UK cartoons protestor convicted for inciting race hatred News
UK cartoons protestor convicted for inciting race hatred

[JURIST] A UK man was convicted Thursday of inciting racial hatred during a February protest [BBC report] in London against publication of cartoons of the prophet Muhammad [JURIST news archive]. Mizanur Rahman, 23, was arrested after a rally at the Danish embassy in Chelsea and also charged with inciting murder, but the jury could not reach a verdict on that matter. During his trial at the Central Criminal Court at the Old Bailey [official website], prosecutors presented evidence that Rahman had called for more September 11-style attacks throughout Europe and for UK troops in Iraq to be sent home in body bags, while carrying a placard reading "Annihilate those who insult Islam." Rahman remains in custody until the prosecution decides whether a retrial on the issue of inciting murder should take place.

Defense counsel John Burton told the jury that offensive remarks could not sustain a conviction, asking them whether Rahman had exercised his freedom of speech or had committed a serious crime. Rahman stated during the trial that he did not think anyone would take him seriously. BBC News has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

White supremacists overthrow government in Wilmington, North Carolina

A group of white supremacists overthrew the government of Wilmington, North Carolina on November 10, 1898, killing at least dozens of Black people in the process. The city's Republican government resigned after the 500-2,000 strong white mob burned the offices of a Black-owned newspaper and terrorized black neighborhoods. The new state Democratic government passed laws in 1899 disenfranchising Black voters across North Carolina. Learn more about the 1898 Wilmington Coup.

Supreme Court limited free speech in wartime

On November 10, 1919, the US Supreme Court ruled in Abrams v. United States that the federal government could criminalize speech if it was of a type tending to bring about harmful results, in this case, resistance to the United States war effort. In a powerful dissenting opinion, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes countered that even during wartime, free speech could only be curtailed when there was clear and "present danger of immediate evil or an intent to bring it about."

Leonid Brezhnev dies

On November 10, 1982, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev died of a heart attack. He had served as leader of the USSR from October 1964 until his death. Following his death, the Soviet Union cycled through three more leaders during the 1980s until Mikhail Gorbachev allowed the country to dissolve in 1991. Read an obituary of Leonid Brezhnev from the New York Times.