Three teenagers have appeared in court over the alleged burning of a Remembrance Day poppy.
Two 17-year-olds and a 16-year-old were charged with incitement to hatred when they appeared before magistrates in Coleraine, Northern Ireland.
The youngest of the trio was also charged with improper use of the public electronic communications network.
The three were arrested by members of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) after a photograph showing two teenagers burning a poppy was posted on a social networking site.
A PSNI spokesman said police became aware of the existence of certain material on social media networks on Tuesday.
A number of arrests were made and all three were brought before the court on Wednesday.
"Individuals should be mindful of the content of any material they upload onto social media networks," he added.
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For a start there are plenty of perfectly legitimate reasons to be against the whole poppy thing - for as long as poppies have been used for fund raising, there have been criticisms that it's nationalistic and glorifying war. - But even if they weren't doing it as a political statement, and were just doing it to get a rise out of people, they have every right to do so. What they've done has been called a "hate crime", but it's purely symbolic, and it doesn't even target any particular group or minority or anything as far as I'm aware. And if they're not allowed to post a picture of a burning poppy, then I'm not allowed to post a picture of Muhammed.
