There is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there?

Tags: Friday Thing BNP terrorist weapons haul

I apologise for being less than original of late. In fact, my last few entires have been derivative to say the least (for which, read cut and past jobs).

The following needs to be seen by far more people. It is, again, from the 20.10.2006 edition of The Friday Thing.

The largest haul of terrorist equipment, surpassing anything from recent arrests of Al Qaeda suspects, surpassing even the weapons caches of the IRA, has been discovered, arrests have been made, and yet the story is not front page news. Why?

When I began doing my PhD research about terrorism, I had the thought that because we could identify with Irish terrorists (they were white, spoke the same language, and were, regardless of whether they were Republican or Unionist, Christian) we viewed them as less evil than Al Qaeda - the IRA and the UVF were the "fluffy bunny rabbits" of international terrorism. It was an offhand comment to distinguish our laissez-faire attitude to the very real threat of Irish terrorism in the 20th Century, to our hysterical attitude to the overstated threat of Islamic terrorism. The Irish were seen as like us, whilst Muslims are viewed as an alien “other”, regardless of how British they are. Carl Schmitt would indeed be proud - we have discovered the "Other" against which to declare the State of Emergency. Sovereign indeed are Bush and Blair.

White fundamentalists have been discovered with rocket launchers and the means to create chemical weapons and wage chemical warfare (which, despite August’s panic, no Muslim terror suspect in Britain has). The only conclusion that can be reached, as to why this has not been decried from the highest quarters, is that white supremacist terrorism is tacitly supported in this country.

I repeat, the majority of the British establishment, the British press, and the British public condone and approve of wanton acts of murder, torture, cruelty and terror when committed by whites, against minority groups. Given that these people are the BNP, the targets are likely to be Blacks, Asians, Homosexuals and Muslims, but not in that order.

"Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense."

If what follows does not trouble you, then please, go back to your sheltered life, untroubled by the gathering storm. If, on the other hand, the idea of the single largest cache of terrorist weapons being in the hands of white supremacists who hate Blacks, Jews, Asians, Muslims, Catholics, Homosexuals, the disabled, anyone who is not like them, and the fact that this has been covered up by the Establishment, then take action while you still have the right and freedom to do so. Write to your MP, your Council, local and national newspapers, and demand to know why the discovery of real weapons is hushed up, whilst raids to find imaginary weapons in Forest Gate receive front page news for a week. Stand up now. Remember the words of Martin Niemöller: "When they arrested me, there was no longer anyone who could protest."

Usually, when "a record haul" of bomb-making equipment is discovered in someone's house, it's big news. Usually it's front-page stuff, with the word "FOILED" appearing somewhere in the headline and the overall tone one of pride and self-congratulation. However, just two weeks ago in Lancashire, one Robert Cottage, 49, and one David Bolus Jackson, 62, were charged with possession of an explosive substance for an unlawful act. Only it wasn't "an explosive substance". Rather, it was what has been described as the largest house-haul of terror-causing equipment this country has ever seen, consisting of 22 "chemical components", numerous rocket launchers, one nuclear biological suit and a whole host of BNP literature. That's quite a cocktail of terror and fascism.

When you realise that Cottage is a member of the BNP who stood for election to Pendle Council in May, the catalogues begin to sense. Kind of. What doesn't make sense is why this story wasn't rammed down our throats the way other chemical hauls and foiled bomb-plots are. The only coverage so far has been in a couple of local rags in Pendle and Burnley, a handful of left-leaning blogs and a "news in brief" mention in The Sunday Times.

So, the question has to be: why is this not news? And the only answer that springs to mind is: these terrorists are simply not the right colour. They just don't fit the government and media profile. Terrorists aren't white, for God's sake. Not these days anyway. So whatever they were up to with their chemicals and their substances and their pamphlets, these uber-white men were most certainly not intent on destroying the British way of life. They were probably after blacks, queers or - better still - Muslims. Essentially, "Good Terrorists".

So, as the media continue to ignore them, Cottage and Bolus Jackson are presumably this week preparing for their trial on Monday when what has already been described as their "masterplan" will be placed firmly under scrutiny. Maybe then it’ll make the 10 o'clock news.

Especially if they black up for the trial.

The Land of the free...

Tags: Military Commissions Act suspends habeas corpus Friday Thing

Week in, week out, the writers at The Friday Thing produce searing commentary on the state of politics, journalism and society both here in Britain and internationally. They blend comedy, political analysis and the occasional bit of abuse into the type of writing I can only dream of coming up with. This is from the 20.10.2006 edition of The Friday Thing.

It is a rare occasion when a President can sign a bill he knows will save American lives. I have that privilege this morning... And now, in memory of the victims of September the 11th, it is my honor to sign the Military Commissions Act of 2006 into law.

President George W. Bush, Tuesday

Phew. Thank heavens for George W Bush, a man who actually cares about saving lives, a man who actually cares about the legacy of the victims of 9/11. And thank heavens for the Military Commissions Act of 2006. According to the "fact sheet" on the Whitehouse website, the new act "Will Preserve The Tools Needed To Help Save American Lives". Their capitals.

