New York City Highlights Problems with Politicised Policing

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A secretly-recorded audio file of New York City Police carrying out a stop-and-frisk on a seventeen-year-old illustrates the problem with NYPD's controversial policy. Among the frequent swearing by the police officers, the recording includes numerous threats by the police to physically assault the youth, who was not arrested and had not committed a crime.

A recent video based on the incident reveals that the policy of stopping and searching suspicious-looking individuals is the result of orders from New York's elected mayor. Serving and retired police officers reveal (anonymously in some cases) the pressure they are routinely put under by their superiors to complete such stops, regardless of whether such actions are warranted by any objective suspicion of crime. In the process, the rights of individuals to be unmolested by the agents of the state are routinely ignored. The policy also involves racial profiling and fulfilling quotas, both of which are outlawed under New York state law. 

These infringements are the result of political orders from an elected official, pandering to the perceived expectations of a vocal section of the electorate. The problem is that the policy is applied disproportionately to those who do not have or do not know how to use their political voice.

This perversion of public service is an unintended consequence of elected officials running the police service. This development has been enshrined in British law this year with the creation of elected police commissioners. Paradoxically, democratic norms are sometimes better upheld with high calibre unelected officials running the police service.

 

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Related articles

• Stop-and-Frisk in New York and the Politics of Crime in America
• Stop And Frisk Is Terrifying
• Stop Stop and Frisk

Education, Criticism, and Free Speech Collide in Canadian High School

The Offensiveness of Evangelism | First Things: 

It's reasonable to conclude that education and freedom of expression (both intricately linked) are in serious trouble when a senior education professional in Canada can state the following:

“We absolutely support students’ rights to express their beliefs, but we absolutely support students’ rights to not have their own beliefs unreasonably criticized.”

The statement from school Superintendent Nancy Pynch-Worthylake was made to explain why she was supporting the decision of a Novia Scotia high school to demand that one of its Year 12 students stop wearing to school a T-Shirt containing the statement, “Life is wasted without Jesus.”

It is a sad day when an educational establishment cannot use such a provocative item of clothing to engender discussion among its students on the important issues of belief, free speech and mutual tolerance. Protecting children from having to deal with these challenging themes is an anti-educational act, in my opinion. And suggesting that not having one's beliefs criticised is in any sense a "right" is just a step too far in an arena in which freedom of ideas and words should be encouraged to flourish.

As Keith Porteous Wood, of the National Secular Society UK says:

“Freedom of expression should be used responsibly, yet some people only regard as 'responsible' that which they don’t regard as offensive or insulting. Freedom only to say only what others find acceptable is no freedom at all."

The t-shirt wearing teen was eventually upheld in his right to wear the controversial item.

Related articles

• Spanish Artist Faces Prison For Insulting The Catholic Faith

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• You can't defend free speech by labelling your opponents 'bigots' and 'extremists'

  ---

• This ban on insults is a gag on free speech

  ---

• Suspended student says he'll keep wearing Jesus T-shirt

  ---

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao - Welcome to Britain

Image via Wikipedia

As the Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao meets the UK Prime Minister David Cameron today, a short video filmed in secret by one of his fellow Chinese citizens.

Political dissident Hu Jia (pictured), who was released from prison today after three and a half years, has been placed under informal house arrest at his home in Beijing. His "crime" was to write articles and give interviews that were critical of the Chinese government for its human rights abuses. His open letter titled The Real China and the Olympics was published in 2008. 

Prior to his imprisonment, Hu Jia and his wife were placed under near-constant police surveillance. The following video was secretly filmed during this period. Amnesty estimates that since February of this year, at least 130 political activists (including bloggers, writers and lawyers) have been disappeared, or placed under house arrest or close surveillance.

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Tunisia: The Middle East’s first cyberwar

Index on Censorship » Blog Archive » Tunisia: The Middle East’s first cyberwar

Excellent and thorough piece by Rohan Jayasekera on the cyber dimensions to the current wave of protest in Tunisia.

