This is the difference between the West and the Rest (BBC)
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How It All Began (BBC),
Q&A (BBC), and
The Letter (Times)
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Sura Al Baqarah 2:216 and
Sura At Tawbah 9:24 [English Translations]
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Sura Al Baqarah (Wikipedia) and
Sura At Tawbah (Wikipedia)
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Terrorism Act 2000 (Wikipedia),
Terrorism Act 2000 (Wiki CrimeLine UK) and
Section 57 (UK Statute Law Database)
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Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips (Wikipedia)
This is the beauty of British law. One court's jury pronounced the five students guilty and they were sentenced to jail. The convicted students appealed to a higher court (Court of Appeal) and succeeded in overturning the earlier decision. Not only that, the judges said the existing law in question needed to be curtailed from its current form. As a result, the government now has seven days to appeal the latest decision in the land's highest court. Could this have happened in any Muslim country for a group of non-Muslim students? No, I think not.