Please Don’t Label Me
The British Humanist Association has unveiled its Atheist Billboard Campaign in advance of Universal Children’s Day on 20th November:
Billboard adverts have gone up today in London, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, as the internationally renowned poster campaign which began this year on London buses launches its second phase. So much money was donated towards the campaign after the bus posters had been launched that the campaign organisers announced that any further money raised would be put towards new adverts later in the year.
‘One of the issues raised again and again by donors to the campaign was the issue of children having the freedom to grow up and decide for themselves what they believe, and that we should not label children with any ideology,’ said Ariane Sherine, original creator of the Atheist Bus Campaign. ‘I hope this poster campaign will encourage the government, media and general public to see children as individuals, free to make their own choices, and accord them the liberty and respect they deserve.’
The posters display some of the labels routinely applied to children that imply beliefs such as ‘Catholic’, ‘Protestant’, ‘Muslim’, ‘Hindu’ or ‘Sikh’ mixed up together with labels that people would never apply to young children such as ‘Marxist’, ‘Anarchist’, ‘Socialist’, ‘Libertarian’ or ‘Humanist’. In front of the shadowy labels are happy children, with the slogan, ‘Please don’t label me. Let me grow up and choose for myself’ in the now world-famous font of the Atheist Bus Campaign. The billboards are being unveiled to coincide with 20 November, Universal Children’s Day, which is the United Nations ‘day of worldwide fraternity and understanding between children’.
‘We urgently need to raise consciousnesses on this issue,’ said Richard Dawkins, Vice President of the BHA, President of RDFRS, and co-sponsor of the campaign. ‘Nobody would seriously describe a tiny child as a “Marxist child” or an “Anarchist child” or a “Post-modernist child”. Yet children are routinely labelled with the religion of their parents. We need to encourage people to think carefully before labelling any child too young to know their own opinions and our adverts will help to do that.’
Andrew Copson, BHA Director of Education, said, ‘The labelling of children becomes even worse when it is implemented as a matter of public policy. One of the issues we hope to highlight with these adverts is the continuing and increasing segregation of children according to parental religion in state-funded “faith schools.” Social cohesion and preparation for life in a diverse society is best achieved in inclusive community schools, where children from different backgrounds learn with and from each other without being divided by labels that they are not old enough to have chosen for themselves.’
The billboards will remain up for two weeks. The BHA has launched a fundraising campaign to coincide with the unveiling of the billboards which will raise money for campaigns to phase out state funded ‘faith schools’.Billboard adverts have gone up today in London, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, as the internationally renowned poster campaign which began this year on London buses launches its second phase. So much money was donated towards the campaign after the bus posters had been launched that the campaign organisers announced that any further money raised would be put towards new adverts later in the year.
‘One of the issues raised again and again by donors to the campaign was the issue of children having the freedom to grow up and decide for themselves what they believe, and that we should not label children with any ideology,’ said Ariane Sherine, original creator of the Atheist Bus Campaign. ‘I hope this poster campaign will encourage the government, media and general public to see children as individuals, free to make their own choices, and accord them the liberty and respect they deserve.’
The posters display some of the labels routinely applied to children that imply beliefs such as ‘Catholic’, ‘Protestant’, ‘Muslim’, ‘Hindu’ or ‘Sikh’ mixed up together with labels that people would never apply to young children such as ‘Marxist’, ‘Anarchist’, ‘Socialist’, ‘Libertarian’ or ‘Humanist’. In front of the shadowy labels are happy children, with the slogan, ‘Please don’t label me. Let me grow up and choose for myself’ in the now world-famous font of the Atheist Bus Campaign. The billboards are being unveiled to coincide with 20 November, Universal Children’s Day, which is the United Nations ‘day of worldwide fraternity and understanding between children’.
‘We urgently need to raise consciousnesses on this issue,’ said Richard Dawkins, Vice President of the BHA, President of RDFRS, and co-sponsor of the campaign. ‘Nobody would seriously describe a tiny child as a “Marxist child” or an “Anarchist child” or a “Post-modernist child”. Yet children are routinely labelled with the religion of their parents. We need to encourage people to think carefully before labelling any child too young to know their own opinions and our adverts will help to do that.’
Andrew Copson, BHA Director of Education, said, ‘The labelling of children becomes even worse when it is implemented as a matter of public policy. One of the issues we hope to highlight with these adverts is the continuing and increasing segregation of children according to parental religion in state-funded “faith schools.” Social cohesion and preparation for life in a diverse society is best achieved in inclusive community schools, where children from different backgrounds learn with and from each other without being divided by labels that they are not old enough to have chosen for themselves.’
