Israel and the PA to restart peace talks

United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has announced that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas have been invited to talks in Washington this September after both parties agreed to restart the peace talks that broke down more than a year and a half ago.

That's good news, surely? Could it be that and end to suffering is finally in sight for the millions of people who live in the West Bank, in Gaza and in those Israeli areas that daily face the Qassam rockets aimed indiscriminately at homes, shops, schools and hospitals? Let's all hope so.

Will the new round of peace negotiations be a success? Does Hillary even care? After all, just getting Israel and the PA to start talking again is seriously good PR for her and her boss as the Democrat's popularity continues on its downward spiral now that the USA has realised Obama isn't actually a god after all.

(Public domain image from Wikipedia).

However, there would appear to be a slight problem. Take a look at the PA's human rights records. They're an organisation that regularly denies the freedom of speech of those they claim to speak for, thinks nothing of contravening the freedom of the press when news agencies see fit to publish stories they don't want people knowing about, promotes religious intolerance, tortures political dissidents and carries out extrajudicial executions, does nothing to prevent honour killings and may even have created infrastructure promoting them, takes little action to prevent or reduce violence towards women, leading Human Rights Watch to accuse them of "failing to act diligently to prevent, investigate, and punish violence against women, putting women's health and lives in jeopardy. Ultimately, the PA is denying victims their rights under international human rights law to non-discrimination and an effective judicial remedy for abuse", oppresses homosexuals and, according to journalist Khaled Abu Toameh, do everything within their power to prevent the international community from finding out about their "massive abuse of human rights and intimidation of journalists that its security forces are practicing almost on a daily basis in the West Bank."

Democratic nations, such as Israel and the USA, cannot conduct any sort of meaningful peace talks with an organisation like the PA because it is obvious that the PA are not working towards the best interests of the Palestinian people. They are nothing more than an oppressive and inhumane regime that utilises fear and violence to keep the will of the Palestinian people suppressed.

As Khaled Abu Toameh continues, "The Palestinians do not need a dictatorship that harasses and terrorizes journalists, and that is responsible for the death of detainees in its prisons. In the Arab world we already have enough dictatorships.

The Palestinians do not need additional security forces, militias and armed gangs. In fact, there are too many of them, both in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip."

One day, there will be peace in Israel and Palestine. The majority of the people, like people everywhere, simply want to live their lives without fear, violence and bloodshed and with enough food to feed themselves and their children. One day, the Palestinian people will realise that it's the PA who are preventing them from achieving these aims and when that happens, it'll only be a matter of time before they rise against the PA and destroy them. Perhaps they will then establish a democratic government with whom those nations that value human rights and freedoms can negotiate.

If we allow Manchester terrorists to be tortured, we are barbarians ourselves

Un-named British authorities and the right-wing press woke up and got themselves in a right old tizzy this morning over the news that two terrorism suspects, believed to have links to Al-Qaeda, will be allowed to remain - almost certainly under house arrest and subject to control orders - in the UK as they would face torture if deported to Pakistan.

23-year-olds Abid Naseer and Ahmed Faraz Khan are accused of plotting to cause a "mass casualty 7/7-style bomb attack" to have taken place in Manchester last year, probably at the Arndale Shopping Centre during Easter. Police carried out raids at short notice on the pair after the ironically-named Met Head of Terrorism Bob Quick accidentally blurted details of the operation to photographers for which he later lost his job - the haste with which they were carried out led to police failing to gather sufficient evidence and the men being released without charge two weeks later. To date, they have not been charged with any offence and no bomb-making equipment was discovered, but police obtained copies of e-mails believed to contain coded plans outlining the attack.

Part of Manchester's enormous Arndale Centre, the largest city centre shopping mall in Europe. A terrorist attack at Easter, when the centre would be crammed with shoppers, would be likely to cause an enormous number of injuries and deaths.

