More than 100 people are in custody after police smashed a major plot to sabotage one of Britain's biggest power-stations. Officers swooped on environmental protesters as they prepared a mass raid that could have disrupted supplies to tens of thousands of homes. The demonstrators are thought to have gathered at night in readiness to move on Ratcliffe-on-Soar power-station, Nottinghamshire.
They were rounded up shortly after midnight on Sunday at the Bakersfield Community Centre in Sneinton, Notts, by scores of officers. Detectives later revealed they recovered specialist equipment that suggested the group represented a "serious threat" to the station's safety.
Supt Mike Manley, of the Nottinghamshire force, said 114 men and women from across the UK were detained during the dramatic swoop. They were being questioned on suspicion of conspiracy to commit aggravated trespass and criminal damage at Ratcliffe-on-Soar. Supt Manley said: "In view of specialist equipment recovered by police, those arrested posed a serious threat to the safe running of the site. "This was a significant operation, with large-scale arrests. There were no injuries during the arrests, and the police investigation is ongoing."
Witnesses told how officers in more than 20 police vans descended on the plotters' apparent rendezvous point in the early hours. Tess Rearden, who lives near the scene, said: "We were woken up by the sound of doors slamming and saw all these police vans and riot vans.... One resident told how the protesters did not fight with officers during the swoop but signalled their defiance as they were being led away. She said: "The police jumped out of their vans and ran behind the community centre. The people they brought out were singing: 'We'll be back again.'"
It is thought detectives had prior knowledge of the plot but chose to wait till the demonstrators were together in one place before moving in. Local city councillor David Mellen added: "I understand there was some kind of gathering of people here in connection with the power-station. "If the police had information that there was a danger to the power supply in the East Midlands then obviously they had to take action."
The Derbyshire and Leicestershire forces helped in the operation and later provided additional custody facilities for some of those arrested. Ratcliffe-on-Soar has been the target of a number of protests in the past, including one two years ago in which protesters tried to shut down the plant. Environmentalists who stormed the site on that occasion later failed in a landmark legal bid to prove they were acting in the interests of humanity.
Climate-change campaigners admitted they attempted to force the site's closure by chaining themselves to conveyor belts and filtration systems. But they argued that, because they were saving the planet from global warming, their actions were legal under the so-called "defence of necessity". Had they won their case they would have paved the way for campaigners around the country to stage similar protests without fear of prosecution.
At the time Eastside Climate Action, the group involved, said the break-in reflected "the threat climate change poses to the human population". A spokesman said: "We argue that the threat to human life is so serious that it is a proportionate and reasonable response to take direct action."
Giving evidence at the court hearing, station manager Raymond Smith told how production at the site was threatened during the incident. He said: "People chained themselves to the conveyor system and the filtration system. They were non-violent, but none had permission to be on the site. "If the protest had continued to the extent that the power station ran out of coal we would have had to shut it down. But we called the police."
Eastside denied any involvement in yesterday's events - thought to be linked to plans for a new coal-fired power-station in Kingsthorpe, Kent. E.on, the power giant behind Kingsthorpe, owns Ratcliffe-on-Soar - allegedly Britain's second-largest producer of carbon-dioxide emissions. An E.on spokesman said: "While we understand everyone has a right to protest peacefully and lawfully, this was clearly neither of those things. "We will be assisting police in their investigations into what could have been a very dangerous attempt to disrupt an operational power-plant."
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Scientists find drug that destroys Alzheimer's protein
A NEW approach to treating Alzheimer's passed its first clinical test when a drug developed by scientists was shown to clear the brain of a damaging protein linked to the disease. The drug completely removed a protein called SAP from the brains of five Alzheimer's patients, suggesting that it may be a potential therapy for the incurable degenerative condition.
While the study was not designed to investigate whether the drug had therapeutic benefits, its results were so promising that the scientists behind it are now seeking up to £4 million ($8 million) to test it on a larger group. "There is a severe need for a treatment for Alzheimer's, and there is nothing available that works well," said Mark Pepys, of University College London, who is leading the research. "Nothing else looks promising at the moment, and this is a pretty good, safe option. We can't guarantee it will work, but it's got a good shot."
The drug, known as CPHPC, was first developed by Professor Pepys almost 10 years ago as a possible treatment for amyloidosis, a disease in which amyloid proteins accumulate in the body's organs, often with fatal results.
