Middle finger illegal after all

Flipping up your middle finger at a Dutch policeman is insulting after all, appeals judges ruled Thursday as they overturned a lower court's decision that the gesture was ''extremely impolite'' but not a crime. Prosecutors launched an appeal last year after a 25-year-old man who made the gesture to two police officers in the town of Almelo on 25 May 2006, was cleared of committing a crime. At his original trial in Almelo a judge ruled the man's gesture ''while extremely impolite, was not insulting or illegal.'' The culprit's name was not released, in line with Dutch privacy laws. In a written ruling, the appeals court in Arnhem said such a gesture is illegal if it is aimed at ''injuring the honour and good name'' of the person it is directed at.