(Image from Wikipedia, CC2.5)

Speaking to the Daily Express, Taxpayers' Alliance chief executive Matthew Elliot said, “These men are a security risk to the UK that is ultimately going to cost hundreds of thousands of pounds. British taxpayers cannot be expected to keep bankrolling restrictions on these men on the basis that they might be a threat. They should be charged and put on trial if they really were plotting a bomb attack." The newspaper also says that the cost of keeping each man subject to a controlling order will be "around £225,000 per subject."

New Home Secretary Theresa May told the paper "As the court agreed, they are a security risk. We are now taking all possible measures to ensure they do not engage in terrorist activity," adding that the Government is "disappointed."

Meanwhile, barrister Jeremy Donne QC said: "Control orders are costly and they have been criticised by the European Court of Human Rights." This is indeed the case - the use of control orders, which prevent a subject from associating with other people, using communications and effectively keep them under house arrest, are highly controversial, not least of all when applied to people who have not been convicted of any crime - though it should be understood that there is little doubt among authorities that the two men are guilty, although no bomb making equipment was found. However, the orders are a very great deal less controversial - and have received far less criticism by the Court of Human Rights - than torture, which has no place in a civilised nation. If Britain is a civilised nation, we have a duty to prevent anyone becoming a victim of torture - and preserving our right to refer to ourselves as civilised is worth a lot more than the £450,000 it'll cost to keep tabs on Naseer and Khan.

The European Convention on Human Rights, Article 3, states: "No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." That's an admirable and lofty ideal - let's stick to it, even if it may mean we need to protect those we wish to punish from people who do not share our enlightened ways.

Give a dog a bad name...trouble oop t'Immigration Centre

As any teacher with half a brain will tell you, all children start off as good kids and all good kids do something naughty once in a while (the infamous PVA glue in the school milk incident of 1979 being one example from my own childhood). If, following chastisement, that child is treated no differently to his or her peers, the child will continue being what he or she was previously - a normal kid. However, if adults then mark the child out as a bad kid, he or she gains a reputation and begin living up to it. Over time, the reputation gets worse and worse and - eventually - what you end up with is a juvenile delinquent who in all too many cases is destined for a life of anti-social behaviour and crime.

Immigrants enjoying their stay at Oakington, which is kind of like Butlins only guests are treated as criminals and kept locked up behind barbed wire.

Image from UK Indymedia

Recently, at the Oakington Illegal Prison...sorry, I mean Immigrant Detainment Centre near Cambridge, trouble broke out after one detainee died at the facility. While the death is not being treated as suspicious, inmates used the situation as an opportunity to protest. Around 60 detainees were involved and, according to the Home Office, "a number of ringleaders have been removed" from the Centre.

Six Immigration officers and one police officer were injured during the trouble on Thursday. Why did the inmates turn to violence? It's statistically unlikely that all 60 of them are normally violent people and many of them have probably never committed an offence in their lives apart from entering or staying in Britain illegally, either to escape their homeland where they may face persecution or simply because - like any human being - they wish to improve their lives and make something of themselves. Treat a child like a bad kid and he or she will feel they have something to live up to. Adults are not so different to children.

Home Office Oakington website here.

Griffin acts like an idiot

Maybe it's because of his failure to make enough political allies in the EU Parliament to from a far-right bloc, but BNP leader Nick Griffin isn't usually quite as moronic as he's being today. In an interview with the BBC, he proposed that the EU begins sinking ships carrying prospective illegal immigrants from Africa.

Mr. Griffin says that his party would support the deliberate sinking of boats packed full of poor, often malnourished men, women and children such as this one.

"Throw them a life raft and they can go back to Libya," says the holocaust-denying fascist, who recently became one of two BNP officials voted in as British MEPs, "... the only measure, sooner or later, which is going to stop immigration and stop large numbers of sub-Saharan Africans dying on the way to get over here is to get very tough with those coming over. Frankly, they need to sink several of those boats."

The BBC interviewer, Shirin Wheeler, replied that she didn't think "the EU is in the business of murdering people at sea."