The International Freedom of Expression Exchange has set up a Tunisia Monitoring Group to report on issues of press freedom and related human rights abuses.

Earlier post on the Tunisian protests here.

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Why Does the Media Ignore Persecuted Christians?

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UN Fact-Finding Mission Says Israelis "Executed" US Citizen Furkan Dogan

Image via Wikipedia

t r u t h o u t | UN Fact-Finding Mission Says Israelis "Executed" US Citizen Furkan Dogan

Far be it from me to wade into an analysis of the Israeli-Palestine issue - which, to quote President Obama, would be "above my pay grade" - but.....

The official UN report on the human rights aspect of the boarding of the flotilla to Gaza by Israeli commandos in May of this year has been published. In fact, it was published in July. No, I hadn't heard anything about it either.

Which is surprising, because an American citizen, Furkan Dogan was among those killed during the raid. The UN report on his death makes uncomfortable reading, describing his death as an "execution".

Gogan was shot twice in the head, once in the back and in the left leg and foot before being shot in the face at point blank range while lying on the ground. Based on the "forensic and firearm evidence," the UN panel concluded that Dogan's killing and that of five Turkish citizens, "can be characterized as extra-legal, arbitrary and summary executions."

My point in relating this unpleasant story is to highlight the way that, when pursuing their foreign policy objectives, elected governments such as that of the United States will often make use of the death of their citizens overseas as a way of justifying aggressive actions against the offending states.

On this occasion, however, the US administration is pursuing a policy of not commenting on the incident. In a written statement, which appears to have been dragged out of a reluctant State Department by Truthout magazine, we read:

"We urge that this report not be used for actions that could disrupt direct negotiations between Israel and Palestine that are now underway or actions that would make it not possible for Israel and Turkey to move beyond the recent strains in their traditional strong relationship."

There we have it then. And not a hint of the story being reported on the main US media channels.

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Burka Banning: a Christian Perspective

After an initial appearance in the Belgian legislature (a nation not known for its large number of fully-veiled Muslim women, as far as I was aware), the issue of banning burkas in public has moved to the French parliament and is also now receiving attention among Spanish politicians. It was therefore only a matter of time before the issue would be raised in the British context.

Philip Hollobone, Conservative MP for Kettering, has provided the opportunity with his pledge to introduce a private member's bill which would ban the Muslim facial veil in public - along with the wearing of full-face balaclavas.

It's worth stating at the outset that the actual issue is over the niqab, the full veil which allows the eyes to be seen. The burka - which hides the eyes behind a mesh - is almost never seen outside of Afghanistan or parts of rural Pakistan.

It seems unlikely that a bill to ban the burka/niqab/balaclava would ever make it to the House of Commons - especially in the light of Immigration Minister Damien Green describing such a ban as "un-British". The issue, however, is one that warrants thoughtful consideration as it touches on a number of important issues of personal freedoms, the role of the state, the equality of women and the place of religion in a modern society.

Advocates tend to cite four main reasons in favour of such a ban:

a) the burka/niqab is a symbol of the oppression of women. Removing it from the public space is an emancipating and empowering act for women

b) the veil hinders communication and, therefore, tends towards segregating the wearer from the wider non-veil wearing society

c) the garment is dangerous to the wearer in certain settings - such as near machinery

d) the garment can be a security risk. Labour MP Stephen Timms was recently stabbed at his constituency offices by a woman wearing a burka-like garment. At least one terror suspect in Britain has attempted to avoid arrest by dressing as a Muslim woman.

There is a fifth reason why some desire such a ban, though it is rarely stated in public debates. This is to limit the perceived spread of Islam in the west by reducing aspects of its visible presence.


Those seeking to apply a Christian perspective to the issue might do well to consider the following factors.