It "will allow the CIA to continue its program for questioning key terrorist leaders and operatives like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed - the man believed to be the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. This program has been one of the most successful intelligence efforts in American history, and the Military Commissions Act will ensure that we can continue using this vital tool to protect the American people for years to come. With this bill, America reaffirms our determination to win the War on Terror."

Sadly, there is a downside. Isn't there always? Well, this is quite a hefty one. Habeas corpus, that cornerstone of any legal justice system worth its salt, has, in the process of this law coming to pass, taken a critical punch to the throat. Habeas corpus was terribly important if you ever happened to find yourself arrested, detained and - god forbid - tortured by the authorities. Essentially, it gave the detainee the right to have his or her detention legally challenged in a court of law. A fair trial. Recourse. To the law. It was basically all that stood between good government and Robert Mugabe, and on Tuesday of this week, in signing the Military Commissions Act, George Bush rolled the sacred writ up into a tiny little ball and, in front of the whole nation, shoved it right up his ass.

The Military Commissions Act suspends habeas corpus for anyone deemed to be an "unlawful enemy combatant engaged in hostilities or having supported hostilities against the United States". And who does the deeming? Why, the United States government of course! Sweet. As of this week then, anyone in the United States may be arrested, detained and even tortured (but not inhumanely or to the point of death) on the government's say-so. Furthermore, said "enemy" will have no recourse to legal representation. They may be detained at the government's pleasure for as long as the government's pleasure pleases. Furthermore, any evidence, including hearsay evidence and evidence teased from suspects with the threat of drowning, will be admissible in a court of law - if it ever gets to a court of law that is, and if the judge in said court deems said evidence damning enough.

So there it is. The day George Bush killed freedom once and for all, and actually had the balls big enough to blame it on the victims of 9/11.

What a guy.

The war against terror: unholy mess, unholy alliances

Tags: Littlejohn Friday Thing

Week in, week out, the writers at The Friday Thing produce searing commentary on the state of politics, journalism and society both here in Britain and internationally. They blend comedy, political analysis and the occasional bit of abuse into the type of writing I can only dream of coming up with. This is from the 20.10.2006 edition of The Friday Thing.

May we be forgiven for what we are about to admit? We abjectly throw ourselves on your mercy in advance. Oh God. Here we go.

This week, Richard Littlejohn said something that we agree with.

There. We said it. Can you ever forgive us?

Here's what he had to say about the Home Secretary in his column for the Daily Heil this week:

“If John Reid moves any further to the Right, he'll have to start turning up at the Home Office in a peaked cap, blackshirt and jodhpurs, clicking his calf-length boots and cracking his riding crop."

Now, we realise that this is something akin to Doctor Who forming an alliance with the Cybermen in order to defeat the Daleks (as he did, briefly, at the end of the last series) but bear with us - desperate times call for desperate measures. This was just one point amongst the mountains of doggerel Littlejohn produces (which we fondly imagine he scrawls with one of his own turds each morning before getting his carer to post it to his editor for him). As if we didn't have enough to hate Reid for without him being the matchmaker of unholy alliances.

There is a convention in blogging called Godwin's Law which states "as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one". Basically, nothing derails sensible debate faster than a hyperbolic comparison of one of the parties to Hitler. It's hysterical and unhelpful. And yet...

Are we the only ones who can detect something unpleasant in the air right now? To adapt Jonathan Freedland who wrote in the Guardian on Wednesday in the context of him being a Jew: if the Government and the more rancid corners of what passes for the press these days were to talk about writers of weekly email comment sheets like they're talking about Muslims right now, we'd be looking for our passports. Something must be wrong for an establishment figure like Freedland to start chucking Holocaust metaphors around the place. Littlejohn went only a little further in evoking the Nazi regalia.

A few weeks back John Reid told Muslim parents to spy on their children. This week we hear that university staff are to be told to spy on “Asian-looking” and Muslim students. Then up steps the undeniably unsettling Ruth Kelly, member of Catholic cult Opus Dei ("Let us bless pain. Love pain. Sanctify pain... Glorify pain!" said its founder, Josemaría Escrivá) and currently blocking new legislation gay rights legislation (well, what do you expect from the Minister for Equality?). With all the self-awareness we've come to expect from her ilk, she felt herself the ideal person to speak out on religious extremism.

And of course, Jack Straw, a man who once shook hands with Robert Mugabe and helped flog weapons to India while it was at loggerheads with Pakistan, said talking to Muslim women wearing the Niqab made him uncomfortable. How does the poor, over-sensitive sod summon the courage to leave the house in a morning? Still, from his point of view, while we're obsessing over what a handful of women do or don't wear, we're not talking about 650,000 Iraqi dead or the spiralling costs of ID cards.

The right-wing press, needless to say, duly feasted on his comments for a fortnight. We're not suggesting for one minute that veil-wearing Muslim women revel in other people's misery but we bet there's been sighs of relief all round that the leaking of Paul McCartney's divorce papers have given the papers someone else to chew on for a few days.

