Three men have appeared in court charged with stirring up anti-gay hatred in Derby in the first prosecution of its kind.
Ihjaz Alie, 41, Mehboob Hussain, 44, and Umer Javed, 37, appeared at Derby Magistrates' Court on Friday to face charges of distributing threatening propaganda to stir up hatred after handing out leaflets outside a mosque.
Another two men, Razwan Javed, 30, and Kabir Ahmed, 27, were charged in December over accusations they also handed out the leaflet called 'The Death Penalty?' outside a mosque in Derby. The leaflet calls for homosexuals to be executed.
The leaflet was dispersed outside the Jamia Mosque in Derby in July 2010 and through mailboxes during the same month.
Alie, Hussain and Umer Javed are also charged with several counts each of sending communication of threatening messages and displaying signs of writing with abusive or insulting messages. |