The "Lyrical Terrorist's" Debut Delayed by Prison Term

Michael C. Moynihan | November 9, 2007

A few stories across the wire today on the legal limits of speech, both here and in Europe. First, from the good ol' USA, the case of anti-abortion extremist John Dunkle, a Reading, Pennsylvania "activist" who stands accused of suborning the murder of a local abortion provider on his blog. The AP reports on the verdict:

A federal judge ordered an anti-abortion activist to remove Web site postings that authorities said exhorted readers to kill an abortion provider by shooting her in the head. District Court Judge Thomas Golden granted an injunction Thursday seeking the removal of postings on Web pages maintained by John Dunkle. The injunction, sought by prosecutors in August, also bans him from publishing similar messages containing names, addresses or photographs of health clinic staff members.

Prosecutors said one posting targeted a former clinician for the Philadelphia Women's Center, and that she later stopped providing reproductive health services because she feared for her life. Dunkle, of Reading, said Thursday that the postings had been removed.

"They're down now," said Dunkle, who represented himself. "I won't put up language that (the judge) has told me not to put up." Authorities said the postings violate the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act.

In Dear Old Blighty, a court convicted Ms. Samina Malik, the Walt Whitman of al-Mujahiroun, for writing mellifluous poetry on the beheading of infidels. Malik, who worked at Heathrow (!), listed her favorite TV shows on a social networking site as"videos by my Muslim brothers in Iraq, yep the beheading ones, watching video messages by Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri [his deputy] and other videos which show massacres of the kaffirs." The always reliable Daily Mail reports:

An airport worker who wrote poems about beheadings is the first woman to be found guilty under new terror laws. Samina Malik, who liked to call herself a "lyrical terrorist", called for attacks on the West and described "poisoned bullets" capable of killing an entire street in her poetry. The 23-year-old Muslim wrote of her desire to become a martyr and listed her favourite videos as the "beheading ones."

In another, How To Behead, she warned that the victim should be bound and blindfolded. Malik, who worked as a shop assistant airside in a branch of WHSmith at the airport, also owned an Al Qaeda encyclopaedia of Jihad, a Mujahideen poison handbook and a 'terrorist handbook' which explained how to make bombs. On the hard drive of her computer police found a copy of a sniper rifle manual, a firearms manual, anti-tank weaponry, a document entitled How To Win Hand To Hand Fighting, and pictures of weapons.

Outside the court, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, head of the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command, said: "Malik held violent extremist views which she shared with other like-minded people over the internet. "She also tried to donate money to a terrorist group. She had the ideology, ability and determination to access and download material which could have been useful to terrorists.

"Merely possessing this material is a serious criminal offence."

The Telegraph has more on the Malik verdict.

Comments

|11.9.07 @ 2:53PM|#

The injunction, sought by prosecutors in August, also bans him from publishing similar messages containing names, addresses or photographs of health clinic staff members.

My first thought was government MANDATED on-line sex offender registries. But I have a convoluted thinking process.

|11.9.07 @ 3:03PM|#

J sub D: That is a very subtle point. I hadn't thought of that. Now that I have, WTF?

Reinmoose|11.9.07 @ 3:04PM|#

Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act

Wow. They couldn't come up with a more creative name, so they just left it the way it was, I'm guessing.

Reilly|11.9.07 @ 3:04PM|#

I'm okay with the decision in the first case. Inciting others to kill someone pretty clearly infringes on the rights of the targeted.

The second case, well.... extremely creepy, yes, but looking at each individual thing she's done, none of them are illegal. I don't think she should be tried, but were she specifically asking others to kill infidels (like in the first case) then the situation would be different.

Fluffy|11.9.07 @ 3:14PM|#

Does this second example, wouldn't this mean that Tom Tancredo can never travel to England?

After all, he has written poetry about the annihilation of the Muslim residents of Mecca and Medina.

OK, so only his sycophants consider his speeches poetry, but you see where I'm going here.

Abdul|11.9.07 @ 3:22PM|#

Roses are red
Violets are blued
If I write lame poetry about Osama
in england I'm screwed.

Pupil of Dan|11.9.07 @ 3:30PM|#

If Ms. Malik didn't like England, why didn't she move to Afghanistan?

Samina|11.9.07 @ 3:30PM|#

This visage of mine
Never gonna get me laid
Time to start hating

|11.9.07 @ 3:38PM|#

I am a big proponent of free speech and free expression but I must say that the website in question is simply a threat and is thus not supported by the First Amendment.

Posting the name address and picture of health care providers and then greying out the ones killed is, without a doubt the most reprehensible speech and deserves no protection. Clearly this speech poses an imminent threat to the health care providers.

The second case is a bit more ambiguous. Under American Law speech must typically present an imminent threat. It is unclear whether the speech presents the type of imminent threat required to be supressed in America. Yet, this speech is not in America, it is in Britain and while they brag about their ability to have freedom of expression they frequently have much less freedom than we do in the US.

Personally, I think the suppression of this type of non-threatening hate speech is entirely counter productive.