But on it goes. Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair talked about the possibility of internment after the “truly appalling act of terror” he believes is on the way. Tory Shadow Home Secretary David Davis, in a neat contortion, talked about Muslims entering into "a voluntary apartheid" as if apartheid is something that is created by ordinary people wanting to keep themselves to themselves just like everybody else and not fascistic institutions seeking control over people’s lives. Still, it's always been a Tory trick to blame the powerless. You can't imagine Davis accusing say, the affluent residents of the gated community Bow Quarter in East London, with their security guards and infrared cameras, of trying to bring about apartheid.

And then we have the news that two suspected terrorists supposedly under control orders (or house arrest as they called it in apartheid-era South Africa) have escaped. Instead of resigning and begging for mercy for yet another display of Home Office idiocy, Reid claimed it as an excuse to re-introduce the harsher laws that he says were blocked by the Tories and the Liberal Democrats. He seems to have forgotten that Labour have a majority in the House of Commons and it was a group of Labour MPs clinging to what's left of their humanity that prevented travesties like 90-days detention from being introduced.

You can bet that the "Oh Shit! Al Qaeda are back, bigger and badder than ever!" headlines we've seen this week will be used to bring in measures which currently only feature in the wettest of John Reid's and Sir Ian Blair's dreams. Britain is the number one destination for Al Qaeda tourists this year apparently and the postcards they'll send home will make for grim reading. It's to be doubted though that there'll be much soul-searching done by the Government as to how, after five years of The War Against Terror, this could be happening. What the hell did they spend all that money on? Sweets?

We've had control orders, detention without trial, Guantanamo Bay, up to 650,000 dead Iraqis, suicide bombings on the streets of Kabul, extraordinary rendition, "torture-lite" and the rest of it. And for what? All to create more, better organised terrorists and make us less safe. And what will we get next? Instead of resignations, public humiliation and war crime trials for the ringleaders we'll get "well, let's try something else instead" followed by yet more death and disillusionment. A campaign against binge drinking, let's say, that produced more drunks would be laughed out of town but this shower are allowed to soldier on, making it up as they go along and making things worse. Why not just cut the crap and invite Al Qaeda to consult on policy-making? We seem to be doing exactly what they want so why not take the guesswork out of it?

God knows what the next round of anti-terrorism laws will bring but they'll be welcomed mainly by armchair racists, a Labour Party staring down the barrel of a right hammering at the next election and desperate for a bit of populism to save them, and white, middle-class newspaper editors with product to shift. And ordinary Muslims will still be caught in the middle, dragooned as the infantry in a war not of their making or wanting. Why aren't we asking white, male, lager-drinkers to take down football hooligans? How about getting the male population to bring an end to domestic violence (which, incidentally, kills twice as many women in Britain every year than people killed by the bombings in London last year). Why aren't non-Muslim parents being told to spy on their drinking, rutting and stabbing offspring? Could we maybe get the Scots to reign in John Reid? Blair gives us his "we're all in this together" schtick about terrorist outrages in Muslim countries as well as in America and Britain and then he lets his Government foster "enemy within" paranoia. Bootboys like Reid then put their size nines on and get stuck in.

So, if it comes to another Battle of Cable Street (the clash between anti-fascists and Oswald Mosley's blackshirts - the 70th anniversary of which was celebrated a couple of weeks ago), we'll man the barricades with Littlejohn.

Just please, please don't tell anybody we said so.

Your words are lies, sir

Tags: Bush habeas corpus Military Commissions Act Keith Olbermann

I truly never thought that I would live to see the day when the leader of democratic nation suspended the writ of habeas corpus. I never thought I would see it happen as a temporary and limited derogation during times of war, let alone a permanent revocation. But on Tuesday 17 October 2006, this is precisely what President George W Bush did by signing the Military Commissions Act 2006 into law.

In 2004, British people wrote to US citizens in swing states, begging them not to vote for Bush. This attempt was mocked by many Americans, for the logical reasons that the British "have bad teeth", "don’t have democracy", and "we will vote for whoever the hell we want, we don’t care if it affects you Limeys". Those who bothered to construct a coherent argument, rather than engage in vulgar abuse, argued that the British had no right to influence who US citizens chose to lead them. Ordinarily this would be true.

But George W Bush presumes, by executive fiat, to legislate for the world. He has not abolished the writ of habeas corpus for foreigners in the United States. He has not even abolished the writ of habeas corpus for all people in the United States. He has presumed to abolish the writ of habeas corpus for all people in all countries. No matter where on this planet you are, the United States presumes the right to capture you, detain you, and deny you access to the courts. Foreigners in the US. US citizens in the US. In Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Italy, in Britain, you have no recourse to the law to protect you. Your government will not protect you. The British government has shown little interest in demanding to know the reasons behind US extradition requests, preferring instead to be pacified by the excuse that such extradition is necessary in the fight against terror. It has shown even less interest in stopping the extraordinary rendition flights leaving our shores under the auspices of the CIA. In Italy, CIA snatch squads violated Italian sovereignty by entering without consent, and kidnapping someone from Italian territory, taking them out of Italy for detention. With consent, without consent, it doesn’t matter. The executive branch of the US government can do it, and they have removed the last means by which the populace can protect themselves from absolute tyranny.

