Entangled Alliances

This week, two memos were released by the Obama Adminsitration, detailing torture techniques used under Bush. This is Sullivan’s response

photo credit: Nils Geylen

I’ve only read the Bybee memo, as chilling an artefact as you are ever likely to read in a democratic society, the work clearly not of a lawyer assessing torture techniques in good faith, but of an administration official tasked with finding how torture techniques already decided upon can be parsed in exquisitely disingenuous ways to fit the law, even when they clearly do not. This is what Hannah Arendt wrote of when she talked of the banality of evil. To read a bureaucrat finding ways to describe and parse away the clear infliction of torture on a terror suspect well outside any “ticking time bomb” scenario is to realize what so many of us feared and sensed from the shards of information we have been piecing together for years.

As Sullivan argues, it’s the bureacratic element that is the most chilling, a faceless largely unaccountable bureaucracy clinically eliminating civil liberties and perpetrating brutalities.  It makes it so much harder to rally against this than against a visible leader such as Bush or Cheney. Although less grave, in the UK the recent story of a council spying on a family for three weeks, because they didn’t believe the family was in the right school zone is actually terrifying, in its sheer pointlessness and in the capacity for something we consider so benign to be spying.

About two years ago, I remember debating with Ed, whether the UK should have a constitution and subsequently a supreme court, at the time I felt we’d done fine without one, but now a full means of redress beyond a mini-media storm seems more than reasonable. Perhaps more critically it’s time we started,  shining the light on bureacracies and demanding transparency from them.

Gathering at Bethnal Green police station

I went to the demonstration for justice for Ian Tomlinson, as I mentioned in this post yesterday. I just felt like, you know, I had to do something. And I guessed in that sense it would be rather more cathartic – for my own benefit, to set my mind at rest – than because I thought it would actually achieve anything in particular.

The statement by the family at Bethnal Green police station, the start of the march, really was very moving, and I’m glad I took part. We needed to make a statement.

However, I think I was right on the second part – the demonstration measured (I guess) 500-600 people at most. Thankfully it got a fairly good (brief) report on the BBC News website.

But on the first part, I was wrong. It didn’t lead to a sense of catharsis for me, just a sense of hopelessness, as the demo was hijacked by various people trying to push their respective political agendas. In this case it was largely the SWP who plastered their logo and website across their banners stating “Who killed Ian Tomlinson?”. There were plenty of others there hawking their Socialist Workers and various other hard left newspapers, and several large banners were on the march for the Union of Servicemen (?), the Socialist Workers and the Stop The War Coalition.

Using this event – a solemn march to demand justice for a man who had died – to push any sort of other agenda just seems to me to be incredibly tasteless.

Marching towards Bank

This wasn’t about “the system”, or about capitalism. It was about a man who died, at least partly due to police tactics. How is that partisan? How could anyone think it appropriate to make it exclusive to their political creed?

Perhaps I am just expecting too precise a message than is possible in a group of several hundred people, and perhaps this protest was extraordinary. But it at least made me reconsider the final paragraph of this comment I wrote on Ed’s G20 post. Do protests work? (Obviously, they do sometimes.)

I’m now watching Persepolis, a really brilliant film – the original French version – apparently the English version isn’t as good (Marjane really can’t sing though.). In the Iranian Revolution, protests against the Shah’s pretty awful regime, only partly down to religious concerns, were hijacked and used to justify wholehearted support for the new theocracy.

Obviously the parallels aren’t direct (er, at all), but it’s an interesting contrast, perhaps.

Maybe I’ll feel better about it all tomorrow.

(Penny Red has another report from a different perspective and highlights an incident I had forgotten)

When did “Law and Order” become just “Order”?

Nine days have now passed since the death of Ian Tomlinson, and in that time, one thing has become very clear: he did not simply die of ‘natural causes’, as the police at the time suggested. In fact, his death was a very unnatural one indeed – and the police are directly responsible.

