A Stitch in Haste

There is no First Amendment, or common sense, in Britain:

It happened at the end of September, during a festival of Jewish celebration in Trafalgar Square. The four were distributing flyers advertising a party due to take place in Hackney this month. The party was called "The protocols of the elders of Hackney" a pun on that old fraudulent anti-Semitic document, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Even though their leaflet was clearly satirical, the four pranksters were arrested on suspicion of spreading anti-Semitic material. Following complaints from a handful of members of the public, the police arrested and detained the four leafleters under section 19 of the Public Order Act, which covers suspicion of distributing racially inflammatory material with intent to incite racial hatred.

Criminal Investigation Department (CID) officers confiscated the "inflammable leaflets," as Jewdas now refers to them. The fact that the leaflet was produced by Jewish members of Jewdas — the self-appointed "radical voice for the alternative Jewish Diaspora" that wants to "celebrate being Jewish" — seemed to make not a blind bit of difference to those who complained of anti-Semitism or to the police who acted on those complaints.

This wasn't just what we Yanks would call a First Amendment violation; it was a case of prior restraint — censorship, the Great Line We Simply Do Not Ever Cross. And all over a party and a parody, an attempt to make people smile and laugh and forget the hate-based sorrows of the world for a while.

So much for that idea.

Then again, we're poised to suspend the Great Writ, in flagrant violation of our own Constitution. So who are we to judge?

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Meanwhile, this sort of anti-Semitism seems perfectly okay in Britain:

PC Alexander Omar Basha, who is attached to the force's Diplomatic Protection Group, objected to being posted to protect Israel's embassy in central London from possible terrorist attack because he disagreed with the country's bombing of Lebanon.
...
A Met spokesman earlier said allowances were occasionally granted to officers who objected to duties on moral grounds.
...
The case has provoked unease from those who worry that officers may be able to start picking and choosing their duties.

If you can't do the job, then quit. "Moral grounds" be damned. Even the U.S.' First Amendment does not recognize a free-speech "right not to do your job. (Via Samizdata.)