UK YouTuber who trained girlfriend's pet pug to give Nazi salutes has appeal rejected - Markus Meechan, 32, taught his girlfriend's pug to react to the words "gas the Jews" and other anti-semitic sentences and was convicted of a hate crime


"I have posted an update to the gofundme, sadly, the Supreme Court has rejected my appeal. We are currently seeking counsel with an expert on the ECHR and will post further updates once we have further information."


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A YouTuber who trained his girlfriend's dog to give Nazi salutes and was convicted of hate crime has had his appeal rejected by the Supreme Court.

Markus Meechan, 32, who uses the nickname Count Dankula, was prosecuted after teaching the dog, a pug named Buddha, to perform the offensive gesture.

He was convicted of a hate crime in communicating a video which was "grossly offensive" after denying the charge at a trial at Airdrie Sheriff Court.

In April 2018 Meechan was given a fine of £800 and was told to pay it within six months, but he publicly stated he would refuse to do so.

Meechan, of Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire, taught the pug to react to the words "gas the Jews" and filmed it for his YouTube channel in 2017, supposedly to annoy his girlfriend.

The dog was also seen raising a paw to fascist chant "Sieg Heil" during the footage called "M8 Yur Dug's a Nazi" which was viewed more than three million times.

The case created a debate around freedom of speech, with comedians such as Ricky Gervais speaking out on Meechan's behalf.

Far-right leader Tommy Robinson attended the trial in support.

About £195,657 was raised on a GoFundMe page to take the appeal to the Supreme Court, which rejected it saying it had "no merit", according to Meehan.

The man, who has since married his girlfriend, is now considering taking the case to the European Court of Human Rights.

He wrote: "As some of you may be aware, we petitioned to the UK Supreme Court to hear our case, a process that took very many months to hear back from and sadly we have received news back that they have refused to hear the case.

"The reason they cited is that my appeal "had no merit" but as of yet, they have provided no information as to specifically why this is.

"After this step we have one final option, the European Court Of Human Rights.

"One hundred per cent of the remaining funds that are left over after legal fees have been paid WILL be donated to charity, I refuse to shift on that stance.

"Ideally I would like to see the funds go to a children's hospital."
 
The first bit is in favour of Dankula and the phrase in bold is where I'd imagine the UK government will base it's case.
I'm so proud of that the UK government is going out of their way to protect us from a pug that rose its paw! 👏👏👏 I bet they're patting themselfs on the back about how much of a change they are making when it's just pissing off the normal folk for having to pay money to be mean.
 
The sun has already set. We are just watching the darkness breaking it apart.
Britain's been a shell since WW2 and Suez, occasionally trying to stay relevant by being a yap dog to the US. And I'm not aware of us ever having much interest in universal free speech codes. We barely cared about universal suffrage for fuck's sakes.

What's retarded about the comments in this thread is the implication that the UK has fallen from some grace or that our shitty attitudes towards free speech are somehow a new thing.
 
How do you go from owning one third of the world to being this much of pathetic kiss-ass?

We lost that third after ww2 because you yanks decided to throw a fit, wave your nukes around, and demand we "give it back" to the poor, oppressed brown folk. That and the cost of fighting the war utterly bankrupted us.
 
Surprised he still has a bank account TBH. I mean, he doesn't have any political views really, but still, hate speech conviction..

We lost that third after ww2 because you yanks decided to throw a fit, wave your nukes around, and demand we "give it back" to the poor, oppressed brown folk. That and the cost of fighting the war utterly bankrupted us.
Yes, clearly it was the fault of the 'Yanks' that you engaged in a war of choice. Obviously Roosevelt and his lesbian Soviet agent wife didn't help, but to pretend the UK didn't own itself spectacularly is ridiculous.
 
What's the tipping point for push back to finally start happening on a large scale?
It's never going to happen. People will cheer when the government censors something they don't like because they can't understand that you don't get to choose who or what gets censored in the long run.
They can't see that the range of acceptable discussion will keep moving left or right but the idea that silencing people is acceptable is gonna stay.

Censorship isn't about preventing people from saying or doing things you personally find reprehensible. Yes, it can be, but only when your ideals align with that of your current government. Censorship is your communist nanny state fining you because your joke hurt someone's feelings but it's also your fascist quasi-dictatorship sending you to jail because they think your degeneracy is going to ruin the nation.

There's no "hate speech is not free speech", either people are allowed to say what they want or they aren't, there's no in-between
Maybe one day people will realize that but I seriously doubt it.
 
Yes, clearly it was the fault of the 'Yanks' that you engaged in a war of choice. Obviously Roosevelt and his lesbian Soviet agent wife didn't help, but to pretend the UK didn't own itself spectacularly is ridiculous.
Learn to read.
 
Learn to read.
Why did the 'Yanks' have nukes? Why had the UK greatly increased its economic, political, and military vulnerability to US power? Why was the Soviet Union on the verge of occupying the whole of Europe?

It's your fault, Briton.
 
It's worth pointing out that this story is barely being reported on in the UK in a really erratic way. It's a big deal online and so the BBC felt obliged I think, to do a program on Dankula. Other than that, most reporters will just recycle the online court judgement.

One of the things that surprised a lot of the 'great and good' in the UK was how this became an issue abroad, particularly in the US. Again I think a reason that the Judge got away with denying the appeal. Even though in his judgement he declared that context wasn't important when it came to Hate crime legislation, which to me seemed to be a new interpretation that should have been tested in a higher court.
 
It's never going to happen. People will cheer when the government censors something they don't like
It's sweet of you to think this is government censorship, and not a case of the British citizenry being complete pussies when it comes to free speech. We don't have a first amendment mentality here, and the average old biddy is probably happy to see you get nicked for being rude to people on youtube.

Back in the early 2000s, I remember the producers of "Jeremy Springer: the opera" being taken to court on a charge of blasphemy. It didn't stick, but the fact that there was even a case tells you enough.
 
I wonder if the U.K Tory party sucks as much as our Canadian Tories. When we had Harper in charge over here the curious internet censorship bills kept popping up. For a supposedly fiscally conservative government they sure liked to head over into socially conservative realms and enjoyed muzzling freedom of speech and expression.
 
I wonder if the U.K Tory party sucks as much as our Canadian Tories. When we had Harper in charge over here the curious internet censorship bills kept popping up. For a supposedly fiscally conservative government they sure liked to head over into socially conservative realms and enjoyed muzzling freedom of speech and expression.
They do. They're not small-government conservatives and never were. The tories are the party of the aristocracy and I have never met an aristo that wasn't all for increasing the reach of the state, raising more taxes, and imposing on the people whatever faddish nonsense he had heard that morning.
 
The United Kingdom is such a shit show. To think I was going to move there years ago, I'm glad I didn't. The USSR would have been a better place to live, at least there was more freedom.

And even then, in the USSR the people they DO discriminate against aren't human to begin with, such as gays and Muslims.

(One day my Kiwi account will be discovered and used against me, so I'm inclined to say that was just a joke...something the UK doesn't get and I'd go to prison for if I didn't live in Freedom land.)
 
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And even then, in the USSR the people they DO discriminate against aren't human to begin with, such as gays and Muslims.

(One day my Kiwi account will be discovered and used against me, so I'm inclined to say that was just a joke...something the UK doesn't get and I'd go to prison for if I didn't live in Freedom land.)
At least they're okay with lesbians, and they have gopniks so you don't need teh gays.
 
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