YouTube comedian Mark Meechan, who posted a video of a dog doing a Nazi salute in 2016, was convicted of a hate crime Tuesday in Britain for the post.
Meechan’s viral video showed his girlfriend’s dog saluting to phrases such as “Sieg Heil” and “Gas the Jews,” Fox News reported. Meechan said the video was a joke to try to annoy his girlfriend.
Suzanne Kelly, Meechan’s girlfriend, defended Meechan in court and said he was not anti-Semitic, the Herald Scotland reported.
“[The dog] will lift his paw to virtually anything,” Kelly said.
Sheriff Derek O’Carroll said the video was “grossly offensive” and that he didn’t believe it was only a joke, the Herald reported.
British Comedian Ricky Gervais criticized the verdict as a violation of free speech in a tweet, saying that “if you don’t believe in a person’s right to say things that you might find ‘grossly offensive,’ then you don’t believe in Freedom of Speech.”
In the video, which was viewed more than three million times, Meechan repeated “gas the Jews” 23 times. Meechan claimed that the phrase was chosen because it was so extreme that it was intended to add to the comedy, not to be taken seriously, the Herald Scotland reported.
Many Twitter users reacted with outrage over the verdict.