"I didn't say anyone should be murdered at sea - I say boats should be sunk, they can throw them a life raft and they can go back to Libya," Mr. Griffin told her.

So what Mr. Griffin is proposing is that ships full of desperately poor people, many of them weak from malnourishment, some of them women and children, are deliberately sunk. Some of them would obviously die as a result - we don't even need to get started on the environmental cost of deliberately sinking a ship in the Mediterranean, which would release oil and other pollution into one of the Earth's most delicate ecosystems.

This is one of those occasions, rather like the events that led to his conviction for racial hatred, where Mr. Griffin shows his true colours (or colour prejudice) by allowing his thuggish, racist mouth to work more quickly than his weaselish, political brain. Anyone who has fallen for the BNP's lies about how it has changed as a party, is no longer racist and advocates democratic policies that are in Britain's best interests should pay very careful attention. Those of us who have not been taken in can look at his comments as amounting to little more than advocacy of the murder of unarmed civilians and as such use it as yet another reason to hate and oppose both him and all that he represents.

How long before his brain catches up, he realises he's just made another in a long series of BNP cock-ups and starts explaining in some convoluted and contrived way how his words were taken out of context and twisted by the BBC to support their own liberal ideals? Our money is on tomorrow by lunchtime.

Immigrants do not jump social housing queues, says EHRC

An Equality and Human Rights Commission study has produced evidence that immigrants in Britain cannot "jump ahead" of residents born here in queues for council or social housing, a widely-held belief much played upon by the British National Party. Once settled here - which means once they are just as liable for taxation as anyone else and thus entitled to the same assistance - no greater percentage of council housing is occupied by immigrants than by any other group.

Immigrants from all around the world have long been contributing to British society and culture.
Royalty-free image by Indeed, found at gettyimages.co.uk.

At present, housing of this type is awarded entirely according to the needs of the applicant and immigrants are not able to claim an occupancy until five years after they have settled here. John Healey, the Housing Minister, said that he believes the miconception that certain groups are favoured and as such have a better chance of finding accomodation is "largely a problem of perception" and that he wanted to "nail the myth" that certain groups are losing out. The commission's study discovered that just 11% of those immigrants to have arrived in Britain - all of them asylum seekers, amongst the most needy people in society - are given help with housing.

Most interestingly, once they have been here for five years and become eligible for help, a mere one in six live in council/social housing - precisely the same amount as people born here. This provides more proof that the BNP's policies are designed soley to pander to common fears, rather than to recognise and solve any real problems in society, in a blatantly cynical attempt to woo voters.

The worry, which may be unfounded but is nevertheless very real, that immigrants are unintentionally preventing native British people from receiving the help they need has been impossible to miss. Certain sections of the media - especially certain tabloid newspapers - have whipped what was once a vaguely-felt worry into fully-fledged racism by printing highly-questionable stories which have resulted in violence such as the shocking attacks on Romanians in Northern Ireland, attacks that deliberately endangered the lives of children.

The Government are to be held at least partially to blame for this, as they have done little or nothing to prevent the escalation of a misconstrued concern into racial, xenophobic and nationalistic hatred other than using the issue as a cheap way to score points and voters as each party claimed to be the only one who will do an ill-defined "something about it." Had they have addressed the public's concerns previously, we would now have a wealth of evidence suggesting that immigrants contribute to and are a positive aspect in society (as an example, while British Asians make up just 4% of the UK's populace, they contribute 6% of the nation's GDP) rather than a drain upon it and its resources, instead of being in the situation within which we now find ourselves where otherwise normal, once-tolerant citizens are now so worried that they are willing to vote for an extremist, neo-fascist organisation that cynically takes advantage of their fears and promises to get rid of the immigrant bogeyman.