On Wednesday 18 October 2006, Keith Olbermann in his “Special Comments” slot on MSNBC made what is possibly the most damning condemnation I have ever heard of this administration. I have reproduced the transcript below from this site. They also have a link to the video which is well worth watching.

We have lived as if in a trance. We have lived… as people in fear.

And now — our rights and our freedoms in peril — we slowly awake to learn that we have been afraid… of the wrong thing.

Therefore, tonight, have we truly become, the inheritors of our American legacy.

For, on this first full day that the Military Commissions Act is in force, we now face what our ancestors faced, at other times of exaggerated crisis and melodramatic fear mongering:

A government more dangerous to our liberty, than is the enemy it claims to protect us from.

We have been here before — and we have been here before led here — by men better and wiser and nobler than George W. Bush.

We have been here when President John Adams insisted that the Alien and Sedition Acts were necessary to save American lives — only to watch him use those Acts to jail newspaper editors.

American newspaper editors, in American jails, for things they wrote, about America.

We have been here, when President Woodrow Wilson insisted that the Espionage Act was necessary to save American lives — only to watch him use that Act to prosecute 2,000 Americans, especially those he disparaged as "Hyphenated Americans", most of whom were guilty only of advocating peace in a time of war.

American public speakers, in American jails, for things they said, about America.

And we have been here when President Franklin D. Roosevelt insisted that Executive Order 9-0-6-6 was necessary to save American lives — only to watch him use that Order to imprison and pauperize 110-thousand Americans, while his man-in-charge, General DeWitt, told Congress: "It makes no difference whether he is an American citizen — he is still a Japanese."

American citizens, in American camps, for something they neither wrote nor said nor did — but for the choices they or their ancestors had made, about coming to America.

Each of these actions was undertaken for the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And each, was a betrayal of that for which the President who advocated them, claimed to be fighting.

Adams and his party were swept from office, and the Alien and Sedition Acts erased.

Many of the very people Wilson silenced, survived him, and one of them even ran to succeed him, and got 900-thousand votes, though his Presidential campaign was conducted entirely from his jail cell.

And Roosevelt's internment of the Japanese was not merely the worst blight on his record, but it would necessitate a formal apology from the government of the United States, to the citizens of the United States, whose lives it ruined.

The most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

In times of fright, we have been, only human.

We have let Roosevelt's "fear of fear itself" overtake us.

We have listened to the little voice inside that has said, "the wolf is at the door; this will be temporary; this will be precise; this too shall pass."

We have accepted, that the only way to stop the terrorists, is to let the government become just a little bit like the terrorists.

Just the way we once accepted that the only way to stop the Soviets, was to let the government become just a little bit like the Soviets.

Or substitute… the Japanese.

Or the Germans.

Or the Socialists.

Or the Anarchists.

Or the Immigrants.

Or the British.

Or the Aliens.

The most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And, always, always… wrong.

"With the distance of history, the questions will be narrowed and few: Did this generation of Americans take the threat seriously, and did we do what it takes to defeat that threat?"

Wise words.

And ironic ones, Mr. Bush.

Your own, of course, yesterday, in signing the Military Commissions Act.

You spoke so much more than you know, Sir.

Sadly — of course — the distance of history will recognize that the threat this generation of Americans needed to take seriously… was you.

We have a long and painful history of ignoring the prophecy attributed to Benjamin Franklin that "those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

But even within this history, we have not before codified the poisoning of habeas corpus, that wellspring of protection from which all essential liberties flow.

You, sir, have now befouled that spring.

You, sir, have now given us chaos and called it order.

You, sir, have now imposed subjugation and called it freedom.

For the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And — again, Mr. Bush — all of them, wrong.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who has said it is unacceptable to compare anything this country has ever done, to anything the terrorists have ever done.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who has insisted again that "the United States does not torture. It's against our laws and it's against our values" and who has said it with a straight face while the pictures from Abu Ghraib Prison and the stories of Waterboarding figuratively fade in and out, around him.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who may now, if he so decides, declare not merely any non-American citizens "Unlawful Enemy Combatants" and ship them somewhere — anywhere — but may now, if he so decides, declare you an "Unlawful Enemy Combatant" and ship you somewhere - anywhere.

And if you think this, hyperbole or hysteria, ask the newspaper editors when John Adams was President, or the pacifists when Woodrow Wilson was President, or the Japanese at Manzanar when Franklin Roosevelt was President.

And if you somehow think habeas corpus has not been suspended for American citizens but only for everybody else, ask yourself this: If you are pulled off the street tomorrow, and they call you an alien or an undocumented immigrant or an "unlawful enemy combatant" — exactly how are you going to convince them to give you a court hearing to prove you are not? Do you think this Attorney General is going to help you?

This President now has his blank check.

He lied to get it.

He lied as he received it.

Is there any reason to even hope, he has not lied about how he intends to use it, nor who he intends to use it against?

These military commissions will provide a fair trial," you told us yesterday, Mr. Bush. "In which the accused are presumed innocent, have access to an attorney, and can hear all the evidence against them."

“Presumed innocent,” Mr. Bush?

The very piece of paper you signed as you said that, allows for the detainees to be abused up to the point just before they sustain "serious mental and physical trauma" in the hope of getting them to incriminate themselves, and may no longer even invoke The Geneva Conventions in their own defense.

