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Julian Assange is innocent until proven guilty
contribution by Peter Tatchell
I was outside the High Court in London this morning, ahead of Mr Assange’s extradition appeal hearing. I think it would be most unfair, and not conducive to justice, for Julian Assange to be extradited to Sweden when he has not been charged with any offence.
The sexual assault allegations against Julian Assange deserve to be taken very seriously. But Julian is innocent until proven guilty.
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‘Benevolent Sexism’ – Sideshow or Battleground?
Over on Telegraph Blogs today, Jenny McCartney is attacking a report on ‘Benevolent Sexism’, which basically entails very minor acts of goodwill that could still be construed as sexist.
McCartney’s problem is specifically centred around the following examples:
[C]alling women “girls” but not men “boys”; believing that women should be cherished and protected by men; helping a woman choose a laptop computer in the belief that it’s not the sort of task for which her gender is suited; and complimenting a woman on cooking or looking after children well because that is behaviour especially suited to a woman.
Worrying lessons from the ‘Gay Free Zone’ conviction
contribution by Peter Tatchell
Last week Mohammed Hasnath, aged 18, was convicted for posting homophobic stickers in London’s East End. The stickers declared the area a “Gay Free Zone” among other things.
Clearly, such homophobic prejudice needs to be challenged. There are, however, a number of troubling aspects to Hasnath’s conviction.
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Amnesty shows how ‘clicktivism’ can work too
Some good news: Eynulla Fatullayev has been released in Azerbaijan. I reported last month on the demonstrations I have attended on his behalf.
An immediate tweet discussion of the news caught my eye. From @dontgetfooled
Wow. So “clicktivism” can work after all?
Could the #superinjunction lead to Twitter being banned in the UK?
This evening’s news that a professional sportsman who may or may not be the person known as ‘CTB’ has filed legal proceedings against Twitter and ‘persons unknown’ appears to have prompted a degree of bemusement.
And nowhere more so than over at Heresy Corner, where the Heresiarch has rather uncharacteristically succeeded in massively over-analysing the situation…
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Why protesters are now more likely to be defined as “terrorists”
contribution by Bradley Day
When policing minister Nick Herbert admitted in January that something had gone “very wrong”, after revelations the police had spent years building up a network of undercover officers to infiltrate environmental groups, the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) shouldered much of the blame.
ACPO housed the three units responsible for monitoring what the police refer to as “domestic extremists”, and what you or I refer to as “protesters”.
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Can the UK take a lead in backing human rights, not repression?
contribution by Kate Allen
The world is right now on the threshold of real change that could transform the lives of millions of people for the better. As Amnesty releases its annual report on The State of the World’s Human Rights today, I cannot remember a more exciting time for human rights.
A new generation has come of age and, aided by social media and networking tools, said “enough” to repression, poverty and corruption. But while people take to the streets with slogans and placards, they are increasingly met with tear gas, beatings, bullets and tanks.
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Why on earth is Anjem Choudary invited to speak at Hay philosophy festival?
contribution by Lucy James
Over the last week a few complaints have been levelled against the invitation of Anjem Choudary, a founding member of the banned Islamist organisations al-Muhajiroun and Islam4UK, by How the Lights Get In, the philosophy and music festival at Hay.
They have, unbelievably, invited him to speak at two of their philosophy sessions at the end of this month.
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Where are the right-wing defenders of liberties now?
Over the weekend I highlighted the disgraceful arrest of Chris Knight – who neither planned to commit any crime nor was there any evidence he would.
The same went for the squats in Brighton. But that wasn’t the end of it: during the Royal Wedding the Met police carried out many more similar operations.
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Police powers are out of control
What gives the police the right to arrest a person who has not committed a crime and wasn’t planning to commit any crime?
Yesterday, long-time activist and professional thorn-in-the-side-of-the-establishment Chris Knight was pre-emptively arrested by the police (video below).
The crime? Planning a ‘zombie wedding’ stunt that featured a mock execution of Prince Andrew with a guillotine. Not the nicest of stunts, I’ll grant you, but an arrestable offence?
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Shocking: Met charges student they injured with ‘violent disorder’
In December last year, student Alfie Meadows developed bleeding on his brain when he was hit by a police baton during the student protests.
He fell unconscious on the way to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, where he underwent a three-hour operation to save his life.
As his mother said at the time, Alfie Meadows was not getting involved in any rioting, but merely trying to leave the police kettle.
And yet the Metropolitan Policeannounced yesterday that he will be among 11 people charged over the 9th December event.
The news release says he is charged with violent disorder contrary to Section 2 Public Order Act 1986.
It is a sentence that carries a maximum sentence of five years.
As Richard Seymour at Lenin’s Tomb says:
Yes, they beat someone’s skull in. Yes, this was part of a series of violent tactics deployed by police, which included assaults on young boys, and teenaged girls. Yes, if the protests had continued, and the police had continued with their tactics, they probably would have killed someone just as they killed Ian Tomlinson.