1. A garment similar to the niqab was common among women in the Bible

Especially in the Old Testament, the veil was often worn, for cultural, family and ethical reasons. The matriarch Rebekah clearly wore one as did the "beloved" in the Song of Songs. The story of Tamar reveals that the veil could, as today, be used for deceptive purposes. In Isaiah's day, it appears that veils were part of the essential wardrobe of the fashion-conscious Jerusalem urban elite.


2. The focus needs to be on the specific question of a legal ban

The current debate does not centre on whether the veil (or balaclava) is appropriate or liked, but whether it should be made illegal in public. A wider debate about the meanings inherent in the niqab may well be worth having, but the more limited issue that the current wave of European legislation raises is whether the state should criminalise the wearing of such a garment in public.


3. A simplistic secular, feminist analysis of the issue should be treated with caution

As my friend Steve Smith has pointed out, the current debate often rests on a binary assumption that veil = subjugation, and non-veil = liberty. Clearly, many women in liberal western democracies do have a number of freedoms not always afforded in other parts of the world. Having said this, western women do face significant levels of oppression from men, some legalised.

Writing in the Washington Post, American feminist writer Carol Campbell has noted what she perceives as one such area of oppression:

For many American women, the feminism that once attracted them with its lofty goal of promoting respect for women's dignity has morphed into something antithetical to that dignity: a movement that equates a woman's liberation with her license to kill her unborn child ... and colludes with a sexist culture eager to convince a woman in crisis that dealing with her unplanned pregnancy is her choice and, therefore, her problem.

Indeed, it is a conscious rejection of western liberalism, and, its perceived destructive influence on the family unit, that is currently providing one of the motivations for some women to explore more conservative religious movements. The language of women being "precious" and requiring "protection" in Islam may be repellent to many secular feminists but to some, the security that such a world offers is an attractive option if the alternative appears to be a life of insecure short-term relationships, casual sexual encounters and divorce or abandonment in one's middle years.


4. The bigger question about the nature and role of government should be addressed

Although there has been a minority view among Christians over the centuries that human governments have no genuine authority at all to coerce obedience - Leo Tolstoy, Dorothy Day and Jacques Ellul are among those often associated with this strand of Christian Anarchism - the vast majority of Christian thinkers and churches, Protestant and Catholic, have accepted the traditional view that the state is a God-given institution with legitimate legislative and punitive powers. For the purpose of this article, I am assuming this majority Christian position on the role of government.

Within this mainstream framework, much attention has been given to Romans chapter 13 where the role of government is stated by the apostle Paul as being to "commend good" and "punish wrongdoing". John Stott once noted that governments of all types tend to perform the latter role much more effectively than they do the former! Nonetheless, this framework suggests that governments do well to consider the specific moral issues involved before criminalising any action.

At this point, a call to ban the burka in public seems to fall short. There is no breaking of a moral code when a woman wears such a garment (as would be the case, for instance, if she were to appear in the high street naked). No harm is being done to another person. There is no victim to be protected. Claims that the woman herself is a victim require too subjective a judgement on the motivations and meanings inherent in such attire to be a valid basis for legislation, in my opinion.

In the absence of such a clear moral issue, our default position should surely be to allow human beings to exercise their own choices and freedoms in public (and private) without interference by the state.


5. We should not abandon informal means of achieving desired outcomes

Our recent political history in the UK has tended to create the assumption that the majority of social issues can be addressed through legislation. This can actually amount to a diminishing of the value of more personal, informal means of effecting positive social change or of resolving difficulties. The general point is to consider carefully whether we want the state to take on the role of clothes monitor when other more effective mechanisms exist.

Jack Straw, for instance, asks veiled women to remove their veils when he meets with them at his constituency surgeries in Blackburn, so that he can better hear and understand what they are seeking to communicate with him. His experience, apparently, is that about half of women comply with this request and half do not.

Philip Hollobone, by contrast, is quoted as saying that he would refuse to meet a woman if she declined such a request. This position seems unnecessarily illiberal and against the spirit of the role of a public servant, whereas Jack Straw's approach seems more reasonable and pragmatic.