Regards

Joe Dokes

|11.9.07 @ 3:40PM|#

On the hard drive of her computer police found a copy of a sniper rifle manual, a firearms manual, anti-tank weaponry, a document entitled How To Win Hand To Hand Fighting, and pictures of weapons.

Oh good golly! A woman with the ideology, ability and determination to access and download material?

Cowering beneath my bed, I tremble uncontrollably before the Googling minions of the Caliphate!

Scop|11.9.07 @ 4:03PM|#

Joe Dokes

While I generally agree with you--and I share your apparent concern for free speech in the UK--the fact that this woman was employed at an airport is undeniably gut-wrenching disturbing. At the least, she deserved to be sacked.

If I may flirt with the Godwin thing, employing her in such a capacity would be akin to employing Josef Mengele at St. Jude's Children's Hospital.

|11.9.07 @ 5:15PM|#

But isn't this how a terror group could be infiltrated? MI5 or whatever sees this crap posted, sends some agent to befriend her and gradually sympathize and see if Ms. Malik actually joins a terror group, etc. Let the plots develop and bag a whole lot more scary folks than some wannabe fantasizing on the internet.

|11.9.07 @ 5:16PM|#

The problem with the UK is that they don't have a 1st amendment equivalent. As such they have much more leeway to pass whatever restrictions on speech they want. Yet another reason why I would never ever move/visit the UK

Bee|11.9.07 @ 5:20PM|#

But you see the snag is... if I now call Mr Chipperfield and say to him, 'look here, I've got a forty-five-year-old chartered accountant bookstore clerk with me who wants to become a lion tamer terrorista', his first question is not going to be 'does he have his own hat?' He's going to ask what sort of experience you've had with lions.

Scop|11.9.07 @ 5:36PM|#

ChicagoTom

It's never been as broadly interpreted as the US equivalent (in the UK, "speech" usually means sounds uttered from the vocal chords, oddly enough), but there is a right to free speech in Britain.

(Something people just refuse to understand: the UK does, in fact, have a written constitution--it's just not in one single document.)

Anyway, I may have to forfeit my liberal credentials for suggesting this, but there are some things which are just "beyond the Pale." Civilized people should just not accept the sort of filth this woman has spit forth. At the very least, human decency demands that this person be cast out from any human society which values humans.

And now, you'll all jump down my throat. All I ask is that you be respectful when you disembowel me....

Scop|11.9.07 @ 5:39PM|#

oh, btw, ChicagoTom:

No, you're right not to want to live there, but you should definitely visit soon. Londonistan is wonderful in the winter.

CHUCK D|11.9.07 @ 5:52PM|#

Yo, whats up with people biting my nom de plume?

Fluffy|11.9.07 @ 5:53PM|#

Wait a second - "civilized people"? "Beyond the pale"?

How about checking out American popular entertainment, including children's cartoons, made from 1941 to 1945. Or better yet, Rambo II or the Chuck Norris movies where he goes to Viet Nam.

How are those not death poetry?

People have been writing about the deaths of their enemies since the first time some caveman picked up a stick and scratched in the mud.

|11.9.07 @ 5:59PM|#

the UK does, in fact, have a written constitution--it's just not in one single document.

No offense intended to Brits -- after all, our system of govt was lifted from theirs -- but a patchwork quilt of bits of constitution scattered across 1000 years worth of documents isn't much better than no constitution at all.

|11.9.07 @ 6:01PM|#

Civilized people should just not accept the sort of filth this woman has spit forth.

No one's asking you to accept it. You do have the option of ignoring it...which is nearly always the best way to make it stop without undesirable side effects.

|11.9.07 @ 6:06PM|#

"Merely possessing this material is a serious criminal offence." Imagine that. Or rather don't, since knowing this stuff apparently also is against the law. Once you've read them, you'll have to be locked away as the soul who knows too much.

|11.9.07 @ 6:12PM|#

Chicago Tom,

Yesterday you lambast and damn near accuse me of being a Nazi smypethizer for suggesting that maybe a kid was a brat, now you're willing to strip a person of their civil liberties.

I certainly don't think that this lady is dealing with a full deck, but remember one of the arguments for freedom of speech is that it allows the local crank to have their say, and thus blow off some steam.

Tom, when you say you might lose your liberal credentials, keep in mind that liberals have never really been in favor of free speech. Just look at the way "liberals" endorse speech codes on campus and frequently shout down conservative speakers. No you sir, are just living up to your liberal credentials.

Regards

Joe Dokes

Scop|11.9.07 @ 6:51PM|#

crimethink

one cannot ignore it when she worked at an airport.

and, i would submit, one cannot ignore it at all. If one could, then one could ignore Mein Kampf with impunity. (Again, I apologise for violating the Godwin rule, whatever it is.)

|11.9.07 @ 6:52PM|#

Joe Dokes,

I's important that if you are going to disagree with some one that you actually address your comments to the appropriate person.

If you go back to the comment you were respond to and reread it, you may discver that you owe Chicago Tom an apology.

|11.9.07 @ 7:18PM|#

one cannot ignore it when she worked at an airport.

