Alert Interpol: Gas Passer On the Loose!

I'm sure Ananova is a crack news operation, but there's something about this story that just doesn't smell right:

Police in Poland have launched a nationwide hunt for a man who farted loudly when asked what he thought of the president.

Hubert Hoffman, 45, was charged with "contempt for the office of the head of state" for his actions after he was stopped by police in a routine check at a Warsaw railway station.

He complained that under President Lech Kaczynski and his twin brother Jaroslaw, the country was returning to a Communist style dictatorship.

When told to show more respect for the country's rulers, he farted loudly and was promptly arrested.

Hoffmann was arrested and released on bail but failed to turn up at a Warsaw court early this week to be tried, and the judge in the case rejected an appeal by defence lawyers to throw the charges out.

A court spokesman said: "Such a case of disrespect is taken very seriously."

Instead the court ordered the police to start a nationwide hunt for the man, and interpol have been alerted.

Comments

[mk]

Give that man a green card stat.

[andy]

Damn, and I thought we had it bad.

What was that quote? "Fascism is ever descending upon America, but in Europe it's already landed." Or something like that. Who here can honestly say that we don't still live in the freest country on earth, however far we may be from a libertarian utopia?

[thoreau]

Don't the Poles realize that if they raise a stink over this it's just going to blow back at them?

[Karen]

My four-year-old son is capable of detecting broken wind and shouting about it from 300 yards away. Does he have a career Polish law enforcement? (Oh, and believe me, there's really no significant difference in public reaction to his shouts of "You FARTED!!!" and "You BROKE WIND!!!)

[Mike Laursen]

The U.S.A. is no longer the title holder for "freest country on earth".

Taking just one "freedom index" as an example, Reporters Without Borders rated these countries as having more freedom of the press than the United States: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Slovakia, Switzerland, New Zealand, Latvia, Estonia, Germany, Sweden, Trinidad and Tobago, Slovenia, Lithuania, Austria, Canada, Czech Republic, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Belgium.

[NoStar]

I think this makes Polish jokes PC once again. Lord knows most of them stink to high heaven.

[Jozef]

I spoke with a friend of mine who lives in Poland about it. The hunt has been called off, and the main reason for charging the guy was very coarse language he used when talking about the Polish President.

[Anonymous]

Mike Laursen

The fact that Canada and Germany made that list makes it highly suspect.

Of course, when Reporters Without Borders talks about freedom of the press they might mean "reporters have more privileges and subsidies in these countries" rather than you can pretty much print whatever you want to.

Sort of like those "freedom indices" that use getting your medicine paid for by someone else as a measure of liberty.

[Patrick]

Crazy poles -- I fart in their general direction!

[Larry A]

Poland is bad? Read the last three Reason Brickbats (9/29-10/3) and see what England is doing.

Children playing hopscotch on the sidewalk is "anti-social behavior?"

[Aresen]

In Canada, the press is free as long as you report what the Asper family wants.