MR JUSTICE JOHNSON Approved Judgment Hegab v Spectator to suggest that dogs had been brought to the event as a provocation by Zionists. The only apparent purpose of the claimant doing so was to raise the temperature in what was a volatile confrontation where violence had already erupted. He then further raised the temperature by speaking about “vengeance” and life beginning at death. He denies that he was encouraging violence and claims that the suggestion that he was doing so amounts to “a failure to understand the English language” and that his speech “clearly has eschatological and theological implications.” Despite his protestations, the claimant was not genuinely seeking to explore matters of theology and eschatology with the group of masked men that he was addressing. The video is plain. He was deliberately acting irresponsibly, raising the temperature of a volatile and potentially dangerous situation with provocative and inflammatory language. 49. The defendants rely on a further short passage in the video where the claimant appears to demonstrate throwing a punch or a martial arts move. The precise context of this, and the accompanying audio, are not entirely clear. There is no discernible actual violence at the time. I do not attach any significance to this part of the video, and do not hold it against the claimant. 50. Sapience Institute: The claimant’s key point in this case is that his speech concerned the Hindutva, not Hindus, and that nothing he said demonstrates an intention to ridicule Hinduism or Hindus. Any evidence of the claimant ridiculing a central tenet of Hinduism would be damaging to his case. The claimant maintains that at the Sapience Institute event he was discussing Hinduism to seek to learn more about the faith as a “humble learner.” It is uncomfortable to watch parts of this video. Those engaging with the claimant appear to be doing so earnestly and openly, to assist him to understand tenets of Hinduism. For his part, there are times when the claimant barely seeks to hide his contempt for what they are saying. He openly smirks. He asks questions that might be expected of an immature schoolchild in a religious studies lesson, but which are completely inconsistent with a serious discussion in a postgraduate academic theological seminar: [on a Hindu deity] “is she the one with blue skin?”, “is she the one with 4 arms?”, “what does [an] animal have to do to get promotion?”, “what would you choose to be, a bear or a gorilla… I would rather be a bear because if a bear and a gorilla had a fight, the bear would win”. I reject the claimant’s account that these were genuine enquiries. 51. Vigilantism: The claimant maintains that he was not advocating anything that was remotely akin to vigilantism. He says that, under the law, anyone is entitled to use reasonable and proportionate force to defend themselves from attack. He is obviously right about that. He says that not enough people take personal responsibility for others, and that if someone sees an elderly or otherwise vulnerable person being attacked it is their moral duty to intervene. There is nothing wrong in saying that. However, these reasonable observations have nothing to do with the claimant’s activities in Leicester. Neither he, nor anyone shown in the video, was at immediate risk of attack. At one point he was leading a group through the streets which he described as a “Muslim patrol”. His peroration “are we going to be here, yes or no”, was a demand for a commitment to come out in numbers as a deterrent. He denies that this fits within the definition of vigilantism and says that he was providing a lawful outlet that was likely to avoid violence in circumstances where the police were inactive, and they could identify the culprits and bring them to the police. His denial of vigilantism is self-defeating. It is untenable.