Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Not nearly enough

Can you imagine what sentence you'd get if you went on a twenty minute racist rant at a sports referee during a match? Particularly if you are already in breach of a 32 weeks suspended prison term for assault.
You'd expect the book thrown at you, you'd expect like Emma West to be caught up in the system for over a year whilst every inch of your private life is gone over with a fine toothed comb.
Well you'd expect that if you were English at least...
Mail.
An Asian footballer who racially abused a referee and threatened to kill his family after he was sent off during a match has been jailed for his 20-minute rant.
Wasar Ahmed, 23, launched a foul-mouthed racist tirade against Ian Fraser after he gave him a red card warning the official: 'I’m going to break every white bone in your white face.'
As the other players and spectators looked on, angry Ahmed was escorted off the field shouting: 'I’m going to burn your white house down and kill your wife and kids - I know where you live. I’m going to come and find your house.'
After the game finished, Ahmed stood near to Mr Fraser’s car and stared at him as he got in.
He was arrested soon after when the referee, who has 30 years' experience in officiating at matches, went to a police station and made a formal complaint to officers and the East Lancashire Football League.
At Burnley Crown Court, jobless Ahmed, from Burnley, admitted causing racially aggravated harassment, alarm or distress and was jailed for eight weeks after a judge said referees were entitled to protection from badly behaved footballers.
Ahmed later said he could not remember exactly what he said but admitted he had lost his temper.
It was also revealed he was in breach of a 32 weeks suspended prison term for assault.
Yep, 8 weeks which essentially means he'll be out and about in three, if he isn't out already.
There's also the 'Asian' thing again, though the name is a giveaway as Wasar Ahmed is a muslim of Pakistani descent.
Does anyone here believe that if a white person had done the same he'd have received the same kid glove treatment? I suppose it's possible, though judging from what has happened to racists who are white it does seem unlikely. Emma West for example got a 24 month community order, granted no prison, but she's still dealing with it.
Also of note is the guy with the bomb tattoo at the EDL demo was arrested and seems likely to be charged with “inciting religious or racial hatred” which if he's found guilty of will mean jail.
It will be interesting to see what sentence he gets as all he had was a picture... hell the poppy burners only got a £50 fine...

 

2 annotations:

DerekP said...

"Does anyone here believe that if a white person had done the same he'd have received the same kid glove treatment?"

Institutional racism going on at wikipedia?

Guess which direction:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/seanthomas/100229154/the-murder-of-stephen-lawrence-and-the-strange-case-of-the-missing-wikipedia-entries

Anonymous said...

This has already been highlighted by the excellent but sadly infrequently updated Laban Tall as far back as 2007 :

http://ukcommentators.blogspot.com/2007/06/wikipedia-memory-hole.html