While Professor Pepys is still investigating the drug for this purpose, and has signed a deal with GlaxoSmithKline to develop it, he is also pursuing it as a possible Alzheimer's therapy. Alzheimer's also features the build-up of amyloid plaques, in this case in brain cells, making CPHPC a good candidate for treatment.
In the new study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, CPHPC was given to patients aged between 53 and 67 who had mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease. After three months the drug cleared all SAP from their brains. The study was too short to show whether this had any clinical effect but none of the patients deteriorated during the research period. "The complete disappearance of SAP could not have been confidently predicted, and the drug, also to our surprise, entered the brain," Professor Pepys said.
Martin Rossor, of UCL Institute of Neurology, who also worked on the research, said: "The safety of CPHPC, together with the novel action of the drug in removing SAP, is very encouraging."
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"N*gger-hating" Greenie?
David Attenborough argues the planet cannot handle more people and wants births reduced. Since almost all the countries with positive population growth are in Africa, the target of this guy's ill-will would seem obvious. European birthrates are already half what is required for replacement of deaths
SIR David Attenborough has become a patron of an organisation that campaigns to limit the number of people in the world, arguing that the growth in global population is frightening. The television presenter and naturalist said the increase in population was having devastating effects on ecology, pollution and food production. "There are three times as many people in the world as when I started making television programs only a mere 56 years ago," Sir David, who has two children, said after becoming a patron of the Optimum Population Trust think-tank. [It's not a think-tank. It's just the successor to the old "people are pollution" ZPG movement. Calling it a hate-tank would be more accurate]
"It is frightening in the sense that we can't go on as we have been. We are seeing the consequences in terms of ecology, atmospheric pollution and in terms of the space and food production. "I've never seen a problem that wouldn't be easier to solve with fewer people, or harder, and ultimately impossible, with more. Population is reaching its optimum and the world cannot hold an infinite number of people." The OPT counts among its patrons the environmentalist Jonathon Porritt and the academic Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta. However, Sir David's appointment has already been criticised.
Austin Williams, author of The Enemies of Progress, said: "Experts can still be stupid when they speak on subjects of which they know little. Sir David may know a sight more than I do about remote species but that does not give him the intelligence to speak on global politics. "I have a problem with the line that people are a problem. More people are a good thing. People are the source of creativity, intelligence, analysis and problem-solving. "If we see people as just simple things that consume and excrete carbon, then the OPT may have a point, but people are more than this and they will be the ones to find the solutions."
Sir David said the OPT was drawing attention to the issue of population and being a patron seemed a worthwhile thing to do. Roger Martin, the chairman of the trust, said the appointment would put pressure on organisations to face up to what he said was the taboo issue of population. "The environmental movement will not confront the fact that there is not a single problem that they deal with which would not be easier with fewer people."
The trust campaigns for global access to family planning and for couples to be encouraged to stop having more than two children. In Britain it wants to stabilise the population by bringing immigration into balance with emigration and making greater efforts to reduce teenage pregnancies.
Mr Martin said the UK population must be reduced to a sustainable level because Britain was already the most overcrowded country in Europe. He said the world could not increase production to meet the needs of a growing population. "We can't feed ourselves with some of the most intensive agriculture in the world - we're only 70 per cent self-sufficient." Mr Martin said that Britain could not rely on the world food market because, when food runs short, exporters do not export it. "It's completely cuckoo to imagine that these globalised economies are going to keep us fed when we can't do it ourselves," he said.
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British Nursery pupils' education 'damaged' by the 300 tick-box targets they have to reach by age of five
Children's development is being damaged by a 'nappy curriculum' which judges them against 300 tick-box targets by the age of five, teachers' leaders warned yesterday. The curriculum, which was introduced last September for all 25,000 private and state nurseries and 70,000 childminders, sets out hundreds of developmental milestones between birth and primary school. In one example, babies from birth to 11 months are marked if they have shown they have 'communicated' by crying, gurgling, babbling or squealing.
But the National Union of Teachers has warned that the requirement on nursery staff to complete detailed 'assessment grids' is tying up time they should be spending with children.
