UK Edition
Arrested for telling a bad joke: the Count Dankula story
The Count Dankula “Hitler pug” saga was the shaggy dog story that sparked a national debate about free speech, had comedians at each other’s virtual throats and threatened to burn the internet to the ground. Naturally there were claims of rough justice – alright, “wuff” justice – as the police became involved while the intervention of far-Right campaigner Tommy Robinson was regarded by many as final evidence that the world had gone barking mad.
Did Scottish YouTube comedian Mark Meechan – aka Count Dankula – have the inkling of the forces he was about to unleash? The furore began in April 2016, when he posted to YouTube a video of an adorable pug giving a Nazi salute.
“My girlfriend is always ranting and raving about how cute and adorable her wee dog is so I thought I would turn him into the least cute thing I could think of, which is a Nazi,” he says.
In the clip, the dog raises its right paw in response to the command “Sieg Heil”. It is further shown watching Hitler and reacting when Meechan asks if the animal wants to “gas the Jews”.
The video ends – and then everything came cratering in on Meechan, who quickly found himself up in court on hate speech charges.
As a comic with a taste for the outrageous, he will probably have appreciated at some level the absurdity of it all. His fascist pet was soon the lightning rod for a heated conversation about speech rights. Ricky Gervais, Stephen Fry, Jonathan Pie and the writer of Father Ted waded in. As, more seriously for Meechan, did the police.
The case was even brought up in the House of Commons. Meechan attracted the support of far-Right figures such as Alex Jones and the aforementioned Robinson, who attended his sentence hearing. (“A picture with Tommy Robinson does not mean I am a white supremacist,” he would later tweet. “Tommy is also not a white supremacist.”)
And in March he was invited to discuss freedom of speech on BBC Scotland, only to be disinvited following a backlash. “We have concluded that it’s not appropriate to include Mark Meechan as a contributor,” said the broadcaster. Last month, he unsuccessfully stood for Ukip in the European elections.
The circus had, by that point, seemingly packed up and gone home. And yet there were echoes of Dankula-gate, and the way in which the saga swung between the ridiculous and the potentially historically significant, when Jo Brand this week found herself at the centre of a similar free-speech ruckus.
Brand is to be investigated by police over allegations of incitement to violence after she quipped about throwing battery acid. “Certain unpleasant characters are being thrown to the fore,” she said on Radio 4’s comedy show Heresy. “And they’re very, very easy to hate and I’m kind of thinking, why bother with a milkshake when you could get some battery acid?”
Nigel Farage, who has had milkshakes thrown over him of late, condemned the remarks on Twitter: “This is incitement of violence and the police need to act.” Later, the police confirmed that they were investigating the matter.
Brand insists that she had been making a joke – essentially the same defence offered by YouTuber Meechan when he was arrested under the Communications Act of 2003 and found guilty of posting a “grossly offensive” video. It’s important to note that these charges were very different from those with which could be potentially brought against Brand.
He was, to cut through the legalese, accused of hate speech. Brand, by contrast, is being investigated to ascertain whether she made her comments with the intent to encourage acid attacks.
The crux of Meechan’s conviction was his use of the phrase “gas the Jews”, as Sheriff Derek O’Carroll told the YouTuber before fining him £800. Meechan funded his defence by raising £186,000 from the public.
“The centrepiece of your video consists of you repeating the phrase ‘gas the Jews’ over and over again as a command to a dog, which then reacts,” said the Sheriff in a statement read at court.
“Sometimes the phrase is ‘you want to gas the Jews’. You recite ‘gas the Jews’ in a variety of dramatic ways. ‘Gas the Jews’, in one form or another, is repeated by you 23 times within a few minutes.”
The legal question was whether the statements were “grossly offensive”, the standard set out in the 2003 legislation. In deciding whether or not this was the case, the court was required to take into account “whether the message [were] liable to cause gross offence to those to whom it relates: in this case, Jewish people”.
The court had rejected Meechan’s claim that he had made the video as a joke for his girlfriend. It was pointed out that she wasn’t even a subscriber to his YouTube channel.
O’Carroll continued: “The evidence before this court was that the video was viewed as grossly offensive within Jewish communities in Scotland, and that such material tended to normalise anti-Semitic attitudes and provoke further unpleasant anti-Semitic messages, and as such, this video using menacing language, led to great concern.”
The prosecution of Meechan was widely condemned by comedians. “A man has been convicted in a UK court of making a joke that was deemed ‘grossly offensive’,” tweeted Ricky Gervais. “If you don’t believe in a person’s right to say things that you might find ‘grossly offensive’, then you don't believe in Freedom of Speech.”
“As far as I’m concerned, you can definitely do jokes about the Holocaust,” agreed David Baddiel, who is (of course) Jewish. “You can do jokes about anything.”
One dissenting voice was Father Ted writer Graham Linehan, who clashed on Twitter with satirist Tom Walker, aka Jonathan Pie. Walker had stood outside the court, shouting: “It was a joke, you c---”.
This prompted Linehan to wonder whether Walker would repeat that statement to the Jewish representatives who had testified in court that there had been a rise in hate speech after the video appeared on YouTube. “Will Jonathan Pie be doing a follow-up,” he wondered, “to shout ‘It was a joke, you c---s’ at Ephraim Borowski and the people he represents?”
Meechan has refused to pay the fine, though he donated the equivalent sum to charity. So the case, while quickly receding in the public consciousness, may have a few more twists.
The controversy around Brand is obviously similar to the Count Dankula affair, insofar as it cuts to the heart about the debate about freedom of speech – and the tension that exists between it and the obligation to protect citizens from hateful statements.
Meechan has weighed in, too. “I’m honestly really enjoying all the hypocrisy coming from people who came after me but are defending Jo Brand,” he tweeted.
There are, as outlined above, differences between these cases. Nobody is accusing Brand of “grossly offensive” hate speech, as defined by the 2003 act. Rather, the contention of her critics is that her remarks could encourage people to pour acid over politicians with whom they passionately disagree – and that she knew this when she made them.
For now, the police must decide whether her comments match the standard. Brand has herself issued a mea culpa of sorts.
“Looking back, it probably was a somewhat crass and ill-judged joke that might upset people,” she told an audience in London. “Of course I’d never do anything like that. It was purely a fantasy. I’m sorry. I’m a human, I make mistakes.”
But she added that she still didn’t think she was guilty of anything. “I don’t think it’s a mistake. If you think it is, I’m happy to accept that.”
One aspect of her argument appeared to be that she hadn’t singled out any specific politician. “Nigel Farage wasn’t even mentioned by me on the night, so why he has taken it upon himself I don’t know.”
It’s up to the police, and ultimately the courts, to judge whether that is relevant, acting under the 2007 Serious Crime Act. They must further assess whether or not the individual allegedly doing the inciting intended to encourage another to commit an offence. Has that standard been met? We will have to wait and see.
Either way, it’s clear that the debate over freedom of speech in our era of seismic political striations and vitriolic rhetoric is clearly not at an end. Whether we want to live in a society where these outbursts are policed is a complicated question. But it’s one to which, sooner rather than later, we’re going to have to find an answer.