Child arrested for sharing burning of Koran

A 15-year-old faces legal trouble, and reminds us of legal issues surrounding lack of privacy online

When you think about it, there is a stunning amount of information about you on your Facebook page, and that information is used to make decisions about you. It could cause you to lose your job, it might get you an increase in your insurance rates, or even get you arrested. Those facts however, seem to slip the minds of most users, who tend to see their Facebook page as their own little slice of the digital domain. People post about their relationships, whereabouts and even their crimes. 

This may explain, in part, why an unnamed 15-year-old girl was arrested in the Sandwell Council area of England, after burning a copy of the Koran while at school and posting the video on Facebook. The video, which was filmed with several of her friends watching, was later reported to the school, who alerted local authorities.

Facebook has taken swift action. The video was removed and the profile of the girl was deleted. The school brought in the organization which published that version of the Koran to talk to students.

Currently, the student, who was arrested for suspicion of inciting religious hatred, but not for setting a fire in her school, has been released on bail. If she is charged and found guilty, she will face either fines, imprisonment or both, as per the The Racial and Religious Hatred Act, which was enacted by Parliament in 2006.

This is not the only incidence of Facebook users ruffling the feathers of members of the Muslim faith. Earlier this month an athiest blogger was arrested on the West Bank for satirizing the Koran on Facebook.

These issues certainly raises some additional concerns about privacy online. Users on the site do have some expectation of privacy, an issue that Facebook has often struggled with in the past, so unless that child had accepted friend requests from both the local school and the police department, one has to wonder if this isn't one big legal hornet's nest.

Basically, the question could come down to this: Is posting on your Facebook a new way of exercising your private right to free speech or an act of publication and distribution? That question is one for the courts to decide, and probably sooner then you think, given that Facebook continues to grow in number and frequency of use every year, and quitting the site is a mixed bag at best.

Facebook was not available for immediate comment.

(Image from Facebook)