Count Dankula convicted of being 'Grossly offensive' in Pug Nazi joke. *Philly D video added

[hiccupthehuman]

John2290 said:

hiccupthehuman said:
I sure miss the days, not too long ago, when we could just make any kind of dumb jokes without having fear of offending someone to the point of being prosecuted.

A similar thing happened in my country when a comedian was found guilty of jokes against a handicapped public personality and had to pay him.

What Comedian, what country?

Canada (Quebec to be precise). Mike Ward, who often rips into Quebec personalities, made jokes about Jeremy Gabriel. Jeremy Gabriel is a singer who is diagnosed with Treacher Collins syndrome.

 Jeremy had the opportunity to sing for the Pope, Celine Dion, the National Anthem, and others due to the premise that he was a dying child due to the disease. However, this has proven to not be the case as many years later, Jeremy is alive and well, and still active musically, and will likely have a normal lifespan. 

Basically, Mike Ward joked that Jeremy was a terrible singer and was ugly, and that Mike had been supportive of Jeremy when he believed that Jeremy was dying and following his dreams, but then joked that for a 'supposedly dying child', Jeremy sure was living long. The joke was that Jeremy broke his "promise" of dying. Jeremy was about 9 when he got to sing for the Pope, etc. He is now 21.

The jokes were funny IMO, but most importantly they were clearly not in ill-intent, and he clearly did not really wish for Jeremy's death. And Jeremy is truly a bad singer. Anyway, Mike had to pay 35,000$ to Jeremy and 7,000 to Jeremy's mother.