THE Jewish leader who testified in the trial of the Airdrie man who trained a pug to perform Nazi salutes, has received hundreds of anti-semitic messages since the conviction.
In a statement yesterday, Ephraim Borowski, the director, of the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities (SCoJeC), said his organisation welcomed the conviction but said they’d been “flooded with abusive messages from around the world”.
Two years ago, Mark Meechan, who goes by the name Count Dankula online, posted a video on YouTube of his partner’s pet dog raising its paw whenever he said “gas the Jews” and “Sieg Heil”.
READ MORE: Nazi dog was a problematic joke – but it was far from a crime
The blogger insisted the purpose of the video was a joke, solely meant to annoy his girlfriend.
But on Monday, in Airdrie Sheriff Court, Sheriff Derek O’Carroll said the youtube clip was “anti-semitic and racist in nature” and found the 30-year-old blogger guilty of a charge under the Communications Act.
He could now face six months in jail.
Meechan’s defenders include some of the biggest comedians on the plant, and a number of free speech organisations.
Yesterday, campaign group, Index on Censorship, criticised the conviction. Chief executive Jodie Ginsberg said: “Numerous rulings by British and European courts have affirmed that freedom of expression includes the right to offend. Defending everyone’s right to free speech must include defending the rights of those who say things we find shocking or offensive. Otherwise the freedom is meaningless.”
But his case has also become a cause celebre for the far-right.
In a video on the YouTube channel of far right EDL leader Tommy Robinson, filmed shortly after the trial, Meechan said he was ready to be locked up.
“If that’s what it would take for everyone to realise ... these laws need changed, they’re overreaching, they’re authoritarian,” he told Robinson.
In their statement SCoJeC said they were grateful to the court “for recognising that shouting ‘Gas the Jews’ over and over again is not a joke, and that claiming that something is a joke does not make it any less offensive.
Borowski, said: “This case was not about whether the video was a ‘joke’ but about whether it was intended to give offence; Meechan himself made clear both in the video and in court that that was his intention, and far from apologising or expressing regret, is now presenting himself as a martyr and has been embraced by the extreme right.”
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