A story that you may have expected to come out of China has actually come out of Scotland, UK. Police in Glasgow, Scotland, arrested a 35-year-old man in connection with an offensive tweet about Captain Sir Tom Moore. The British Army veteran died of COVID-19 last week.
Initially, Moore was hospitalized for pneumonia. He then tested positive for coronavirus and the 100-year-old later died.
Sir Tom Moore, who was knighted for his charity work during the Queen’s first face-to-face engagement during the pandemic, spent the last year doing charity. He raised over £33 million ($45 million) for the UK’s National Health Service during his 100th birthday, an event he marked by walking 100 laps around his yard.
Apparently, not everyone in the UK was mourning the Second World War veteran. A Twitter account posted an offensive message shortly after his death.
A 35-year-old Glasgow resident was arrested in connection with the offensive tweet.
Scotland has some of the worst free speech protections in the Western world, and its attitude towards speech is decades behind other developed countries.
It’s also likely to get worse with the authoritarian “hate crime” bill that the country is trying to introduce.
“On Friday, 5 February, 2021, we received a report of an offensive tweet about Sir Captain Tom Moore who died on Tuesday, 2 February,” a Scotland Police spokesperson said Monday.
“A 35-year-old man has subsequently been arrested and charged in connection with communication offences and is due to appear at Lanark Sheriff Court on Wednesday, 17 February.”
The suspect is being charged for violating the Communications Act 2003. The law prohibits sending “by any means of a public electronic communication network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene, or menacing character.”
If found guilty, the man could spend up to six months in prison or receive a fine of up to £5,000 ($6,800), or both.
Scotland police have yet to reveal what the tweet was but rumors sent to Reclaim The Net suggest that the tweet was celebrating the death of the English veteran, suggesting Moore should “burn.”