Members also claim that the curriculum is simply a box-ticking exercise with an over-emphasis on paperwork and assessment, and that it is too rigid and formal for many youngsters. Inbar Tamari, a nursery teacher from Hackney, East London, said: 'I soon discovered in the time I had there was no way I could tick all the boxes in the foundation stage profile with my play-based observations, and each time I had to resort to less than child-friendly, though quicker, methods. 'Not everything can be measured, not everything can be numbered. Measuring plants won't make them any taller.'
Speaking of one three-year-old child in her care, Jane Walton, a nursery teacher from Wakefield, in Yorkshire, said: 'I'm supposed to be observing her and all these little boxes I'm supposed to be ticking off, so I couldn't intervene with her play, I couldn't engage her or move her on because I was too busy ticking her. 'I want somebody to trust my professional judgment. It doesn't tell us any more about those children I am teaching.' And in a plea to Children's Secretary Ed Balls, she added: 'Perhaps we should set you a target when you were born and it would be "leave education alone" Mr Balls.'
Their complaints are the latest in a series of concerns levelled at the curriculum. Ministers have already ordered a review of standards in early writing targets amid fears they could be too stretching. One requires five-year-olds to begin writing sentences using punctuation.
NUT delegates yesterday passed a motion condemning 'the demands made on members to complete paper-based assessments in early years, including assessment grids including up to 300 tick boxes per child'. The motion added: 'High quality early education should not be limited to a narrow focus on academic standards and targets should be concerned with the education, in the broadest sense, of the whole child and, in particular, with active participation, experiential learning and play.'
EARLY YEARS FOUNDATION STAGE - EXTRACTS
● Birth to 11 months: Communicate in a variety of ways, including by crying, gurgling, babbling and squealing
● Eight to 20 months: Begin to make marks, for example with a rusk on a feeding tray
● 16 to 26 months: Say some counting words randomly
● 22 to 26 months: Understand the numbers one and two and use number language such as 'more' and 'a lot'
● 30 to 50 months: Sing a few simple, familiar songs, draw lines and circles
● 40 to 60 months: Write their own names and under things such as labels and captions and begin to form simple sentences sometimes using punctuation
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NHS dental dark ages: 'I couldn't find a dentist... Now, aged 21, I've had to have all my teeth removed'
Like so many young women, Amy King always took great pride in her appearance. Standing in front of the mirror to check her make-up before a night out, the 21-year-old would always try a smile - friends told her they loved the way it lit up her face. Eight weeks ago, all that changed. The student from Plymouth was admitted to hospital where, in a single operation, she had every tooth in her mouth removed.
Amy, whose dental problems were caused by untreated gum disease, does not go out any more. And when she looks in the mirror she hardly recognises the face staring back at her. 'Even with my mouth shut I look different,' she says. 'My cheeks are hollowed and my face looks thinner. I look like an ugly, old woman.'
Amy's story gets worse. First, doctors have told her they can't fit a set of false teeth until her gums are sufficiently healed and that could take six months. But she has also been warned that there is a slim chance they will never recover enough for dentures to be fitted.
Second, Amy believes that had she been able to get dental treatment earlier, then all the pain and disfigurement she has experienced might have been avoided. 'I feel that if I'd managed to see a dentist sooner or could have afforded to have private treatment I wouldn't be like I am today,' she says, explaining how it took months of searching and dozens of phone calls to find an NHS dentist willing to treat her - by which time it was too late. 'I thought that losing all your teeth only happened to people in the Dark Ages - not a 21-year-old living in modern Britain.'
If only that was the case. While Amy's experience is an extreme one, it highlights growing concerns about the state of the nation's dental health. Last week, statistics obtained by the Liberal Democrats revealed that the number of people having teeth extracted in hospital has risen by one third in the past four years. More than 175,000 Britons had their teeth removed under general anaesthetic in 2007/08, up 40,000 on the 2003/04 figure.
The number of children having teeth out has shot up, too. But more pertinent is the fact that the rate of these extractions gathered pace after a deeply controversial contract for NHS dentists was introduced in April 2006. The year before, the number of extractions was fewer than 150,000. Two years later, it had risen to more than 175,000 - an increase of 16 per cent. Could the contract - hailed by the Government as a revolution in the provision of state-subsidised dental care - be linked to this alarming new trend in tooth extraction?
Critics such as Norman Lamb, the Lib Dems' health spokesman, are in little doubt. He says: 'I am hearing from people who still cannot see an NHS dentist and are therefore neglecting their teeth or waiting until it is an emergency. 'Other patients have to pay extortionate amounts for private treatment to save a tooth or else wait weeks, often in pain, to get a tooth extracted on the NHS.'
