Monday, June 18, 2007

Confused of Glasgow

This is one confused individual:

A pro-Palestinian protester who halted a Rangers football match by running on to the pitch and shouting sectarian abuse was given 200 hours' community service yesterday.

Sean Gallagher, 21, invaded the pitch at Ibrox Stadium during last November's Uefa Cup tie against Israeli side Maccabi Haifa wearing a Palestinian flag around his shoulders and a T-shirt with a picture of the Pope.

He tried to handcuff himself to the goalpost then taunted Rangers fans by shouting an IRA slogan as he was led off.

Lucky to get off with community service.

Gallagher had staged the protest after travelling to Palestine and being moved by the plight of people there, the court was told. But he later agreed his actions had been "ill-judged and stupid".

Ross Yuill, Gallagher's solicitor, said the pitch invasion was not football related but a politically motivated protest at the situation in Palestine.

Relevance of the IRA chants and "Pope T shirt" to the "situation in Palestine"?

He said pressure had been placed on Gallagher by members of the Scottish Palestinian Campaign, which had objected to Rangers playing the Israeli team and had leafleted the match.

Under what kind of "pressure", I wonder?

But Mick Napier, chairman of the campaign group, told The Herald no-one in the organisation had been aware of Gallagher's plans. "If I had been, I would have discouraged him in the strongest possible terms. It was completely unacceptable," he said.

Whoops....

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