"Access to an attorney," Mr. Bush?

Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift said on this program, Sir, and to the Supreme Court, that he was only granted access to his detainee defendant, on the promise that the detainee would plead guilty.

"Hearing all the evidence," Mr. Bush?

The Military Commissions act specifically permits the introduction of classified evidence not made available to the defense.

Your words are lies, Sir.

They are lies, that imperil us all.

"One of the terrorists believed to have planned the 9/11 attacks," you told us yesterday, "said he hoped the attacks would be the beginning of the end of America."

That terrorist, sir, could only hope.

Not his actions, nor the actions of a ceaseless line of terrorists (real or imagined), could measure up to what you have wrought.

Habeas corpus? Gone.

The Geneva Conventions? Optional.

The Moral Force we shined outwards to the world as an eternal beacon, and inwards at ourselves as an eternal protection? Snuffed out.

These things you have done, Mr. Bush… they would be "the beginning of the end of America."

And did it even occur to you once sir — somewhere in amidst those eight separate, gruesome, intentional, terroristic invocations of the horrors of 9/11 — that with only a little further shift in this world we now know — just a touch more repudiation of all of that for which our patriots died —

Did it ever occur to you once, that in just 27 months and two days from now when you leave office, some irresponsible future President and a "competent tribunal" of lackeys would be entitled, by the actions of your own hand, to declare the status of "Unlawful Enemy Combatant" for… and convene a Military Commission to try… not John Walker Lindh, but George Walker Bush?

For the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And doubtless, sir, all of them — as always — wrong.

A thinly veiled excuse for racism

Tech Tags: racism veil debate UK press cross banned Islamophobia

Panic du jour, de la semaine, du mois in the UK is the issue of Muslim women wearing "veils". The majority of the tabloids that are orchestrating this frenzy seem incapable of distinguishing between the hijab, the burqa, the jilbab etc. For the sake of simplicity, I am going to engage the debate at the general level that it has been brought down to, and just refer to a generic "veil".

The brouhaha began when Jack Straw MP (former British Foreign Secretary and now Leader of the House of Commons) revealed that he asks Muslim women to remove their veils when they meet him at his constituency surgery. This sparked a huge debate; on the one side, Muslims claiming that this is culturally insensitive, disrespectful, and racist. On the other, non-Muslims claiming that veils represent an obstacle to integration, are intimidating, and are offensive to British culture. As per usual, the more rational and interesting questions (feminists asking whether Muslim women have a true choice, sociologists asking whether this reveals more about the deep-rooted prejudices of the British public) are marginalised in favour of the lowest common denominator of "veils: stupid things those funny dark people wear, or the greatest threat to Western civilisation since the last one".

I think I’m with the feminists and sociologists on this one. It is ludicrous that such an inconsequential issue should command so much public attention, at least on the terms it is being presented to us. "Should British Muslim women wear a veil?" is a facile and pointless question that attempts to disguise its racist undertones with a veneer of societal concern. What it really says is "should Muslims be forced to accept a Westernised, Christianised version of Islam before we allow them to be members of our society". Should Muslim women wear a veil? I don’t actually care. They can wear whatever they wish. Just like I can wear whatever I wish. Just like you can wear whatever you wish. This is Britain. We are supposed to be a democracy. People have the freedom to wear, or not wear, whatever the hell they want. We should not expect a Muslim woman to remove her veil any more than we should expect a non-Muslim woman to remove an article of her clothing. Jack Straw has the right to ask a Muslim woman to remove her veil, so long as he knows that they have every right to refuse, and not be sent away for refusing to do so.

The veil should continue to be worn by Muslim women so long as they have the free choice to do so. And THAT is the debate we ought to be having.

Not, "should British Muslim women wear a veil?" but rather "do those Muslim women who wear a veil do so out of a freely entered choice for reasons of modesty, piety, religious belief, political identity etc, or are they being forced to do so by someone else?". If the answer is the latter, then it is a disgrace. Real efforts have to be made both within the Muslim community, and by the non-Muslim community to engage with them, and to expose those who foist this upon women who have no say. If the answer is however the former, then we must accept that those women who chose to wear the veils do so because they want to, and if it makes us uncomfortable then that says far more about us than it does about them.

Adding fuel to the fire came a series of non-issue non-stories, that attempted to portray the veil as a threat: a Sun reporter got through Leeds-Bradford Airport security without being asked to remove her veil for verification of her identity; a man who was subsequently arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act evaded capture by dressing in a burqa; a Muslim teaching assistant was suspended from her job for refusing to remove her veil when teaching in class. None of these stories deserves the prominence they got, nor have they anything more than an abstract connection to the debate, but all serve to fuel the agenda of those whipping up the masses.

Taking them in turn, firstly the Sun reporter story merely proves that some staff at British airports are failing in their jobs. It has nothing to do with veils. To give a personal example, in August there was a major threat to civil aviation announced from liquid bombs. To this day hand luggage is restricted. At the time I was due to fly to the USA on my honeymoon, so I was on a flight leaving the target country, heading to the target destination, during the window of risk. Every passenger headed to the USA was to be searched at security, and then at the gate before boarding. At the gate, I was waived straight through. I was not searched, my hand luggage was not checked. So the security at Heathrow Airport, Britain’s main airport, is far less secure than it is made out. How much more so at the regional airports? THAT is the story, not the fact that the Sun reporter dressed in a veil.