Health and safety aspects of robe wearing can (and should in my opinion) be dealt with at the level of the individual organisation or business concerned. There are situations where such attire is unsafe - best practice in hygiene requires a surgeon to prepare for and perform an operation with bare arms, for instance. This does not require legislation. Former Bishop of Rochester Michael Nazir -Ali, the son of a convert from Islam, has noted that such issues can be dealt with at a decentralised level.


5. We should support those actions which lead to social peace

Although unwavering on key issues, the apostle Paul's approach to life in a multicultural society (the urban Roman Empire) was notably peaceable and accommodating, while always keeping his focus on the furtherance of the Christian message. Although he was not involved in a democratic society, his mindset can be applied to those of us living in one:

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.

Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God — even as I try to please everybody in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.

1 Cor 10:31-33

Elsewhere, Christians are warned against those who have "an unhealthy interest in controversy." Of course there are times when a principled stand needs to be taken on issues of clear right and wrong, such as matters of justice. We must not fall into the trap, however, of assuming that all issues are in this category.

There is anecdotal evidence to suggest that the politicising of the issue of burka wearing tends to inflame inter-communal passions rather than reduce them. France has already had its first "burka rage" incident, for instance when a female lawyer (no less) ripped the veil from a fellow shopper in a department store. Police in Leicestershire are also concerned at a discernible rise in recent months in such physical or verbal attacks on women wearing veils.

In summary, we would do well to highlight and overcome any perceived fears of "the other" that may be behind calls for the banning of the veil and affirm that, despite its difficulties, freedom of expression is a commodity worth preserving. Maintaining such freedoms is significantly easier than regaining them once lost.

Image, Steve Evans.

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Being Franck

If Chelsea FC wanted to do something really cool, they could do a lot worse than drop any interest they may have in signing French footballer Franck Ribery.

The Bayern Munich striker stands accused of having sex with an under-age prostitute, an offence that carries a maximum of three years in prison.

With an estimated 1.3 million children trafficked annually, many of them into the sex industry, a decision by Chelsea to take a stand against this form of child abuse would send a positive signal that show that they value something more than money or winning matches.

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Another Reason to Dispair at the EU

This from the EU-funded Samuri surveillance system - whose aim is to create the "next generation" of CCTV:

Existing systems focus on analysing recorded video. SAMURAI is to develop a real-time adaptive behaviour profiling and abnormality detection system for alarm event alert and prediction.

We aim to develop an abnormal detection system based on a heterogeneous sensor network consisting of both fix-positioned CCTV cameras and mobile wearable cameras with audio and positioning sensors.

These networked heterogeneous sensors will function cooperatively to provide enhanced situation awareness.

I notice that the ever-reliable and ethically impeccable BAA are major players in this monstrous supra-government-funded initiatve, which WE DON'T NEED.

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Persecution in Vietnam

The following video was taken in August in Vietnam. It appears to show local police raiding an unidentified church meeting held in a home and arresting several members.

The Vietnamese constitution guarantees religious freedom, but churches are required to register with the state, a move that results in numerous restrictions being placed upon the activities of such churches. As a result, many churches - including the one in the video - choose to remain unregistered.

Persecution of Christians in Vietnam is routinely harsh, with arbitrary arrests, harassment and fines being routine. A number of Christians are in prison with reports of several having died as a result of injuries sustained.

Underground house churches are particularly represented among ethnic tribal groups in the mountains of central and southern Vietnam.

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Guinea, Guns and BAE Systems

To nobody's great surprise, recent atrocities in the west African country of Guinea, when civilians opposed to Capt. Moussa Dadis Camara's military junta were attacked, killed and raped by soldiers loyal to the regime, have an indirect link to BAE Systems.

Eye witness reports of the 29th September massacre, when 157 people were reportedly killed at a rally calling for Camara to not take part in Presidential elections planned for next January, describe some of the weapons and equipment used by army units as they unleashed a brutal attack upon the crowd of 50,000 at a football stadium in the capital Conakry.