It’s easy to get very angry about this sort of thing and descend into hyperbole. But two things have become clear:

1) Police tactics are at fault

The police tactic of ‘kettling’ is unnecessary, counter-productive, and unacceptable. Last year the House of Lords ruled that the practice of ‘kettling’, deployed in the May Day protests of 2001 (where thousands of protesters were held for SEVEN HOURS at Oxford Circus) was compatible with the ECHR Article 5(1), as “the sole purpose of the cordon was to maintain public order, that it was proportionate to that need and that those within the cordon were not deprived of their freedom of movement arbitrarily”.

Let’s hope this senseless policy gets overturned at the European Court of Human Rights. When 3000 people are held in an area of less than 2000 square metres for 7 hours, until 21:30, with no food, water, or sanitary provisions, how can that possibly be justified?

Similarly, with the G20 protests, how can it be justified to hold people for such a long period of time, and only allow them to leave if they agree to provide their details and be photographed?

And how can the police get away with smacking people on the head with truncheons, cordoning off and then baton-charging peaceful climate camp demonstrators (who hours earlier had been pitching tents, playing music, and selling flapjack) and setting dogs on people who had been posing no threat at all?

If there’s one video you watch today – assuming you’ve watched the videos of the police beating Ian Tomlinson (1, 2)- watch this one. Riot police march in to beat unarmed, peaceful protesters, with their hands in the air. Then watch this one from the film Goodbye Lenin, which depicts the Stasi’s tactics of violently breaking up demonstrations. That there is any resemblance between the two at all is appalling.

How can these things not be seen as a deterrent to future protest, and a breach of Article 5?

2) The policeman responsible for Ian Tomlinson’s death should go to prison – and for a long time. But he’s not the only one.

I’m afraid, not for the first time, that I am going to have to disagree with the charming commentator on this (very good) Daily Mail article (via) who said:

“Ian Tomlinson, drunk and out for trouble, decided to deliberately walk into a riot situation and blatantly obstruct the police. He was pushed out of the way. He died because he was a chronic alcoholic and was likely on his last legs anyway. The police did nothing wrong and, compared to other European countries, acted in a very restrained manner. This whole media frenzy is pathetic, transparent and more to the point, very boring. Nobody cared about this man when he was alive, not the media, not the readers of this column and certainly not his family, so let’s have less of the crocodile tears and public lamenting now he’s dead. If people want to criticise the police then do so, but don’t assume everyone is of such low intelligence that putting a bit of spin about a story of a drunk having a heart attack will prompt any right-thinking person into outrage and anarchy.”

- Dom, UK, 10/4/2009 10:40

Ian Tomlinson wasn’t doing anything wrong. He was a bystander, making his way home from selling newspapers. The video clearly shows him shuffling away from the police with his hands in his pockets.

But even if he was doing something wrong, that is obviously no excuse for smacking him in the legs and violently throwing him to the ground. The policeman actually lunged at his back. The only threat to public order was from that policeman himself.

As others have pointed out, this particular piece of brutality which led to Ian Tomlinson’s death was not exceptional; there were countless examples of this on the day. So yes, this stupid thug should go to prison, and for a very long time, both for what he did and to set an example to others thinking of going the same way. But this goes much higher than that.

The Met is not only responsible for the police tactics, it’s also responsible for the disgraceful way that it responded to Ian Tomlinson’s death, briefing that it was “of natural causes” and that demonstrators threw bricks, bottles, etc. while police were trying to save his life. And the media’s responsible for unquestioningly lapping it up. It’s since “emerged” that he was an alcoholic Milwall fan staying in a bail hostel. Oh, well that’s ok then.

So what’s going to happen now?

Well it’s clear that IPCC inquiry is not going to be sufficient. As the Guardian’s editorial on Thursday noted,

“And what kind of independent body is it whose first reaction to the Guardian’s evidence on Tuesday night was to call at our offices (accompanied by a City of London policeman) and ask for it to be taken off the website?”

Surprise! The CCTV cameras “weren’t working”. Sorry, that must have come as a shock. And from that Channel 4 News interview, the chairman of the IPCC is clearly an idiot.

