Laws against inciting hatred: funny how an Islamist hate preacher is never prosecuted

And so we return to the case of Anjem Choudary, Britain’s most eminent Hate-Preacher-Who-Also-Lives-On-Benefits. Choudary has hit the news again, just as he intended, this time for marching down Brick Lane threatening shopkeepers with 40 lashes if they don’t stop selling alcohol. At the same time he has gone on record, acclaiming Muslim gangs (who recently attacked drinkers on London’s streets), as “fantastic”.

Now, simple minded souls might wonder whether Choudary was breaking the law here: isn’t it an incitement to violence, when you praise vicious mobs as “fantastic”? Isn’t it criminal, in some way, to menace shopkeepers with “40 lashes”?

Come to think of it, you might wonder why Choudary hasn’t been jailed before, given his record. In 2003 he was investigated for organising terrorist training camps. Around the same time he praised the 9/11 bombers as “magnificent martyrs”.  A few months later he predicted attacks on British soil. In 2005 he refused to condemn the 7/7 slaughters in London.

In 2006 he organised a protest outside the Danish Embassy in London where, notoriously, the protestors carried placards saying “Exterminate those who slander Islam", “Behead those who insult Islam”, and “Be prepared for the real holocaust". Some might imagine this was clearly an incitement to violence and racial/religious hatred, and worthy of jail time – but no. Choudary received a £500 fine, but it was imposed because he failed to inform police of the planned demo.

At various occasions between 2003 and 2011 he also preached to at least one of the men who went on to kill Woolwich drummer Lee Rigby. Choudary has since refused to condemn this slaughter: he has gone on record as saying Rigby is now “burning in hell”; he has praised one of the killers as a “very nice man”.

And now Choudary’s back in East London doing his provocateur shtick, yet again.

So why isn’t Choudary ever banged up for racism, or incitement to racial and religious hatred? Because, as Assistant Met Commissioner Cressida Dick informed MPs, just after the Rigby murder, “offences under the hatred laws” are “difficult to prosecute” and it seems he never crosses the line.

And that’s true, isn’t it? Hardly anyone is jailed for racial or religious hatred, because it is so “difficult to prosecute”.

I mean, off the top of my head, I can only think of 52-year-old Keith Hurdle, just given four months in prison for a racist rant on a Tube train, and Swansea student Liam Stacey, who got 54 days in prison for some racist tweets, and 42-year-old Jacqueline Woodhouse, given 21 weeks for a racist rant on another train, and six Charlton fans, jailed for 18 months for singing racist songs, and 62-year-old David Rowley, locked up for eight months after sending four racist texts, and Anthony Buck given four months for posting Islamophobic remarks on Facebook, and electrician Darren Tosh, who got 16 weeks inside for some more racist texts, and Grimsby man Terence Baker, who got prison time for being Islamophobic on the Internet, and Glaswegian Stephen Birrell, who got eight months for inciting hatred of Catholics on Facebook, and Gareth Hemingway, of Bognor Regis, who got 15 months for uploading racist clips to Youtube, and 34-year-old Emma West, who spent two weeks in jail for shouting at some foreign people on a tram, and Martin Smith, slammed in a cell for having a potentially racist ringtone, and fortysomething Ronnie Hutton, who spent days behind bars after revving his car in a racist manner, and 19-year-old Celtic fan Sean Smith, who got three months in prison for impersonating a monkey in the direction of a Senegalese footballer.

Yes, Anjem Choudary can count himself a lucky man. If only the police weren’t hamstrung by our soft, feeble laws against racial and religious hatred, which are so “difficult to prosecute”, he might be facing a few weeks in one of Her Majesty’s jails.