It's not like she was working security, or maintenance, or any capacity in which she could assist with a terrorist attack. She was working in an airport shop. In any case, if her job had put her in a position to help with an attack, I'd have no problem with merely firing her. What I object to is the criminal prosecution for holding and expressing ideas.

one cannot ignore it at all. If one could, then one could ignore Mein Kampf with impunity.

One could...and one can! Seriously, if you find it impossible to ignore the vile opinions of others, you must find life very disturbing.

Fluffy|11.9.07 @ 7:42PM|#

Actually, if Joe Blow writes Mein Kampf, you can certainly ignore it.

It only becomes an issue if dumbasses subsequently make Joe Blow dictator of a country.

If Hitler had been a painter somewhere, he could have written ten Mein Kampfs and it wouldn't have meant a damn thing.

Scop|11.9.07 @ 7:43PM|#

crimethink

While I don't find life disturbing, I do find some vile "people" disturbing...like this "I love murdering Christians and white people" bitch.

Come on: would you really want her/it in charge of security for your flight?

|11.9.07 @ 8:07PM|#

Come on: would you really want her/it in charge of security for your flight?

Arriving in the middle. Sorry.

She's not in charge of security for flights! Never was! She sold overpriced trinkets at a shop in the airport concourse! She's a loon, a crackpot, a poseur, a loser bitch. When you made a big deal out of it, you made her feel all important. I've read The Anarchist's Cookbook. In a radar room. On a warship, while protecting the free world from democracy. This repression stuff is counter-productive.

|11.9.07 @ 8:53PM|#

Scop,

As I said, I'd have no problem with firing her if her job made her a security risk (which it didn't in this case). Prosecuting her for thoughtcrime is what's out of line.

M|11.9.07 @ 9:52PM|#

described "poisoned bullets" capable of killing an entire street in her poetry

Dass some badass poetry!

Rev Spitz|11.10.07 @ 12:32AM|#

John Dunkle posted the info about the babykilling abortionist, he didn't write it. The babykilling abortionists receive too much protection and shows how corrupt our govenment is that it will protect these babykillers.

Fluffy|11.10.07 @ 8:35AM|#

I think that she's not only accused of thoughtcrime here - she's also being accused pretty much solely on the basis of her race.

If I had an apartment in England with the same collection of writings in it, I seriously doubt anyone would consider it evidence that I was a terrorist. Why? Because I'm so white I'm fucking blue.

My whiteness would mean that I could write poetry about beheadings pretty much to my fucking heart's content.

Face it, 100 years after Gandhi's time in South Africa, dark people still aren't really citizens of Britain. At least, I have to conclude that when there is a political crimes law clearly aimed at them and not at whites.

Jennifer|11.10.07 @ 1:00PM|#

Jesus, Don, do ytou ever take an internet break?

|11.10.07 @ 1:13PM|#

Who's Don?

|11.10.07 @ 2:20PM|#

Joe Dokes,

Are you this Joe Dokes?

|11.10.07 @ 3:12PM|#

crimethink, I thought I had a twisted, convoluted mind that made connections others don't see, but that takes the cake! Bravo, Huzzah, Harumph even.

BakedPenguin|11.10.07 @ 11:51PM|#

This visage of mine
Never gonna get me laid
Time to start hating

Hate to say it, but after IRTFA and then saw her picture, I was thinking "you know, shouldn't you be wearing a burqa if you're that extreme?"

|11.11.07 @ 8:10AM|#

It's not like she was working security, or maintenance, or any capacity in which she could assist with a terrorist attack. She was working in an airport shop.

A position that would allow her to smuggle weapons past security to hand off to terrorists. Sorry, not convinced.

|11.11.07 @ 8:56AM|#

crimethink,

"No offense intended to Brits -- after all, our system of govt was lifted from theirs -- but a patchwork quilt of bits of constitution scattered across 1000 years worth of documents isn't much better than no constitution at all."

How is that any worse than a single document Constitution (plus 27 Amendments), which is completely ignored when it's not being creatively re-interpreted in whatever way will increase the government's power and authority to do whatever the fuck it wants?

|11.11.07 @ 11:06PM|#

RC,

Workers in airport shops have to go thru security just like everyone else entering the terminal. She's not any more able to bring weapons to the gate than anyone else.

Heck, even maintenance workers have to go through their own security checkpoint when entering "sterile" (ie, dangerous item free) areas of the terminal.

|11.11.07 @ 11:37PM|#

Heck, even maintenance workers have to go through their own security checkpoint when entering "sterile" (ie, dangerous item free) areas of the terminal.

Aw, shucks, crimethink, why'd you have to explain what you meant by "sterile". I can think of several airport employees I've met over the years that I'd like to see made "sterile" in the more conventional sense.

Jumbie|11.12.07 @ 12:55AM|#

Never mind the huge amount of cocaine smuggled through airorts by terminal workers, I'm sure *weapons* could never get through the crack security inspections.