These reports include descriptions of:

• French-made Cougar grenade launchers, whose sale to Guinea were authorised by the French government in 2007
• Mamba Mine Protected Vehicles, built by BAE Systems and reportedly sold to the Guinea regime through a South African intermediary company

Since the September massacre, during which widespread rape is reported to have taken place, Amnesty International have called for an immediate suspension of all weapons and arms supplies to Guinea.

A participant within the armed forces who took part in the September massacre has described the army as being leaderless and in a state of chaos. He also claims that elements from neighbouring Liberia are operating at middle ranking levels within the Guinea army.

Human Rights Watch reported in 2003 that Guinea was used as a major transit route for illegal arms shipments to the Muslim-majority LURD rebel group in their conflict with the government of Charles Taylor between 1999 and 2003. The report claims that these arms shipments originated in the Ukraine and Iran.

To add to the complexity, the military junta in Guinea has, since the massacre, announced a $7billion mineral rights deal with the People's Republic of China.

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Peru: Is This an Oil War?

In scenes reminiscent of the American frontier during the C19, this week has seen a state of emergency declared and the Peruvian Army ordered into the country's Amazon region to help the police put down a protest by indigenous tribal groups against the granting of oil drilling permits to multi-national companies.

As previously reported on this blog, Anglo-French group Perenco is sending about 1,000 workers into the Peruvian Amazon to drill in lands which contain significant numbers of native Amazonian tribes, including several that have had no contact with outside cultures and are therefore particularly susceptible to imported disease. Canadian petrochemical firm Petrolifera are also active in the region in the Ucayali Basin, and control about 4.5 million acres in Peru.

Perenco's operations are in the Maranon Basin near the boarder with Equador in an area that it claims holds over 300 millions barrels of oil which it hopes to extract at the rate of 100,000 barrels per day. Perenco secured the drilling rights after Perenco President Francois Perrodo met with Peruvian President Alan Garcia Perez and pledged to invest $US 2 billion into energy-related development in the area. Perenco plans on drilling over 100 wells, building local pipelines and central processing facilities in the area, which is home to the Cacataibos, Isconahua, Matsigenka, Mashco-Piro, Mastanahua, Murunahua and Nant tribes.

American energy company ConocoPhillips owns a concession of over 10 million acres in the Peruvian Amazon and has been criticised by NGO Amazon Watch for the risk their operation poses to indigenous people groups who have chosen a policy of non-contact in order to preserve their traditional culture and to protect themselves from disease.

Directives by the Government of Peru passed over the last two years have relaxed restrictions on oil exploration in the Amazon and up to 30,000 people have been holding a month long protest to call for the repeal of these decrees. There have also been blockades of key rivers and roads into the affected areas, as illustrated in the video below.

A British friend and long-time resident in Peru recently told me that the public money pledged to educational and health care improvement among the Amazonian tribes rarely reaches its intended recipients and that corruption in all levels of government is known to be widespread.

Peru Indigenous Mobilization from Amazon Watch on Vimeo.

Up to date news and fuller details about organised campaigns to stop oil and gas exploration in the Peruvian Amazon can be found here.

Possible actions concerned citizens could take include:

• writing to the President of Peru
• contacting your congressman or woman
  
• writing or emailing your local MP or MEP
• contacting your local Peruvian embassy

Alternatively, concerned citizens could always write or pay a visit to the oil company of their choice and have a chat with the managers there about how you feel their company is behaving in northern Peru. Contact details are as follows:


Perenco

Thames House
Thamesfield Way
off Pasteur Road
Great Yarmouth
Norfolk
NR31 0DN

Tel: +44 1 493 414 000
Fax: +44 1 493 414 001

Petrolifera

Suite 900
332 Sixth Avenue SW
Calgary
Alberta
Canada
T2P 0B9

Fax: 403.538.6225


R. A. Gusella
Executive Chairman
(403) 538-6201

or

Gary D. Wine
President and Chief Operating Officer
(403) 539-8450

or

Kristen J. Bibby
Vice President Finance and Chief Financial Officer
(403) 539-8450

