Brought to Facebook
On Friday 14th September Azhar Ahmed was found guilty of ’Improper use of public electronic communications network’ under section 127 of the Communications Act 2003. As SchNEWS reported, in March Azhar had posted a Facebook update criticising lack of publicity received by civilian deaths compared to the deaths of British soldiers. While the tone and some of the wording of the post could (at best) be described as undiplomatic, Azhar had never intended people outside of his ’friends’ list to see it.
West Yorks Police originally charged Azhar with a much more serious charge – racially-aggravated harassment. At the first court appearance, realising this charge wouldn’t stick, the CPS decided on a prosecution under the relatively obscure Communications Act. The act criminalises any messages that are “grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character”, meaning a large proportion of all status updates and Tweets could be covered.