Secondly, the suspect (note that is SUSPECT, ie nothing has been proven and no charges have been brought) put on a veil to evade detection. He was then arrested trying to leave the country, because THIS time, security worked (should have gone to Bradford!). Again, man puts on disguise and fools police is not news. He could have put on a fake beard, shaved off his beard, dyed his hair, dressed up as a woman and succeeded. If the police are purely relying on visual identification to capture terror suspects, then this country is in severe danger, because we should be using intelligence rather than eyeballs. Most of the terrorists threatening this country are unknown to us, so the only way of tracking them is intelligence, intercepts, informants etc. Again, the story here is the general failure of our intelligence to track movement by any other means than looking at someone.

Finally, the teaching assistant. This woman is problematic to the press, as they are relying on people believing that Muslim women do not want to wear a veil and are being forced to. This woman is wearing the veil as a political statement, as she is wearing it in blatant disregard of the teachings of Islam. Imams have come out and said that she should remove the veil, as the Koran says that you do not need to wear the veil in the presence of children. She has no religious reason for wearing the veil in her job, and is therefore making a political statement. Political views are protected, but not to the detriment of her job, and so she should be dismissed if she does not back down. Again, the story is not the veil, but the political statement.

To counter this hysteria, the right wing press would have us believe that Christianity is an oppressed religion in this country. Despite the fact that it is really not possible to oppress a majority group that has control of the political institutions, again these stories are made out of whole cloth and are being used to push a racist agenda.

Contrary to the frothing at the mouth brigade, Fiona Bruce was NOT banned from wearing a cross on the BBC news. BBC bosses engaged in a debate premised on a hypothetical situation of a female Muslim newsreader wanting to wear a headscarf or a veil, and what would be the public response, as well as the BBC position. The point was made that how was this different from Fiona Bruce wearing a cross? The debate then moved on to the question of whether newsreaders should wear any religious symbols. Rhetorical questions were presented as BBC policy, and so the story became "Fiona Bruce banned from wearing cross", when in fact the BBC hasn’t banned anything. And given that the tabloids can’t seem to distinguish a cross from a crucifix, I’m not inclined to believe them on this issue anyway.

A BA employee has been suspended for refusing to remove her cross. Good. She must know her own company health and safety regulations (and the ban is due to health & safety, not religion) and if she does not follow them, she should be suspended. BA are not preventing staff from wearing a cross UNDER the uniform, only over. The BA policy applies to jewellery and chains, and is not targeted at the cross. If it was a topaz set in gold she would still be suspended if she refused to wear it under her uniform. Again, Christians aren’t being persecuted here. There is no requirement in the Christian faith to wear a cross (indeed, many branches of Christianity would consider this a graven image proscribed by the Ten Commandments). Male Sikhs accept that their kirpans must be surrendered on flights, not as a matter of religious discrimination, but because of the hazard knives inherently pose. Islamic women accept that they may be asked in private to remove their veils for the purpose of passport verification. Female Islamic air stewards accept that they will have to wear modified Islamic dress to comply with health and safety requirements on board a flight. The story here is not the persecution of Christianity, but the correct application of impartial safety regulations.

Sometimes I think this entire country needs a time out. Before making inflammatory statements, consider whether the phrase "I’m not a racist, but..." can be uttered before it. If it can, you are a racist, and it’s not news.

Wake me up when we start to concentrate on important things again.

Guns don't kill people...

Tags: gun control Constitution Second Amendment school shooting

…people that fetishise the right to keep weapons, that deem even the smallest restriction on the most powerful of ballistics devices to be an unforgivable sin, that are in the clutches of an organisation that would rather make soundbites about pulling a rifle from the “cold dead hands” of Ben-Hur than focus on responsible use and ownership of weapons, that systematically fail their children, celebrate the causes of isolation and resentment, then wonder why people go crazy, who then decide to look for the easy target of the weirdo singer who dresses funny rather than tackle the difficult root causes of tragedy, kill people.

The United States has again suffered a spate of shootings in schools. I don’t know what causes the disaffected in the United States to go on shooting sprees. The most recent incident is especially chilling, as it struck the otherwise peaceful and overlooked Amish community, it seems that young girls were specifically targeted, and the gunman claimed to be gaining revenge for an unspecified incident from 20 years ago, possibly involving sexual abuse.

There is a gun problem in the US, it will need to be tackled sooner rather than later, and whoever tackles it will need to be brave. Now, I have noticed that there are an increasing number of people from the US who read my blog, and some of them may be very protective of the right to bear arms. I am certainly aware of a number of groups who view ANY attempt to put limits on any form of firearm ownership as unconstitutional. So let me nail my colours to the mast.