We need a full judicial inquiry, and the only way we’re going to get that is if sufficient pressure is placed on those who can make it happen. Protests might not help much, but it’s better than nothing.

Join the protest against police brutality, tomorrow (Saturday 11th April) at 11:30, at Bethnal Green police station.

I want to have confidence in my police service again. I want to trust them, and to believe that they’re there to protect me. How can I do that when nine days ago, a man died at their hands, and they don’t seem all that bothered?

Some more coverage:

• Liberal Conspiracy: Who’s to blame for this accidental death?
• Liberal Conspiracy: So who will excuse police brutality now? (includes lots of other links)
• Liberal Conspiracy: I still blame police brutality (2nd April)
• Chicken Yoghurt: Ian Tomlinson: video reveals G20 police assault on man who died
• Bloggerheads – Why aren’t these people working to protect us?
• Laurie Penny – Fuck.
  

photo credit: Alain Bachellier

Yesterday UK business secretary Peter Mandelson was approached by a woman named Leila Deen who proceeded to pour a cup of green custard over his head.  You can see the video here.  Deen, a campaigner against airport expansion, was protesting about the Government’s decision to give Heathrow a third runway, one which Mandelson allegedly had a large role in. After “sliming” Mandelson, she proceeded to give an interview to the press nearby and then calmly left the scene, the police briefly stopping her merely to ensure she wasn’t travelling to Parliament and to wish her a lovely day.

Mandelson’s reaction was to note “Whilst I’m prepared to take my fair share of the green revolution on to my shoulders, I’m less keen on having it on my face”.   Deen herself remarked “the only thing green about Peter Mandelson is the slime coursing through his veins”. Finally Gordon Brown pitched in: “If anybody doubted the greening of Peter Mandelson and his willingness to take the green agenda on his shoulders, we’ve seen it in practice this morning.”

So it was a bad day for puns. But, according to an article written shortly afterwards, it was a good day for liberty. Martin Kettle, writing in The Guardian, seems to think this was one in the eye for civil liberties campaigners:

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photo credit: sunface13

So you may have noticed that my attempted liveblogging/twittering (tweeting?) from the Convention on Modern Liberty was not particularly successful, mostly because I just spent the time watching the debates, but also because I got a bit confused with twitter. All very complicated, this Interweb – it’s not a truck you just dump stuff on, it’s a series of tubes, you know.

The convention on the whole was pretty good. I had some preconceptions that it might be a bit worthy (or just outright smug) but in the end it was really interesting. Nothing particularly new but it brought together a lot of things in a more coherent way.

The aim of the convention was to spark debate and draw attention to the erosion of civil liberties in the UK after the last ten years.

A few things were worth noting (below the fold). Read more…

I’m at the Convention on Modern Liberty in London today, you can follow me on twitter!

Despite the large support from excellent groups like MySociety there unfortunately isn’t any wifi here so i won’t be able to provide too much during the day.

Update: I got a bit bored / frustrated at Twitter and in a knee-jerk reaction deleted my account. sorry! (there’s an aftermath post here).

A letter in today’s Guardian signed by over 60 high-profile figures from the arts and academia highlights the Government’s new visa restrictions, which will have the effect of curbing the admission of non-EU artists and academics into the UK:

As professionals committed to the principles of internationalism and cultural exchange, we are dismayed by new Home Office regulations which will curb our invitations to non-EU artists and academics to visit the UK. All non-EU visitors now must apply for a visa in person and supply biometric data, electronic fingerprint scans and a digital photograph. Read more…

A follow-up from my Facebook quick hit the other day.  MSNBC.com’s Internet blogger, Bob Sullivan, covers the Facebook furore, and links to tips for maintaining some degree of privacy (and the harrowingly entertaining struggle of one man trying to leave Facebook forever).  The money quote for civil libertarians and the downright paranoid:

And of course, with some data, there’s just no way to remove it:

“Where you make use of the communication features of the service to share information with other individuals on Facebook, however, (e.g., sending a personal message to another Facebook user) you generally cannot remove such communications,” the Facebook terms of service agreement reads.