But it is not just a continued lack of access to NHS dentists that is causing concern. There is also growing evidence that the new payment system introduced by the contract is discouraging dentists from undertaking more complex, time-consuming work. This work is not being done at all or being left to newly-trained dentists. Both routes are more likely to end up with the patient being referred to hospital to have teeth extracted. The end result is more people like Amy - who, for the rest of their lives, will only have to look in a mirror to be reminded of a dental system that is still failing to deliver.
For a reminder of the depths to which NHS dentistry had sunk under New Labour, pay a visit to Scarborough. In 2004, three years after the date by which Tony Blair promised that everyone in Britain would have access to an NHS dentist, hundreds of people queued on the town's streets. They were desperate to register for NHS treatment at a new dental surgery. Most were unsuccessful and the image summed up the shocking state of this key plank in the nation's healthcare.
More shocking still was the story of local resident Valerie Holsworth. Her inability to access NHS dental care since the year 2000 had forced her to resort to excruciatingly painful DIY dentistry. Valerie described how, using a pair of her husband's pliers, she wrenched out seven teeth. 'I have a gum disease for which I take painkillers,' says the 68-year-old great-grandmother. 'But when the tooth becomes agonising I have to take it out myself. I take a good mouthful of whisky before I get started to keep it sterilised. 'Then it is just a matter of tugging and wiggling until the root comes loose. I then just throw the tooth in the bin.'
Evidently, something had to be done. While the number of registered dentists has steadily increased over the past two decades, many had drifted away from state-funded treatment and moved into the private sector. In a bid to reverse this trend, and to target treatment effectively, the dental contract was introduced. As a sweetener, it held out the promise of improved pay. Indeed, incomes have increased by 11 per cent since the reforms - to an average of more than £96,000.
But the most fundamental change focuses on the way dentists are paid for the work they carry out. Under the old system, there were 400 treatments, each commanding a separate fee. The concern was that dentists were effectively being paid for piece-work - the more 'drilling and filling' they did, the more money they got paid. Instead, it was decided that dentists would be paid according to Units of Dental Activity (UDAs). These relate to the treatment on offer, the 400-odd individual procedures in turn being divided between three bands.
The value of UDAs is set by Primary Care Trusts, varying around the country according to need. But to the average dentist, each UDA will be worth about £25. If a dentist does a 'simple' band one treatment, involving a checkup, X-rays, cleaning and polishing, they will earn one UDA, or £25. A more complicated band two treatment, involving fillings or extractions, will earn the dentist three UDAs (£75), while a band three course that needs lab work (such as dentures or crowns) earns 12 UDAs (roughly £300). And unless they are exempt from paying due to age or pregnancy, patients must still pay charges ranging from £16.50 to £198.
In theory, it all sounds easy. In practice, however, serious problems have emerged. UDAs are related to completed treatments and not the number of items in the treatment plan. So, a treatment with crowns will pay 12 UDAs irrespective of whether there is one crown or 20. (It is much more expensive for the dentist to perform such treatments privately.)
Equally problematic is the fact that each band covers such a wide range of treatments. Some are easier and quicker to perform, yet all attract the same payment. Finally, the number of UDAs each practice can earn is fixed in advance by the care trust. If dentists exceed that number, they will not be paid extra work.
The terms of this contract are complicated, bureaucratic, and heavily target-driven. The upshot has been to alter the behaviour of the health practitioner in unintended ways. Mark Watson, chief executive of the Dental Practitioners' Association, explains: 'We have gone from a system where dentists were paid to do as much as possible to one that encourages them to do as little as possible. The idea is that they will see more people, but each person gets less done.' This is all well and good if the patient has healthy teeth and gums and does not require much treatment. But while dental health among the young is improving, there remains a large number of people whose needs are more complicated. Under the contract, there is little incentive to take these cases.
'Everyone who is self-employed looks at what is profitable and what is not, and tends to want to do as much of the profitable stuff as possible,' says Mr Watson. 'Dentists are no different. As there are only three bands, any course of treatment at the upper end of a band makes a loss while that at the lower level makes a profit.' The Department of Health's argument is that it is swings and roundabouts - what dentists lose on one treatment they make on another. But life doesn't work like that.