I do not believe in a right to private gun ownership in the UK. I DO however believe that those in the US should be allowed private gun ownership. That may seem like a double standard, but in the UK we simply do not have a culture of gun ownership. In our constitutional laws, written and unwritten, firearms do not appear. Put simply, the UK never enshrined gun ownership during its birth, probably because the creation of the United Kingdom was a political act negotiated by two sovereign parliaments. The US however did, because it was born of revolution rather than negotiation. The US has had over 200 years of expectation of an armed private citizenry. In fact, the argument is sometimes made that you CAN’T be a good citizen if you do not own a gun. So I believe that people in the US should, if they choose, be allowed to own a gun. I will come out and say that if I lived in the US I would own a gun. If I lived in the city I would own a handgun, and if I lived somewhere more rural I would own a handgun, a shotgun and a rifle. So before dismissing my arguments as the ramblings of a "liberal-pinko-gun-hating-commie", bear in mind that I am in fact fairly in favour of firearm ownership.

However, I think there should be restrictions. And there are grounds for these restrictions contained in the Constitution. Let’s look at what the Second Amendment says, in full:

"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

In the view of the drafters of the Constitution, the ability to form a militia to protect the country from enemies (be they foreign, domestic, or ultimately the government itself - the Second Amendment exists to ensure that if the people found themselves in the same situation as in 1777 they could have another Revolution) was essential to the security of the state. If the people could not keep arms, they could not form a militia. So the federal government could not restrict the right to bear arms. As a government of enumerated powers of course, this does not mean that the separate states cannot restrict the right to bear arms, but that point is immaterial for the moment.

The Founding Fathers felt that a state either had a militia or a standing army. A standing army allowed a government to abuse its people. It was the standing army of the British that caused many of the complaints that led to the Revolution. The Founding Fathers rejected a standing army, preferring that the United States should have no army except that raised through militias in time of need. There is an argument that the entire US Army is a standing violation of the Constitution, but I won’t go into that here. On a textual reading, the right to bear arms is limited to those enlisted in the militia. So you have the right to bear arms, insofar as you may enlist in the local militia, but on this reading of the Constitution the widespread right of gun ownership as understood now does not hold up.

On a purposive reading, there is a general right to bear arms. The US government has restricted this very heavily, and yet no-one has complained. This is because it is commonly thought that "right to bear arms" means "right to own guns". Not so. Soldier through the ages have had access to swords, halberds, spears, knives, cannon, in addition to musket, rifle etc. "Arms" simply means weaponry.

If you wish to have a katana, a pike and a morning star, you may own and use them in the appropriate circumstances, according to a textual reading of the Constitution. And we’re not limited to weapons of the time. Many of the handguns of today were not even thought of at the time of drafting the Second Amendment. If they are protected, then so too must other, more exotic weaponry, and weaponry still to come. Mortars, rockets, Tasers, even nuclear bombs should be covered on a purely textual reading.

Yet many of these weapons are restricted or banned. Which means that Americans do accept a limit to their right to bear arms. Whether it is because they think the right only extends to guns, or because they think it is ridiculous to extend it so far (even though textually supported) the limiting factor is accepted. Personally, I think society would be more civilised if guns were banned but everyone had the right to bear swords. The greater personal risk of putting yourself into a sword fight would surely give many cause to think, and it is far more genteel to resolve arguments through a duel, rather than a drive-by.

So whilst I support the right to bear arms, I do not believe it is a limitless right, and I believe that a reading of the Constitution that marries the purposive and textual analyses allows for regulation and limitation of the type of arms, without getting rid of the right itself. It is critical to bear in mind that in terms of rights theory, there is a world of difference between the existence of a right, the ability to exercise that right, and how that right manifests. For example, the freedom of speech does not include the freedom to damage someone’s reputation through lies. Although it can be interpreted to include ANY speech, there are in fact restrictions on what you can say in this regard, and so we have libel laws.

So a right to bear arms is not denied by restricting where weapons may be bought, what class of weapon is available for sale, and who can buy them. Ignoring the fact that the "people" referred to in the Second Amendment probably only meant white male landowners over the age of 21 (what a restriction in itself!), the right is not violated by restricting minors from being able to buy weapons. I see no reason against restriction the sale of weapons purely to specially licensed firearms stores. We licence liquor stores after all. The licence means that the store and its staff have proven that they are able to enforce any laws on restrictions on weapons (e.g. not selling to minors).

I also see no reason why types of weapons cannot be restricted. You do not need a gattling gun. You do not need armour piercing, depleted uranium bullets. Frankly, you do not need automatic or indeed semi-automatic weapons. If you require a gun that holds more than about 15 bullets then you are no longer defending yourself and your family, you are taking part in a war. If you cannot adequately perform the functions that the gun is required for with a handful of bullets at most, then you might want to go to a firing range and do some target practice.

A car requires a licence. This does not restrict the right to own and drive a car. Why not require a licence for a gun? If you wish to own a gun you should take lessons from the NRA, take and pass tests and be awarded a licence that shows you are proficient enough with a gun to be entrusted with the responsibility of owning one. This could allow the NRA to clean up their image, and move away from the "guns first, lives last" image they have, to the "responsible gun ownership" image they wish to portray.

