It is such a comfort to know that our public authorities are prepared to crack down hard on this sort of thing:
A prison officer was sacked for making an allegedly insulting remark about Osama bin Laden two months after the September 11 attacks, an employment tribunal heard yesterday.
Colin Rose, 53, was told he had to go because, although he did not know it, three Muslim visitors could have heard his “insensitive” comment about the world’s most reviled terrorist.
The assistant governor at Blundeston Prison, near Lowestoft, Suffolk, gave him a ticking off at the time. But he was sacked after a six-month investigation.
Mr Rose, a former Coldstream Guardsman with a 21-year unblemished record in the Prison Service, is claiming unfair dismissal.
The Norwich hearing was told that on Nov 15, 2001, he threw some keys into a metal chute at the prison gatehouse. When someone said it sounded as if he had thrown them so hard that they were going through the tray at the bottom of the chute, Mr Rose said: “There’s a photo of Osama bin Laden there.”
Just in case Mr Rose happens to be reading this, he should memorise and repeat the following statement:
“Osama bin Laden is merely the poor, desperate victim of oppression and social injustice”.
With sufficient sensitivity training, I am quite confident that unpleasantness of this nature can be avoided in the future.
I knew you guys would catch that one!
Here’s one I prepared earlier:
Prison Guard Sacked For Insulting a Muslim
Outrageous unfairness to Mr Rose – hope he wins the tribunal.
However, the key reason why the assistant governor should be sacked is not for being unfair to Mr Rose, but for being a particularly vile racist. Osama bin Laden is an evil bastard, everyone knows ObL is an evil bastard, and to assume that dissing ObL in front of Muslims will offend them is to assume that all Muslims are terrorists.
This is far worse than a one-off lapse from PC speak… as a comparison, I’d infinitely rather work for a black boss who hated the BNP and regularly sounded off about how evil the BNP scum were, than one who assumed that I must support the BNP because I was white.
“and to assume that dissing ObL in front of Muslims will offend them is to assume that all Muslims are terrorists.”
Absolutely.
I expect to hear Muslims commenting in a similar fashion soon … as they have in cases where, for example, charity shops banned Christmas cards for fear of causing offence. Several prominent Muslims pointed out how stupid that was…
How can we expect a man, this Andrew Rogers, to do a good job as an assistant prison governor when he finds such comments offensive.
He must wonder through the wings of the prison with his fingers in his ears, singing at the top of his voice in an attempt to avoid loosing his mind, what with all those ‘rude’ prisoners commenting at every opportunity.
Or has he lost his mind. Is this behaviour the result of an “Oi! Screw!” comment ruthlessly thrown at him on a previous occasion?
Osama bin Laden is an evil bastard, everyone knows ObL is an evil bastard, and to assume that dissing ObL in front of Muslims will offend them is to assume that all Muslims are terrorists.
Nothing more to add
OT:
You might be amused by a Marxist who actually understands Marx and is a real progressive:
http://www.lastsuperpower.net/docs/Document.2003-12-02.0041
He supports the War On Saddam on Marxist Principles – bet you thought they didn’t have any. 🙂
Ahhh [resigned sigh with attached shrug] – there are so many people in the world who would be better off dead. And you guys unerringly find every last one of them and parade them for our amusement. The idiot who thinks insulting bin Laden will offend Muslims, the charity shops who ban Xmas cards, the EUniks who issue regulations governing the maximum height of rocking horses (60cm, to be exact)…
The weight of all this idiocy has totally squelched my desire to blog, it really has. How does Briffa endure Toynbee column after Toynbee column without wanting to just end himself?
Balls of steel, one assumes…
Each time I read something like this, I mutter to myself, “another name to add to my list”, as I hear the melody from Gilbert & Sullivan’s “Mikado” – specifically the tune, “I’ve got a little list”.
Not only keeps me sane, it give me good dreams… 8^)
and yes, I am.
And a pecker to match, Steven.
Osama bin Laden should be humilated and beating until he is begging for death and then should be eating by wolfs that have been starved for days…. then if he survives that then he should be dropped on his head from a high height. and if by some miracle he survives that then he should be shoot in both legs and arms and left in a dark room until he bleeds to death.
Osama bin Laden should be humilated and beating until he is begging for death and then should be eating by wolfs that have been starved for days…. then if he survives that then he should be dropped on his head from a high height. and if by some miracle he survives that then he should be shoot in both legs and arms and left in a dark room until he bleeds to death. and thats freedom of speech
Osama bin Laden should be humilated and beating until he is begging for death and then should be eating by wolfs that have been starved for days…. then if he survives that then he should be dropped on his head from a high height. and if by some miracle he survives that then he should be shoot in both legs and arms and left in a dark room until he bleeds to death. and thats freedom of speech
peace out.