It is this chain of events that some believe is behind the increase in hospital tooth extractions. Dentists are not encouraged to carry out the sort of complicated work that might prevent a patient from ultimately having their teeth removed.
Further evidence of this move away from complex treatments was highlighted by the Commons Health Committee. It found that the number of treatments such as crowns, bridges and dentures had plummeted by 57 per cent since 2006. The MPs believed this was happening because NHS dentists have no financial incentive to give appropriate treatment. In Scotland, which did not bring in the new contract, the number of complex operations had gone up.
What is equally galling is that despite pumping more taxpayers' money into NHS dentistry - and more dentists taking on NHS work - the number of patients being treated fell after the introduction of the contract. In the two years following the reforms, 26.9 million people saw their dentist - just 52.7 per cent of the population. That is down 1.2 million compared to the two years leading up to the changes.
An annual survey by Simplyhealth, a group of healthcare companies, found that the numbers struggling to find an NHS dentist have increased in the past year - up from 23 per cent to 35 per cent. If these people can't find an NHS dentist what options do they have? Suffer in silence or go private. The private route can be extremely expensive, forcing increasing numbers to travel abroad for cut-price treatment.
In 2007, there were 50,000 dental tourists. Simon Purchall, founding director of Smile Savers Hungary, has seen a 60 per cent rise in patients since January 2007. 'A lot of people come to us after years of putting off dental work,' he says. 'They can't find an NHS dentist, they're not willing to accept the solution offered such as dentures or they can't afford the high prices charged by private British dentists for modern solutions, such as implants.'
Louise Webb, a 44-year-old careworker from Stoke-on-Trent, knows this only too well. Plagued by dental problems, she was referred to Birmingham NHS Dental Hospital and was told the only option was to have all but four teeth removed. 'They told me they were going to rip them all out and then they would leave me for three or four months until the gums had healed before they gave me dentures,' she says. 'I'd already given up my job because I was so embarrassed by the way my teeth looked.' Desperate to end the pain, Louise agreed to the operation. But the day before it was due to take place it was cancelled. This happened on two subsequent occasions. In the end, her husband Andrew, who works for the NHS as a locum audiologist, found the solution.
'He came in one day and found me, exhausted, asleep with my head on the table,' she says. 'I had a hot water bottle on one side of my face to try to deaden the pain. I looked awful. He just thought: "Enough is enough." '
Having searched the internet, the couple came across Smile Savers and within a week Louise was in Budapest having the first of two operations. These involved the removal of 14 teeth and their replacement with 13 implants plus 22 crowns. It cost £12,000, a lot less than the £70,000 she was quoted by a private British dentist.
While Louise does not expect the NHS to provide cosmetic dentistry, she says it was the failure to end the pain that left her feeling let down. 'We pay our taxes, and yet I was unable to get the treatment I deserved,' she says. 'I was known as the Yoghurt Queen because I was having to liquidise my food. I lost two stone in weight. My NHS dentist's hands were tied because she could only do so much treatment.' The dental work has transformed Louise's life. 'My daughter says the biggest change about me is that I am happy,' she says. 'I used to go out with a scarf wrapped around my mouth to hide it, but now I laugh all the time.'
Just how many people will leave their NHS dentists with a smile on their face, only time will tell. A Department of Health spokesman says: 'We have appointed an independent review team to help us understand what more needs to be done to ensure that every person who wants to visit an NHS dentist can do so, make NHS dentistry fit for the future and ensure that all NHS dental services meet the highest standards of care.' [The British bureaucracy is very good at bulldust -- but not much else]
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Racist Brits awaiting free speech verdict in California
Amongst the many wabs, a couple of chinitos, and I'm sure more than a couple of gabachos currently in custody at the Santa Ana Jail are British nationals Simon Sheppard and Stephen Whittle. They haven't committed any crime in the United States but have nevertheless languished under the watchful eye of SanTana immigration guards for almost two years in a fascinating case involving free speech, international jurisdiction, Holocaust denial, and an American media that just doesn't give a damn about those topics.
Sheppard runs The Heretical Press, an online repository of far-right essays, photos, and just plain bizarre entries (don't they realize R. Crumb is being satirical when he publishes a comic titled "When the Niggers Take Over America"?), to which Whittle contributes. According to British reports, authorities raided Sheppard's flat in 2004 after a copy of his Tales of the Holohoax were found inside a synagogue. After discovering the contents of The Heretical, they arrested Sheppard and Whittle for distributing hate speech online.