North Korea bans British tourists

The North Korean (official homepage here, somewhat more telling Wikipedia article here) Foreign Ministry will no longer issue visas to British nationals, according to reports.
The Korea International Travel Company say, "in connection with the recent measures taken by UK government not to allow DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] citizens to enter the UK we also will not receive any UK citizens as tourists to DPRK for the time being." Peter Hughes, the UK Ambassador in the restrictive state, has replied saying, "as far as I'm aware, the UK has not refused visas for any DPRK citizens so this decision is hard to understand." However, Nick Bonner - who is head of Koryo Tours, the British-owned firm responsible for taking around half of all Western tourists to North Korea annually, believes that the moves are likely to be in response to tough new sanctions proposed by the United Nations in the wake of last month's nuclear test. So far, the ban extends only to UK citizens and not to those from other UN countries - why this should be remains unclear; but Kim Jong-Il, the nation's leader, is most definitey not a man known for acting in a logical way.

Kim Jong-Il - not known for acting in a logical way.
Very well-known for being a bit of an evil dictator.

Pyongyang, the nation's capital - where only the most politically reliable and healthy citizens are permitted to live - receives just 300 visitors from the UK each year; so you might be forgiven for thinking none of the above matters very much. It does, though, not least of all because although the majority of those people are likely to have been immigrants to Britain visiting family members, some will be tourists.

Tourists who, by visiting North Korea, contribute to the economy of a state declared by the UN to be guilty of widespread human rights violations and which has been declared by Freedom House to be "a totalitarian dictatorship and one of the most restrictive countries in the world" which "subjects tens of thousands of political prisoners to brutal conditions."

According to defectors, refugees who convert to Christianity in China but who are subsequantly repatriated to North Korea routinely end up in prison camps or are executed. Similarly, criticism of the government - though a right protected under the nation's constitution - is likely to lead to arrest and confinement in a so-called "re-education" facility. Ri Kwang-chol, a doctor who defected, claims that babies born with physical defects are commonly killed soon after birth. The state is known to force girls aged just 14 to work in kippumjo prostitution teams until they are 25, at which age they are married off to Kim Jong-Il's guards. The UN says that the physically disabled are sent to what it calls "special camps."

Public executions take place, leading the UN to express "very serious concern" and the US Department of State reports that:

"Methods of torture and other abuse reportedly included severe beatings; electric shock; prolonged periods of exposure to the elements; humiliations such as public nakedness; confinement for up to several weeks in small "punishment cells" in which prisoners were unable to stand upright or lie down; being forced to kneel or sit immobilized for long periods; being hung by the wrists; being forced to stand up and sit down to the point of collapse; and forcing mothers recently repatriated from China to watch the infanticide of their newborn infants."

It also says that:

"Officials prohibited live births in prison and ordered forced abortions, particularly in detention centers holding women repatriated from China, according to refugee reports. In some cases of live birth, there were reports that prison guards killed the infant or left it for dead. In addition guards reportedly sexually abused female prisoners."

Amnesty International has accused the country of discriminating against the lower classes when distributing necessities such as food. Fancy a nice holiday in sunny North Korea? Sounds like a lovely place, doesn't it? And just think, the money you spend while you're there will help Kim Jong-Il's government.

Beats me why anyone would want to go there. But then, 195,000 UK tourists visited Dubai in the first quarter of 2009, obviously unaware or not caring that the country recently carried out the mass imprisonment of immigrant labourers who had the temerity to complain about their poor wages and living conditions (Dubai being well-known for appalling treatment of foreign labour, especially Indians) or that British national Keith Brown was sentenced to a draconian four years in prison after authorities found a .003g (according to the Daily Mail) speck of cannabis stuck to the bottom of his shoe. Or Tracy Wilkinson, who spent two months in a cell when a drugs test turned up codeine in her bloodstream - after she'd been injected with the drug in a Dubai hospital. And then there's Dubai's sex industry, with many workers being the victims of human trafficking and exploitation.

Dubai - a place to feel pretty, and witty...but most definitely not gay...it is not a good place to be gay.

