A man who filmed a pet dog giving ’Nazi salutes’ and posted the footage online has been fined £800.
Mark Meechan, 30, recorded his partner’s pug Buddha responding to statements such as “Sieg Heil” by raising its paw, then posted the footage on YouTube, where it was viewed more than three million times.
Meechan, of Coatbridge, denied any wrongdoing but was convicted at Airdrie Sheriff Court, North Lanarkshire last month of committing a crime under the Communications Act which was aggravated by religious prejudice.
Meechan, who was arrested in 2016, has since apologised to the Jewish community for the video, which he says he made to annoy his girlfriend.
He said: “Honestly, I don’t hate anyone, the whole purpose of this was just to annoy my girlfriend.
“I am so sorry to the Jewish community for any offence I have caused them. This was never my intention and I apologise.”
Jonathan Sacerdoti, Director of Communications at the Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: “There is nothing remotely funny about this video.
“Mocking the death of over six million Jews - about a third of the entire Jewish people - demonstrates the dangers of ignoring antisemitism, denigrating the Holocaust through false comparisons and failing to educate the next generation.”
The Holocaust was a genocide in which Hitler’s Nazi Germany and its collaborators oversaw the mass murder of six millions Jews and millions of other people leading up to and during the Second World War.
Large scale gas ovens were used for some of the mass killings.