<p>Scottish YouTuber Mark Meechan AKA &ldquo;Count Dankula&rdquo; was fined $1,115 after posting a video showing a pug dog raise his paw while watching a video of Hitler speak at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. ;</p>
<p>The dog &#8220;salutes&#8221; when Hitler shouts &ldquo;Sieg Heil!&rdquo; In the background, you can hear Meechan say, &ldquo;Who&rsquo;s a good wee Nazi?&rdquo; The video has been watched more than three million times since it was uploaded in April 2016. ;</p>
<p>&ldquo;The video was originally a prank&rdquo; intended to ;piss off his girlfriend, ;says Meechan in a follow-up video. &ldquo;She keeps ranting and raving about how cute and adorable&rdquo; her dog is and how &ldquo;he is the cutest thing ever.&#8221;</p>
<p>Meechan decided to turn the pug into &ldquo;the least cute thing I could think of, which is a Nazi.&rdquo; He did this ;&ldquo;just for the juxtaposition of a cute pug dog being compared to one of the worst things ever, which is a Nazi.&rdquo;</p>
<p>In March, a court found Meechan guilty of committing a hate crime and fined him 800 pounds (the equivalent of $1,115 dollars). ;</p>
<p>&ldquo;The fact that you claim in the video, and elsewhere, that the video was intended only to annoy your girlfriend and as a joke and that you did not intend to be racist is of little assistance to you,&rdquo; said Sheriff Derek O&rsquo;Carroll during the sentencing. &ldquo;A racist joke or a grossly offensive video does not lose its racist or grossly offensive quality merely because the maker asserts he only wanted to get a laugh.&#8221;</p>
<p>Meechan says he can understand why people would be concerned if he uploaded a video of himself saying &#8220;Sieg Heil&#8221; to the dog ;without context, ;&ldquo;but the important thing was, I gave context as to why I was saying the phrase.&rdquo; Meechan does not regret making the video and says his sentencing ;&ldquo;highlighted a very very important problem in our country.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Meechan has support from Tommy Robinson, who plans to appeal the sentencing. Robinson, the former leader of a far-right protest movement called &#8220;English Defense League,&#8221; says Meechan&rsquo;s sentence is a &ldquo;really dangerous precedent to set&rdquo; in terms of free speech. ;</p>
<p>In the meantime, Meechan says he will &#8220;continue doing what I&rsquo;m doing&rdquo; and continue &ldquo;fighting for free speech in the UK.&rdquo; ;</p>
<p><strong>Editor&#8217;s note:</strong> We take for granted our right to freedom of speechin America its part of our heritage. But most countries, even the first world industrialized nations do not have this as a right. While that fact may be more convenient to their governments, it leaves the door open to censorship and tyranny.</p>
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