If that's not Orwellian enough for you, refry this: Sheppard and Whittle claimed that British courts had no jurisdiction over The Heretical and its materials since its servers hum along in Torrance. But the Brits don't care.
Prosecutors didn't agree with their excuse, and convicted the two in January for publishing racist material online--the first conviction of its kind in the history of the United Kingdom. "People in this country are entitled to be racist and they are entitled to hold unpleasant points of view, but what they are not entitled to do is publish or distribute written material which is insulting, threatening or abusive and is intended to stir up racial hatred or is likely to do so," a prosecutor told the Yorkshire Post. "If this sort of material is made generally available on the internet or by pushing it through people's doors indiscriminately, it is likely that racial hatred will be stirred up in some people who are exposed to it - the young, the impressionable, the gullible, and so on."
British courts had to convict Sheppard and Whittle in absentia, however. In July 2007, the two skipped bail and made their way to LAX, where they promptly turned themselves over to authorities and asked for political asylum, claiming the British government was harrassing them for their "satire." Immigration officials hauled them to the Santa Ana Jail, which has a contract to help out the government with immigrant detainees. Read their case for asylum here.
"This is a test case for the US on whether the American court will protect anti-semites and those that incite the hate that leads to anti-Jewish or anti-Muslim violence, or whether it respects a British court decision and sends these people back for sentence," a Parliament member told the Post.
The fates of the Heretical Two is in the hands of Immigration Judge Rose Collantes Peters, who has a past of thumbing her nose at British courts. In 2004, she went against the wishes of the American government and ruled that la migra couldn't deport Sean O'Cealleagh, a bartender at O'Malley's in Seal Beach, for having been convicted in England for his role in the murder of two British soldiers during a 1988 Irish Republican Army funeral. This past Tuesday, Peters heard final arguments in the case of the Heretical Two, with Sheppard and Whittle acting as their own attorneys because the attorney originally recommended to them by Mark Weber of the Holocaust-denying Newport Beach-based Institute for Historical Review dropped out after not getting paid enough cash (according to The Heretical Press home page). Peters is expected to deliver her verdict within 30 days.
The saga of Sheppard and Whittle has drawn nary a press report in the United States, even though it involves all sorts of free-speech questions. But the Heretical Two have become far-right cause célebres, earning support from the aforementioned IHR, David Duke, and other types of trash.
Then again, supporters of the Heretical Two make this interesting point:
The question is not whether you like Sheppard and Whittle, or agree with their writings, or the other material posted on the Heretical site. It is, quite simply, whether you are prepared to help ensure the effective representation of two men seeking to set a vital precedent for genuine asylum seekers from oppressive, liberticidal regimes, seeking refuge in the world's last true free speech zone.
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Must not speak ill of Muslims in Britain
But Muslims can speak ill of "kuffars" all they like:
"Kevin Quinn, the leader of a right wing party convicted of a religiously aggravated public order offence after a racist speech in South Oxhey, has received a six-month suspended prison sentence. Quinn launched a tirade of abuse at a British First Party rally after setting up a stall with Union flags in the shopping precinct on Saturday, December 1, 2007.
The 44-year-old was arrested after he was heard to shout all Muslims are b******s, while referring to the plight of British school teacher Gillian Gibbons, accused of blasphemy in Sudan after allowing children to name a Teddy Bear Muhammad.
Quinn was found guilty after a second trial at St Albans Crown Court in March and sentence was adjourned for reports until Monday. The jury in the first trial was discharged when they could not reach a verdict on Quinn of Ousland Road, Queens Park, Bedford....
Before sentencing, Judge Stephen Warner said: “The jury found you used abusive or insulting words directed towards those of the Muslim faith. “There is a right of freedom of speech in this country, which extends to those such as yourself who seek to express in public views such as yours however offensive many may find them to be. “That right, however, does not include the right to insult or abuse such members of the public that are exposed to that behaviour. “A [Muslim] member of the public felt sufficiently strongly to contact police because you had abused that freedom of expression.
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So if a Muslim happens to hear you, your free speech rights go out the window! The guy did not abuse any Muslim personally. One just happened to be nearby.
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