The owner of a pug has been charged with a hate crime after posting a video of the dog reportedly giving the Nazi Salute.
Last month Markus Meechan of Scotland reportedly uploaded a video on YouTube showing his girlfriend’s dog reacting to the words “gas the Jews” and “Sieg Heil.”
“My girlfriend is always ranting and raving about how cute her dog is, so I thought I would turn her into the least cute thing you could think of which is a Nazi,” 28-year-old Meechan says at the start of the clip titled “M8 Yer Dugs A Nazi.” The pug is also shown in front if a TV screen showing footage of Adolf Hitler.
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After the footage caused outrage online, Meechan claimed he made it to only annoy his girlfriend and posted a video apologizing. However, Jewish organizations aren’t buying it.
“Anti-Semitism is not something that can in any degree be regarded as a joke. It is a form of racism which needs to be condemned just as we would any other form of racism, just as we would condemn Islamophobia or anti-African racism,” a spokeswoman for the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities said.
Meechan has been arrested for “publication of offensive material online,” according to the Guardian.
Despite this, the video has not been removed from YouTube and has been viewed nearly 1.5 million times.
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Below is the clip. Warning: The video contains offensive material.
Image via Flickr/E Greens