ConocoPhillips

Meet the Leadership Team or The Board of Directors and then pay them a visit at

600 North Dairy
Ashford

Houston,

TX 77252-2197

Phone: 281 293 1000

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Sudan President Kneels to God, Crushing the Poor in the Process

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir's expulsion of thirteen international aid agencies working in the country - as retaliation for the arrest warrant issued against him by the International Criminal Court - is a contemporary example of a long tradition of tyrants invoking God's name in justification of the oppression of the poor - a tradition that includes Medieval Europe's anti-semitism and South Africa's apartheid laws.

In rejecting the authoity of the Court, the unelected President, who came to power in a military coup twenty years ago, announced to a large and enthusiatic crowd of supporters that "We will remain firm and never bow to anyone except the Almighty God."

Meanwhile, Amnesty International has warned that more than 2.2 million Sudanese face the risk of starvation and disease if the aid agencies are expelled. The thirteen international aid agencies have been working in a varity of projects, including healthcare, education and agriculture (picture from Oxfam).

According to the United Nations, meanwhile, some 300,000 people have died in Darfur since the conflict started in 2003. More than two million have been displaced.

The International Criminal Court issued a warrant for Mr Bashir on 4 March, accusing him of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. It is the first such warrant to be issued against a serving head of state. The arrest warrant, which includes an appeal to UN member states to support its implementation, lists 7 charges, including:

• five counts of crimes against humanity: murder ; extermination ; forcible transfer ; torture ; rape
• two counts of war crimes: intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population; pillaging

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British Journalists in Mass Photography Protest Outside Met Police HQ

Recent years have seen an increase in the use of police powers to interfere with the right of British citizens and journalists to take photographs in public places.

Of particular concern is a clause within the Counter Terrorism Act which sanctions the arrest and imprisonment of anyone whose pictures are "likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism."

Even before the Act becomes law on Monday 16th Feb, police have been accused on several occasions in recent months of attempting to interfere with journalists and members of the public taking photographs in public. Recent examples include:

• photographer Jess Hurd had her camera forcibly removed and was arrested for 45 minutes while taking photographs of a wedding in London's Docklands in December 2008. National Union of Journalists spokesman Jeremy Dear said of the incident: "Despite the government’s warm words about the right to photograph in public and new Home Office guidelines it appears the routine abuse of these powers goes on."
• a Metropolitan Police Sergeant attempted to forcibly remove the camera of NUJ member Justin Tallis while photographing an anti-BBC demonstration on January 24th. Full story here.
• also in January, an amateur photographer was stopped by police while taking photos of ships in Cleveland. He was asked if he had any terrorist connections and told that his details would be kept on file.
  

Meanwhile, in March 2008, Austin Mitchell MP obtained 190 signatures for an Early Day Motion
protesting the recent spate of incidents involving police officers, police community support officers or wardens attempting to confiscate cameras and other equipment or otherwise interfering with the right of citizens to take photographs in a public place.

In response to these trends, and on the day the above law officially comes into effect, photographers from across the country will be conducting a mass picture taking session outside New Scotland Yard, home of the Metropolitan Police.

The photo shoot is supported by the National Union of Journalists and the British Journal of Photography.

The event also has a facebook page here.

An opportunity for some happy snapping.

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Cluster Bombs - Why the World Needs the Ban

News that Sri Lanka's last functioning hospital in the country's northern war zone has been hit by cluster bombs is a grim reminder of why the world needs to implement the treaty signed in Dublin last year banning the production, transfer, stockpiling and use of cluster munitions.

Reports of the bombing of the hospital in the area of Puthukkudiyiruppu were communicated by U.N. spokesman Gordon Weiss who said that despite the earlier evacuation of the hospital, 15 U.N. staff members and 81 members of their families were apparently trapped in the immediate area, which is one of the last regions of Sri Lanka to remain under control of the Tamil Tigers movement. Tamil fighters have been fighting for an independent homeland in the north of Sri Lanka for over 25 years. Casualty figures for this latest attack are currently unknown.

