Kellie-Jay Keen charged under Communications Act over 'grossly offensive' X post about Islam

The British campaigner is due in court on December 4 over a "grossly offensive" X post about Islam. The Free Speech Union is defending her.

 

X / ThePosieParker

Kellie-Jay Keen, the British women's rights campaigner also known as Posie Parker, says she has been charged by the Metropolitan Police under section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 over a post she made on X between June 23 and June 25. She is due to enter a plea at Westminster Magistrates' Court at 10 a.m. on December 4.

Keen announced the charge in a video on October 30. Reading the charge sheet, she said she was accused of having, "between the 23rd and the 25th of June, sent by means of public electronic communications network, a message that was grossly offensive."

Section 127(1) covers a message "that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character." The maximum penalty is six months in prison, a fine, or both.

Keen has not said which post is charged. In August she recorded a call, reported by the free speech and privacy site Reclaim The Net, in which a Met officer read three of her June posts back to her.

One, posted over a video purporting to show Muslims in Manchester, read "There's nothing about this scene that doesn't scream backward regressive sub normal culture." Another, over a clip of Baroness Warsi, read "No one needs foreign money to understand the threat Islam poses to every last one of us."

Asked who the offence was against, the officer said "somebody who's read those tweets has taken offense to them and made the report." He said the case had gone to the Crown Prosecution Service "for early advice."

Before a voluntary police interview in September, she wrote on her Substack, "We do not have a blasphemy law in this country, and we should be extremely wary of recreating one through public order or communications offences."

The Free Speech Union, a British group that defends people punished for their speech, is defending her. "In a free society, no religion or cultural practice should be immune from criticism," it said, as quoted by Reclaim The Net.

The writer Paul Embery, in a post dated November 3, said Keen is asking supporters to gather outside the court.

The charge is an accusation, not a finding.

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Efron Monsanto

Head of Video

Formerly Hamilton-based, now Toronto man and Head of Video Production for Rebel News, Efron Monsanto joined as an intern in 2017 and has been a Rebel ever since. While witnessing Canada succumb to government overreach through the powers of un-elected medical bureaucrats, he became a video journalist. Documenting police and municipal thuggery alike, he strives to shine light on the darkness that is covering Canada’s liberty.

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