We’ll be lucky if, in the next few years, they don’t kill another protester. And their very clear message is that whatever happens, just as they did with Jean Charles de Menezes and the Koyair brothers, they will always find a way to blame the victim, exonerate or protect the guilty, and continue as before.
Unbelievable.
How the police are trying to smear protesters in Bristol #stokescroft
Police in Bristol last night arrested a number of people who they say were squatting a building in Stokescroft. There has been a long running squat on Cheltenham Road in Stokescroft protesting against a new Tesco which I understand finally opened on Friday. It seems that the police were attempting to evict this squat.
But things don’t seem to have gone quite to plan. Hundreds of local residents got out of bed as soon as they heard what was happening, and came out to protest against the evictions.
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The apparent acceptance of vandalism in anti-cuts groups harms us all
contribution by Bethan Tichborne
My politics have changed radically over the last year. This time last year I was hostile to anarchism, now I’d be more comfortable calling myself an anarchist than a socialist.
That’s because I’ve met many intelligent, committed and open-minded anarchists, because I’ve seen how well consensus-based decision making can work, and that efforts to organise non-hierarchically can be both more empowering and more effective than the alternatives.
But two people who I have a lot of respect for have recently voiced their discomfort with the apparent acceptance of violence in various anti-cuts groups.
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Why do Israel’s cheerleaders in the UK ignore its racism?
Imagine if the Department for Communities and Local Government partnered with an organisation that works for Christians to implement national housing and planning policies.
What if the junior coalition partner in the British government had campaigned for the election by challenging the national loyalty of ethnic minorities?
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The French left shows it Islamophobia in supporting Niqab ban
contribution by Sam Bogg
On 11th April, French Muslim women will wake up to find they can no longer were the niqab in any public place.
Sarkozy has argued that the burqa is not welcome in France. Even on the liberal-left people have heralded the move as “the right step”. It would seem that some on the French left have forgotten what that means.
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Despite setbacks, UKuncut are back on the streets
contribution by Tim Hardy
Many of us went out again in London under the banner of UKuncut this Sunday. We were met at our start point by dozens of police vans containing more officers per protester than were at the EDL march in Blackburn.
FIT officers were on the scene openly filming everyone in an act of surveillance as intimidation.
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Why police charges against UKuncut protesters are unlikely to stick
There has been a fair bit of chat on the blogs about the ‘politically motivated’ arrest of 130 ‘uncut’ demonstrators coming out of Fortnums & Mason. There’s now a petition up calling for the dropping of charges.
For whatever reason, though, no-one seems to have undertaken the fairly straightforward task of analysing whether their arrest will actually result in any convictions. This seems odd.
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The government wants to control what you see online
contribution by Peter Bradwell
Ed Vaizey, Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries, this week confirmed that he is discussing a voluntary website blocking scheme with Internet Service Providers and copyright lobbyists.
There are plenty of reasons why so many people think this is a bad idea and why it won’t work.
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What happened after I got arrested on Saturday
Yesterday, I was arrested outside Fortnum & Mason after the UK Uncut protest, on suspicion of Aggrevated Trespass and Criminal Damage. Below is a summary of my experiences.
When we were inside Fortnum & Mason, the police said if we left we would not be arrested. At 6pm or so, we left, together. The police kettled us outside the shop. It then became clear that they were, one after another, leading people away to be arrested.
Eventually, it was my turn. I was placed in handcuffs, asked on camera for some basic details, then led down a side street by my arresting officers.
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Saturday night inside the kettle
OK, I wasn’t there for all of it, and I am in no position to offer a definitive judgement on what happened in Trafalgar Square on Saturday night. But thanks to my possession of a press pass, the cops let me inside the kettle and I got a pretty good voyeur’s view of the proceedings. These are my impressions.
I did not see any serious violence, and that goes for both the protestors and the Old Bill. I’m not saying serious violence didn’t happen, just that I didn’t see it happen.
Ask me about aggressive behaviour, argy bargy and general unseemliness, and I’ll admit that the activists were hardly angels. But the policing was ridiculously heavy handed for much of the time.
You can read articles through the front page, via Twitter or RSS feed.
» How the UK could pay for its demographic “time-bomb”
» Osborne’s time is running out, even amongst friends
» BBC goes along with govt spoiling tactic on disabled people
» The ‘madness’ of terrorism and other offensive terms
» Palestinian children routinely jailed for throwing stones, report finds
» What are people like Melanie Phillips calling for then?
» Anders Breivik wasn’t a “lone wolf”, he was part of a movement
» The famine in Somali is no natural disaster
» Will tomorrow be the day people start to question Osborne’s competence?
» The inequality rarely mentioned in Westminster: Scotland’s land
» How child-beating teachers were STOPPed 25 years ago
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