Disputed video footage from an alleged earlier cluster bomb attack in Sri Lanka appears to show fragments of munitions with cyrillic markings, indicating a possible Russian source to the cluster bombs allegedly owned by the Sri Lankan military.

The 2008 Dublin agreement was signed by 111 countries despite the absence at the conference of the major producers of cluster bombs - the United States, China, Russia, Israel, India and Pakistan.

Cluster bombs scatter smaller munitions across a wide area on impact, causing widespread destruction. Such weapons also cause a long-term danger to civilians, especially children, who may pick up unexploded bomblets by mistake.

The government of Sri Lanka publicaly denies using cluster munitions in its long campaign against the Tamil seperatist movement. Sri Lanka is not a signatory to the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions.

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2012 Olympic Free Speech Threat

Well done to IOC (that's Index on Censorship, by the way) for this alarming story on the draconian powers that have been passed into law through the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006.

Among the more penicious clauses in the Act are the following:

• dedicated road lanes in London for government ministers, games officials and sponsors
• fines of up to £5,000 for motorists who use these dedicated lanes
• regulation of advertising in and around the Olympic area by the executive (not Parliament)
• restrictions to extend to "non-commercial" advertising and "announcements or notices of any kind"
• advertising to be defined as including the "distribution or provision of documents or articles...the display or projection of words, images, lights or sounds..."
• unlimited fines as punishment for breaches of the above regulations
  
• permission for the police to forcibly enter property to "remove, destroy, conceal or erase" anything deemed inconsistent with the advertising regulations

You get the picture.

Essentially, the Act codifies the legal basis for the executive branch of government to create a sponsor-friendly zone around the Olympic venues (possibly including those outside London) within which citizens may not be permittted to advertise non-sponsor companies.

Of even greater concern, however, is the legal basis for restricting speech of any kind which might be regarded as harmful to the commercial sponsors of the Games. This could include, among other possible actions, protests about employment practices of sponsors, even posters in private house windows expressing views critical of sponsors.

Let's imagine a possible scenario. Imagine you were on your way to the Velodrome to see Britain's finest cycle their way to glory and gold. On your way, you pass a row of houses whose enlightened citizens have decided to let the world know how angry they are about the hundreds of abductions, tortures and kidnappings of trades union officials at Coca Cola bottling plants in Columbia and how these crimes, plus numerous murders of union leaders at Coca Cola factories, are alleged to be the work of paramilitary units with links to managers within Coca Cola in these same factories.

Imagine as you passsed these houses, whose residents had displayed posters highlighting these crimes, how outraged you would be to see police raiding these houses and "removing, destroying or erasing" these posters before your very eyes so that senior managers at Coca Cola would not have their commercial hegemony of the 2012 Olympics challenged.

Wouldn't you think that such actions were:

• un-just: all the force of the law is placed in defence of powerful commercial interests at the expense of the rights of the ordinary citizen
• un-British: we are essentially a people who believe in free speech, unhindered by the agents of the state
• un-Olympic: Olympism is defined in the opening statements of its charter, as a philosophy which seeks to create "a way of life based on the joy of effort, the educational value of good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles" and further states that a key goal of Olympism is to promote "a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity."

Of course, it will be argued that in the end the courts will not pass heavy penalties for peaceful protestors who happen to fall foul of this Law.

The fact is that peaceful protestors should not even be brouight before the courts in the first place and should not be required to face the intimidation of arrest, charge and trial just for exercing their ancient right to speak and stick up posters, even if they do offend Coca Cola, Visa, General Electric or McDonalds.

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The Dude's Got Style

Wow! What is that I'm suddenly breathing?

Oh yeah, it's the breath of fresh air blowing from America.