This should give pause to any Facebook user who plans to get a job or have children some day. Heaven forbid you decide to run for Congress 20 years from now. And we haven’t even mentioned Facebook’s Beacon disaster, which saw the company introduce an advertising platform that followed users around the Web and reported their behavior to friends. Facebook quickly backtracked after a similar uproar.

Really worth reading the article in full.

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Last week I wrote about the banning of the right wing Dutch MP  Geert Wilders from the UK by the British Government, who feared that the airing of his unpleasant film “Fitna”, a rather incompetent attack on Islam and the Qu’ran, would “threaten community harmony”. As I hope I made clear this was an unforgivable breach of the basic tenets of free speech, regardless of what a nasty little bloke Wilders is.

The Home Office’s decision has since been the subject of a vigorous online debate and a rather reassuring defence of free speech by the majority of liberal commentators. So much so, in fact, that on today’s podcast of The Guardian’s “Another thought for the day” – an inspired secularist response to the dominance of the religious viewpoint on Radio 4’s “Thought for the day” – Nigel Warburton points out that the decision has actually been beneficial, in the sense that it has triggered this debate in which people’s fundamental beliefs have been variously reaffirmed, challenged and, perhaps, re-evaluated.

We therefore find ourselves, at least at first glance, in a pretty weird situation. The cause of free speech is being aided by… the curbing of free speech. Noooo, my brain is mellllting!

What makes this situation all the more problematic is that, had Geert Wilders been allowed into the UK, there is the distinct possibility that all that would have happened is that he would have gone to the House of Lords, played his rubbish film, then left and the national discourse would have been all the more poorer for it. Of course, this ignores the fact that there was already something of a public dialogue going on before the government’s decision, albeit rather one sided in favour of the Ban Wilders Brigade. But we can’t ignore the likely possibility that, no matter the strength of the furore before Wilders was refused entry, the debate afterwards was more extensive.

My point, if I actually have one,  is that rather than see the healthy debate stoked by the Home Office’s decision as a silver lining, we must see it as a further indictment of the state of free speech in this country in recent times. It’s no good fortifying the barn after the horse has bolted. Where was the vigorous public debate before the government’s edict? It’s also no good saying that the negative reaction to their decision will make them think twice in the future.  The fact is, governments mostly respond not to the  general distastes of public commentators, whose views in matters like this rarely filter down to the general public, but to ascertainable, tangible special interests.

In this case, the government’s decision was a result of correspondence to the home office from House of Lords Labour peer Nazir Ahmed, at least according to the man himself . Ahmed claimed to be representing the Muslim community at large in his efforts to ban Wilders. This, then, is a perfect example of what I’m talking about: an identifiable, specific group of the electorate influencing government policy while free speech advocates, being too diffuse, diverse and discordant, influence nothing.  (I should add that despite the disingenuous claims of  Ahmed, not all public Muslim authorities agreed with him; for example the Quilliam Foundation, a Muslim think tank, proposed the excellent idea of engaging Wilders in a proper debate)  The lesson here is clear: governments are afraid of distinct slices of the electorate. They are not, alas, afraid of well-intentioned liberal commentators, however great in number they may be.

I’m not saying that the debate prompted by Geert-gate (as someone must have called it by now) hasn’t been a healthy one for its own sake. I’m just pointing out that our dialogue needs to serve two purposes: on the one hand we need a vigorous public back and forth for the sake of free speech itself, but on the other we need that debate before the fact so as to have a chance to remind the government of the value of free speech and, perhaps most importantly, we need those who vigorously support freedom of speech to be become an actual constituency rather than just a presence in the liberal broadsheets/online community. Otherwise we might find ourselves in the situation – if we’re not there already – where we can talk a good debate but don’t have the right government to show for it.

The test of a nation’s commitment to freedom of speech comes not when it gets the chance to defend the eloquent, the correct or the reasonable, but when it’s forced to stick up for the idiots, the racists and the unapologetic dickheads of the world. Well, this week the British government was given the choice of defending someone who fits all those categories and then some, yet once again they came up pathetically  short.

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