What was claimed
A man was fined £50 for burning poppies.
Our verdict
This is true. Emdadur Choudhury was fined after burning poppies in 2011.
Two men did go to prison for throwing bacon at a mosque, while a man was fined for burning poppies
18 February 2020
What was claimed
Mr Choudhury’s fine was paid out of his benefits.
Our verdict
It was reported at the time that Mr Choudhury received benefits and had a part-time job. We don’t know who paid the fine.
What was claimed
Two men were sentenced to eight months in prison for throwing bacon at a mosque.
Our verdict
Mateusz Pawlikowski and Piotr Czak-Zukowski were both sentenced to two eight-month sentences, to run concurrently, for criminal damage and a racial/religious public order offence after verbally abusing and throwing bacon at a worshipper in a mosque.
A post comparing the sentencing of three men for two different crimes has been shared thousands of times.
The post says that a man who burned poppies was fined £50, which was paid from his benefits, and that he laughed at this sentence. It compares this to two men who it says were sentenced to eight months in jail for throwing bacon at a mosque.
It is true that Emdadur Choudhury was fined £50 for offences under the Public Order Act after he burnt three poppies on Remembrance Day 2011 as part of a counter-protest. He was also ordered to pay a £15 victim surcharge.
It was widely reported at the time that, according to his defence, Mr Choudhury received £792 pounds in monthly government benefits on top of £480 in monthly wages. It’s not clear whether he paid the fine himself, as in several interviews afterwards he claimed that radical preacher Anjem Choudhury had offered to pay.
It’s also unclear if Mr Choudhury “laughed” at his sentencing in court, but the same article in the Mail says he laughed following his trial when asked if he’d do it again.
Then-Prime Minister David Cameron implied he felt Choudhury’s sentence was too lenient. At the time, the maximum fine for this was an £1000.
The post also says that two men who “threw bacon at [a] mosque” were sentenced to eight months in jail. This is also a real case, although that account does not fully describe what they were accused of.
The two men, Mateusz Pawlikowski and Piotr Czak-Zukowski, were both sentenced to two eight-month sentences for criminal damage and a racial/religious public order offence. These were to run concurrently, meaning the two sentences are served simultaneously. The men were said to have entered the mosque and thrown bacon at an attendee, as well as around the venue and in worshipper’s shoes. They also verbally abused the man.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as true because Pawlikowski and Czak-Zukowski were sentenced to eight months in prison for throwing bacon at a mosque, and Choudhury was fined for burning poppies.