Bear in mind too that Dubai is part of the United Arab Emirates which, says the US Department of State, violate human rights with numerous fundamental practices and policies - but then, the UAE has not signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights or the Convention Against Torture. Though their constitution protects the right to free speech, all publications must be licensed by the Ministry of Information and edited by government-approved figures, and negative comments about Islam are punishable by imprisonment. What's more, homosexual relationships - and indeed, all sexual relations other than traditional, married, heterosexual relationships - are punishable by fines, imprisonment, deportation and even the death penalty. Dubai's Penal Code imposes a punishment of ten years imprisonment (Article 177) for consensual sodomy.

I know what I'd bugger - any chance of me having a holiday in Dubai anytime soon; I prefer places where people can live free of oppression. Brighton again for me this year, I think.

Shami Chakrabati on control orders

The director of the human rights organisation Liberty has spoken on the recent findings by the Law Lords that control orders - which can be used to prevent the subject from knowing details of evidence to be used against them in certain court cases, effectively making it impossible for them to launch a legal challenge - deny those subject to them their right to a fair trial.

Shami Chakrabarti, who has led the pressure group since 2003 and has a law degree from the LSE, says:

“If protecting the public is the top priority then Control Orders do not achieve it. Dangerous terrorists should not be in their living rooms but convicted and imprisoned. Innocent people should not be subjected to years and years of community punishment without trial. Control Orders are the worst of both worlds and the new Home Secretary should take this opportunity to learn from the mistakes of his predecessor."

Few people could have said it better.

Control orders deemed to prevent right to a fair trial by Law Lords

The Government - still shaking after last week's election results - has received another blow after Law Lords led by Lord Philips of Worth Matravers upheld a complaint made by three men who are subject to control orders who claim that they are being denied their right to a fair trial.

Control orders include a range of special measures designed to aid prosecution of terrorism suspects, including the prohibition of certain services such as the Internet or a telephone and can be used to restrict a person's movements to within a specified area. Introduced in 2005, there are two types; non-derogatory and derogratory, the latter having been deemed to infringe on the subject's right to liberty and as such have required the UK to opt out of article 5 of the European convention on human rights. The former have been applied in a total of 38 cases, of which 15 still apply. The second type have not yet been used. Most controversially, the orders mean that subjects are prevented from seeing secret evidence that will be used against them, making it extremely difficult for them to mount a legal challenge that is likely to have any degree of success - this can create a situation by which evidence gathered through phone tapping, otherwise deemed inadmissable in British courts, can be used.

Lord Phillips, senior Law Lord, believes the current control orders prevent a subject's right to a fair trial.

Lord Phillips has stated that, "A trial procedure can never be considered fair if a party to it is kept in ignorance of the case against him." Lord Hope of Craighead, also involved in the ruling, said that, "The consequences of a successful terrorist attack are likely to be so appalling that there is an understandable wish to support the system that keeps those who are considered to be most dangerous out of circulation for as long as possible."

Lord Hope added: "The consequences of a successful terrorist attack are likely to be so appalling that there is an understandable wish to support the system that keeps those who are considered to be most dangerous out of circulation for as long as possible." However, he claimed, "If the rule of law is to mean anything, it is in cases such as these that the court must stand by principle."

Meanwhile, Eric Metcalfe, speaking for the pro-human rights legal group Justice, says, "The government can decide to limp on with the use of secret evidence for the sake of ever-diminishing returns. Or Parliament can act to end its use once and for all. Either way, the unfairness of secret evidence is clear."

Lord Hope is right in saying that we need to do all we can to prevent terrorist atrocities, both here and abroad, and for that reason some form of control order remains necessary in our current society - nobody wants to see more attacks such as those which took place in London in 2005, in which many innocent civilians were murdered. However, any infringement of the democratic rights of any person prior to a guilty verdict is too serious in its implications to be considered, and so the current orders need to be closely investigated and reformed. Without the right to a fair trial - and the right to launch an appeal, for which it is necessary to be made fully aware of the evidence that may either convict or absolve the accused - our justice system is worthless.