England: even when not resulting in disorder, four years in jail for using Facebook to “incite disorder”

Madison Ruppert, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

As I covered in my recent article, the British police state is officially here as Prime Minister David Cameron made very clear, and it is becoming more evident by the day.

As I also covered a few days ago, the crackdown on social media in England has begun in full force, starting with the sentencing of two young men, 20 and 22 years old, to four years in jail for making comments on Facebook that did not result in any riot-related activity.

It began with a call coming from Cameron and others to give the government the power to shut down social media outlets whenever they deemed necessary due to a real or perceived emergency.

Then it transformed into Cameron blaming a moral collapse and diverting any attention from the socio-economic problems wracking the UK.

Now Cameron’s rhetoric is rearing its ugly head in the sentencing of 20-year-old Jordan Blackshaw and 22-year-old Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan for a failed attempt to rile people up and organize riots in their respective towns.

If this couldn’t get any more absurd, the BBC reported that the idea began as nothing more than a misguided joke between Blackshaw and Sutcliffe-Keenan.

Unsurprisingly, Cameron defended this ludicrous sentencing approach by saying, “I think it’s right that we should allow the courts to make decisions about sentencing. They decided in that court … to send a tough message and I think it’s very good that the courts are able to do that.”

The message is clear: encouraging people to fight back against a criminal and oppressive government through social media will not be accepted.

Even if your words didn’t actually organize or incite a riot, you will get disproportionate sentencing for simply writing something on a website.

This gets even worse as the Guardian reported:

The revelation that magistrates were advised by justices’ clerks to disregard normal sentencing guidelines when dealing with riot-related cases has alarmed some lawyers, who warn it will trigger a spate of appeals.

A spate of appeals is the least they should be worrying about. In the eyes of the civilized world, it is hard to see a case like this (even when it actually is not “riot-related” since they caused no riots) as an expression of a just and free society.

While the West loves to criticize every single Muslim country along with any nation that doesn’t fully comply with the international banking cartels for “human rights violations” the Western countries are sentencing people to four years in prison for using Facebook and allowing a municipal transportation bureaucracy to illegally shut down cellphone traffic.

The hypocrisy is almost hard to stomach at this point.

However, the lawyer who warned of a spate of appeals elucidates the real danger behind the disproportionate sentencing by saying, “by the time [the appeals] have been heard, those sentences may already have been served.”

According to the Crown Prosecution Service, Blackshaw created a Facebook event entitled, “Smash d[o]wn in Northwich Town” according to the BBC, “intended for the receipt of the ‘Mob Hill Massive Northwich Lootin’’”

The only people to show up for the “Smash d[o]wn” were the police.

Blackshaw and Sutcliffe-Keenan were reportedly were, according to Martin McRobb of the Merseyside and Cheshire Crown Prosecution Service, “previously of good character” but “they admitted committing very serious offences that carry a maximum sentence of 10 years.”

Phil Thompson, Assistant Chief Constable of Cheshire Police also told the BBC, “From the offset Cheshire Constabulary adopted a robust policing approach using the information coming into the organization to move quickly and effectively against any person whose behavior was likely to encourage criminality. Officers took swift action against people who had been using Facebook and other social media sites to incite disorder.”

He then lauded the sentencing as recognition of “how technology can be abused to incite criminal activity”, even though they incited absolute no criminal activity whatsoever.

Free speech is under fire in the UK like never before and this is just proof positive that the police and government are happy to support this.