I am liking day two:

The man is

• closing Guantanamo
• banning torture
  
• affirming trial by jury and the rule of law
  
• stopping waterboarding
• closing CIA secret prisons

And what's that squeaking noise I can hear?

It must be Dick Cheney riding round in angry circles in his wheelchair.

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Heathrow, Human Rights and Peru

Opposition to the third runway at Heathrow is not merely about local traffic and noise pollution or even the flattening of the nearby village of Sipson to make way for the planned expansion.

More fundamental than this is the fact that our culture's "addiction to oil" (President Bush's words, not mine) is being met at an increasing cost not only to the physical environment but also to some of the planet's most vulnerable tribal peoples.

Latest to face the risk of the world's expanding thirst for oil are previously un-contacted tribes living in the remote Peruvian Amazon. Anglo-French oil company Perenco have recently been granted permission by the Peruvian government to drill for oil in the region.

Peru’s national indigenous organization, AIDESEP, is opposed to Perenco’s plans as is Survival International who have several videos on the issue on their site. Perenco itself intends to send in over 1,000 workers to the region and to build 14 oil wells.

When Shell began oil extraction among the Yora people in South East Peru in the 1980s, approximately half of the tribal population died over the coming decade, often as a result of contracting diseases for which they had no immune system.

Perenco officially denies the existence of uncontacted tribes in the area, despite confirmation of their existence by the governments of Peru and Ecuador and by Barrett Resources who formerly carried out exploration work in the area. Survival names some of these groups as the Cacataibos, Isconahua, Matsigenka, Mashco-Piro, Mastanahua, Murunahua and Nanti.

Oil exploration is often a human rights issue and by advocating a way of life, personally and in terms of public policy, that actively moves away from carbon-dependency, we have more chance of reducing the demand for fresh oil exploration of the kind currently being carried out by Perenco.

Building a third runway at Heathrow because "If we don't, someone else will" is a dishonest approach when the need is for far more radical action that significantly reduces air travel globally.

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Thinking About Land Tax

Don't worry. I find tax boring and inscrutable as well. The arrival of any correspondence from Her Majesty's Inland Revenue inevitably causes me to want to throw myself under a train at the prospect of (a) having to fill in yet another tax form or (b) having to phone up my local office (located in Scotland for some reason) and explain for the 400th time why I do not in fact owe them any money, despite regular letters to the contrary.

Tax doesn't have to be taxing? Phaw!

Against that backdrop, I have found myself rather surprisingly drawn in recent weeks to the issue of Land Value Taxation, an idea espoused by (among others) the imaginatively named Land Value Taxation Campaign. The basic idea is that taxation should be levied annually on the rental value of land, replacing existing taxes on income and business.

I first stumbled upon the idea when a friend sent a link to a podcast by the "Renegade Economist" Fred Harrison, who in 1983 predicted the 1992 slump and who in 1997 predicted that the property price high point would be 2007 and would collapse in 2008 followed by recession in 2009/10.

My interest then took me to related sites, notably The Distributist Review and the Mutualist, the latter describing itself as espousing "free market anti-capitalism".

After that, I came across a piece by a former Sussex University friend Edward Rhodes on the pamphleteer Thomas Spence (1750-1814) who, along with his calls for universal adult suffrage (including voting rights for women) was an advocate of a system of taxation based on the value of land linked to the corresponding abolition of taxation on income and trade.

Time and inclination permitting, I may explore the theme in future posts. For now, I commend the links if interested in exploring the idea further.

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Yemen, Uganda and Slavery

New Vision, which modestly describes itself as "Uganda's Leading Website", carries the moving story of Florence Kampi, abducted at the age of five from her native Uganda and sold into slavery in Yemen. 28 years later (during which time her mother assumed her to be dead) and with help from the International Organization for Migration and the Ugandan Government, Florence was restored to her mother at Entebbe Airport near Kampala.

Anti Slavery International estimates that there are over 120 million slaves in the world today, more than at any other time in human history.

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