Cops Charge Scottish Man with Hate Crime for Training His Girlfriend’s Pug to Do a Nazi Salute as a Joke

This really happened.

In what was supposed to be a joke aimed at his girlfriend, a 28-year-old Scottish man trained her pug to do a Nazi salute and has been charged with a hate crime for it after posting the resulting “offensive material” online (aka: improper use of electronic communications under the Communications Act 2003):

“My girlfriend is always ranting and raving about how cute and adorable her wee dog is, and so I thought I would turn him into the least cute thing I could think of which is a Nazi” he says. The video went viral with over a million views.

The police, however, weren’t laughing in a country where free speech and potentially offensive comedy has been banned and where DI David Cockburn said: “Posting offensive material online or in any other capacity will not be tolerated and police will act swiftly to tackle hate crimes that are motivated by malice or ill-will because of faith, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation or disability.”

Does this video look like it’s motivated by malice or ill-will to you?

The video ends with the man saying, “I’m not racist by the way, I just really wanted to piss [my girlfriend] off.”

“This clip has been shared and viewed online, which ultimately has caused offence and hurt to many people in our community. There is no place for hate crime in Scotland and police take all reports of incidents seriously.”

Most of the people who watched the “offensive material” didn’t leave feeling offending but instead wondered if this was real and if Scottish police are just bored because there aren’t real crimes happening somewhere to go fight:

Probably not the response they were looking for. Then again, this is a country that is proposing a child caseworker for every single child born.

The irony is this man was arrested for making a joke… so who is the real Nazi again?