Khalid Mahmood is a Muslim MP in the British Parliament. He thinks a soccer fan who tore up pages of the Qur’an at a match should be charged with incitement to religious hatred. Apparently lost on Mahmoud is the responsibility of those who are offended by such actions. Part of that responsibility requires them to abide by the law whenever anyone else exercises their right to expression, regardless of how offended they may be.

Mahmood: British MP wants Qur’an page-tearer ‘dealt with severely’.

Via the Birmingham Mail:He (Mahmood) said:

“If these allegations are proven then the culprits should be dealt with severely and be charged with incitement.

“It’s disgraceful to allow pure hatred to come to an area like Bordesley Green with a high Muslim population and incite people like this.”

One of the things Islam is effective at doing is getting non-Muslims to do its dirty work. Hitler himself serves as the gleaming example. Regular readers of our site know this to be the case in Pakistan as well. Angry Muslim mobs in that country often intimidate police into arresting non-Muslims for committing blasphemy by, say, ripping pages of a Qur’an. In many cases, the police are reluctant participants who do what the mobs demand.

This leads us to the story of a soccer fan in Middlesbrough, England.

Via Gazette Live (h/t WZ):

A boro fan has been arrested on suspicion of inciting racial hatred after allegedly ripping up pages of the Koran at a match.

And six people have been suspended from attending Middlesbrough Football Club matches as the probe continued.

A 25-year-old man who has been arrested is accused of tearing up pages from the holy text of Islam and throwing them during Boro’s clash against Birmingham City last month.

The fan has been bailed while police continue to investigate the incident.

He is also banned from attending football matches and must not visit any city where Middlesbrough Football Club are playing.

Back during the Ground Zero mosque debate, on the 9th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, a man publicly burned three pages of the Qur’an before authorities escorted him away. His name is Derek Fenton and he was fired from his job, though re-hired several months later.

Have a look at how the New York Daily News opened its story on the incident shortly after it happened:

A hate-filled fanatic ripped pages out of a Koran and lit them aflame Saturday amid the chaos outside the planned community center and mosque near Ground Zero.

“If they can burn American flags, I can burn the Koran,” the unidentified zealot shouted. “[Americans] should never be afraid to give their opinion.”

Witnesses said it was a ghastly display of fervor – apparently inspired by the Florida pastor who vowed to torch the holy books earlier in the week – overshadowing what should have been a somber day.

What happened in New York with Fenton and in Middlesbrough with a soccer fan should be bright red flashing lights to westerners. In both cases, police quite likely didn’t want to arrest either man. Instead, public pressure in the form of political correctness or the fear of the consequences of not arresting these men served as the motivation. In extreme cases, authorities may get angry with the ‘blasphemers’ for putting them in that situation, which is extremely misplaced anger.

Fenton: Remember this guy?

This type of thing was on display prior to the Benghazi attack on 9/11/12. The campaign to make the attack about a movie was pushed by the Obama administration, yes, but it was also pushed by activist Muslims in Egypt, as we chronicled here. The purpose of doing so was to put pressure on non-Muslim countries to enact and enforce laws that make it criminal to commit blasphemy against Islam.

What happened in New York and Middlesbrough differs from what’s going on in Pakistan these days, in degree only, not in spirit.