One of the most common arguments for introducing gun controls is to reduce the availability of guns in the hands of criminals, and the argument against gun control is that criminals would still get guns. This is true. Whether guns are legally available, or banned completely, criminals will get their hands on guns. The problem is that criminals get their hands on guns ILLEGALLY, regardless of whether guns are available or not. Introducing restrictions on guns will not affect criminals, because their source of handguns is not a legal source. Legally obtained guns are traceable, so the last thing a criminal wants is a traceable gun. I would not impose restrictions to tackle the use of guns by criminals, as it would be akin to trying to tackle the heroin trade by banning medical morphine – completely missing the point. The tragic shooting incidents that shock American society are, unfortunately, usually carried out by people who have obtained their weapons legally (or in the case of schoolkids, stolen a gun that was legally held by a relative). If the quantities and kinds of weapons could be reduced and restricted, then hopefully these tragic incidents could be minimised, if not completely eliminated. Then perhaps society can stop blaming shock rockers for all its ills, and spend more time trying to decide why isolated, scorned, vulnerable and bulled children, who are made to feel like pariahs, sometimes crack.

I leave you with a caveat. Any lawyer, when expressing an opinion on the law, always runs a 50/50 risk of being wrong. In any court case there is a winner and a loser. One side’s lawyer is right, the other side’s lawyer is wrong. Therefore there is a 50/50 chance that I’m wrong. If you think I am (particularly if you have expertise in American Constitutional Law) then let me know where, legally, I am wrong.

Killjoy boss gets bad legal advice shocker

Tags: age discrimination misapplied misunderstood law

The United Kingdom, like many Western countries, has an ageing population. We are living longer, and our birthrate is falling. In times past a man would retire at the age of 65 and die by the time he was 72. Now, there is a reasonable expectation that your retirement could last almost as long as your working life. As the population gets older, so the working population gets older. In such circumstances, discriminating against older workers might not be the best idea. And so, as of 1 October 2006, The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 came into force in the UK. And as is usual for the UK, it wasn’t long before someone got the wrong end of the stick, misunderstood what was required, took an unnecessary and frankly barmy decision and created a story out of nothing.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your amusement and edification, I present to you this excellent example of good intentions gone stupid. Purportedly after taking "legal advice" (of dubious provenance) a British company has banned staff from sending birthday cards to colleagues. Just in case they make a joke about your age. Because that would be against the new Regulations, the employer could be punished. See? Sounds ridiculous, but that’s what the law says! Or does it...

Out of the forms of discrimination covered in Part 1 of the Regulations, you could just about argue this would fall within "Harassment on grounds of age", but it would have to be such a spectacularly and grossly offensive birthday card or birthday message as would be grounds for disciplinary proceedings without the Regulations! Regard has to be had to all the circumstances, in particular the perceptions of the person being "harassed". So, in the unlikely event that employee A is so thin-skinned that the mere mention of their age would scandalise them, and employee B is so vindictively nasty in the card that you would probably want your HR department to have a word anyway, then yes, there might be an issue.

But even in this unlikely scenario, such actions wouldn’t fall within the remit of Part 2 of the Regulations, which (crucially) define what counts as unlawful. Sending a grossly offensive and ageist birthday card quite simply does not count as discriminating against someone in the course of their employment within the terms of Part 2 of the Regulations. It may raise other issues of employee relations in the workplace, it may be an issue that HR needs to be involved in, but it is not in the remit of the Regulations.

Employees in Bournemouth may continue to wish each other a happy birthday without breaking the law.

If I may be serious for a moment...

Tags: free speech Amnesty International Irrepressible Info campaign

You may have noticed a the green boxes on the left of the blog and scattered around elsewhere here and on my other site.

These are badges generated by the Irrepressible Info campaign by Amnesty International, supported by The Observer and OpenNet Initiative.

The web is a great tool for sharing ideas and freedom of expression. However, efforts to try and control the Internet are growing. Internet repression is reported in countries like China, Vietnam, Tunisia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Syria. People are persecuted and imprisoned simply for criticising their government, calling for democracy and greater press freedom, or exposing human rights abuses, online.

But Internet repression is not just about governments. IT companies have helped build the systems that enable surveillance and censorship to take place. Yahoo! have supplied e-mail users’ private data to the Chinese authorities, helping to facilitate cases of wrongful imprisonment. Microsoft and Google have both complied with government demands to actively censor Chinese users of their services.

Freedom of expression is a fundamental human right. It is one of the most precious of all rights. We should fight to protect it.

If you have a website or blog, help spread the word and undermine unwarranted censorship by publishing censored material from their database directly onto your site.

The more people take part the more we show that freedom of expression cannot be repressed.

Regardless of what you think of me, or my site, please visit the campaign and sign the pledge. If you have your own site, then help publish censored material. Sometimes we take our freedoms for granted and forget that there are others out there who are denied these rights, and sometimes are tortured and killed trying to exercise these rights.

RIP Habeas Corpus

Tags: Foley Capitol Hill Page scandal habeas corpus

If you have absolutely no idea why this is both hilarious and tragic, then click here to get the juicy lowdown on the outrageous Foley-Capitol Hill Page scandal, and click here to read about how the writ of habeas corpus has been abolished in the United States, without anyone even noticing. Frightening.