howards.

The lawsuit filed today alleges that Howards was arrested in retaliation for having exercised his First Amendment right of free speech, and that his arrest violated his Fourth Amendment protection against unlawful seizure.

Shocking, but True!

This would be totally expected in the Soviet Union.

I don't think this is the full story, but I don't see racial remarks as necessitating police involvement.

I would certainly hope "whites" would be a racial epithet treated on similar grounds.

Or indeed, if you think the girls story is implausible you haven't heard about the case where a Brit was charged with anti-social conduct when she told a gang of youths who had been continually bothering her family to "Please just F-Off".

She now faces a fine of £120 and possible jail time if she doesn't pay.

Kazinski:

Anyone that thinks there is anything like the US concept of freedom of speech in Britain, or indeed anywhere in Europe is very much mistaken.

Regrettably (I am British) I have to say that this is pretty much accurate. I tend to think it's a matter of (usually) well-intentioned bureaucrats passing silly laws with massive unintended consequences, rather than a precursor to the Ministry of Love - but either way, it certainly illustrates the importance of the First Amendment over here.

(Another note of caution about this particular story: it's from the Mail. By way of comparison, I presume that most of the commenters here would cast a sceptical eye on a news story in the Guardian that presented an extremely bleak picture of the Iraq war.)

OXR:

Another note of caution about this particular story: it's from the Mail.

Thanks for pointing that out. I assume that the Mail is a sensationalist tabloid like the New York Post. Be clear I don’t trust the New York Times either, but for different reasons.

As I said, I’m not inclined not to believe this story on its face because I’ve always believed the British people have a good streak of common sense in them. Nevertheless things seem to be rapidly changing for the worse on both sides of the Atlantic. The idea of putting a young schoolgirl in jail for anything other than very serious misconduct is what I find so shocking. Let’s hope it didn’t really happen.

A. Zarkov:

Thanks for pointing that out. I assume that the Mail is a sensationalist tabloid like the New York Post. Be clear I don’t trust the New York Times either, but for different reasons.

The Mail isn't a "true" tabloid like the Sun (right) or Mirror (left) or Sunday Sport (nudity), but it does have a bit of that sensibility. The axe they typically grind is the devastation being wreaked upon British society by un-British (an even more vexed categorization than "un-American") people. So they're the people you'd expect to hear this story from, and in lurid terms to boot. That's not to say it's inaccurate in any way - but a news story can be true down to the last detail and still mislead. (Similarly, I think the Guardian is an excellent paper in many respects, but whenever they start in on capitalism or the US I just nod indulgently.)

chrismn:

Then this arrest is STILL outragous.

Absolutely agreed. However:

So assume she verbally abused the Asian students, called them idiots, foreigners who had no right to be in the country, whatever...

As some commenters intimated in the early going, wouldn't this attract some administrative penalty in the US? The First Amendment is a protection against idiotic laws, but it's not a license to be an idiot, surely.

As I understand it she spent a couple of hours in jail and was released without charge. British law may not, in fact, support charges in a case like this.

Certainly that kind of thing isn't illegal in the States, but it could certainly get you fired, even if you're speaking on your own time. I'm not sure paying a fine of a couple hundred bucks is worse than losing your job.

I tend to think it's a matter of (usually) well-intentioned bureaucrats passing silly laws with massive unintended consequences, rather than a precursor to the Ministry of Love

"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."

There was the drunk student in the UK who got busted for telling a mounted PC, "did you know your horse is gay?"

The CPUSA platform used to include a promise to criminalize 'racisim'.

Most European countries are like this now.

"And it's their God-given right to do so."

Yup. No laws are relevant. It's just "god-given" rights that control.

If you run "Codie Stott" in google news, it's reported many fairly widely including the BBC.

The ITV news includes this piece of ambiguous information:

he school is investigating what happened before deciding on what action to take against Codie.

Are they seriously considering more action?

I think in the US, the story would have included, "The girl's parents are considering legal action."

The selective outrage of this group never ceases to amaze me. Its not that everyone else doesn't do it, but you all cloak it in an intellectual haze that makes you feel so justified.

I guess a little education can be a dangerous thing.

The selective outrage of this group never ceases to amaze me. Its not that everyone else doesn't do it, but you all cloak it in an intellectual haze that makes you feel so justified.

I frankly don't understand your point. People have differing opinions about things, so they would naturally become outraged by different things. The question should always be is their outrage consistent. In other words, is their outrage truly guided by their opinions?

For example, I have seen Leftists spouting the statement, "If you are not outraged, you are not paying attention." Sure, it makes nice bumper stickers, but it really doesn't make a lot of sense.