The billboards will remain up for two weeks. The BHA has launched a fundraising campaign to coincide with the unveiling of the billboards which will raise money for campaigns to phase out state funded ‘faith schools’.
A Failure of a Queen’s Speech
The expenses scandal brought the political process to the brink of collapse, but Gordon Brown seems to think no legislative action is needed to restore the relationship between the electorate and our representatives. Sir Christopher Kelly, tasked with fixing the expenses system, argued:
fresh legislation would be needed to strengthen July’s Parliamentary Standards Act, which established the new Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa). “It is disappointing therefore that the Queen’s speech did not contain measures to address the changes we believe to be necessary affecting the remit, powers and independence of the new body being established to regulate expenses,” Kelly said.
Brown however disagrees:
Downing Street insisted the most dramatic changes to the MPs’ allowance system proposed by Kelly could be implemented without a parliamentary vote, and any further legislation required would be brought forward on a cross-party basis as and when it was needed.
Talk about kicking it into the long grass. Of course reform of the expenses system itself is only a part of the problem, and Brown completely ignored the need for electoral reform as well. His Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill might tinker with the House of Lords, would finally reform the abusive SOCPA legislation limiting the right to protest near Parliament, but there’s no word on a referendum to change the voting system – not even on the constitutional convention which would be needed in advance of a referendum. There’s a Citizen’s Convention Bill knocking around the Commons, but Brown prefers vague promises of a referendum after the election – great, but Cameron isn’t. And considering Blair and Brown kicked the Jenkins Report into touch after winning an unassailable majority in 1997, why should Brown even be trusted to deliver if he won?
Polly Toynbee perhaps puts it best:
Missing was the bill that was the one bold act that could have changed the argument at the next election: a referendum on proportional representation would have been a cause to bring back erstwhile Labour voters, leaving Cameron defending an indefensible system. Like Blair before him, Brown bottled it, too much the old tribalist for real reform – and Labour may come to regret that most bitterly of all.
The effect of electoral reform and a more proportional system, would be to create a different kind of parliament in a post expenses world, she claimed. “A more proportional system is more voter sensitive and more voter reactive system than we have at present.”
Of course she’s right but seems to have been overruled. Her boss clearly still doesn’t understand the severity of the problem which has happened on his watch, which he in large part was responsible for. He has an opportunity right now to clear it up or at least to put the building blocks together to show the electorate he understands their disengagement, but he’s completely bottled it. Again. The electorate is looking to MPs to show they understand that fundamental change is needed in the way the Commons does business, how it’s composed and how representative it is, but the Queen’s Speech doesn’t offer any change at all. Brown will lose the election, Cameron will flatly ignore any mention of a referendum, when he could have been put in a very difficult situation indeed by an election day referendum.
Living with Alzheimers
Todays press release by the Alzheimer’s Society has finally pointed out the giant elephant currently in the room of the UKs health system. Stating that the NHS currently does not have the training or resources in place to deal with the rising levels of patients with mental health issues this report is something that every single person in the country should be listening to, and getting angry about.
Please do not take this post to be anti-NHS as a whole, or an attempt to undermine the people working in it- far from it, I have been dealing with a close family member suffering from vascular dimensia (a very common form of Alzheimers) for the last 5 years – and have always found them to be beyond exceptional, working long and hard whilst being fustrated by lack of funding and assistance to go about their job to the best of their ability.
Alzheimers is one of the great unspoken diseases that is still (rather like most mental illness) hidden away, ignored and hoped to be avoided. In reality with a aging population this is a problem that will very soon be unavoidable, and out of control. In short (and I desperately hope this is a false prophesy for you) it is extremely likely that you will have to deal with the affects of Alzheimers to either yourself, or someone you hold dear.
So todays press release, a result of several months of research and investigation should worry us all- and whilst we are in a position to do something to make a difference, should be ringing every bell for it to become one of the major manifesto pledges of parties regarding the NHS in the forthcoming election.
I would like to make this a continuing story over the next few weeks, and would be really interested to hear your experiences and thoughts on the matter also. If you’d like to get involved feel free to drop a note below.
In What Way is Religion ‘Progressive’?
Communities Secretary John Denham has argued that religious values are essential in building a progressive society:
“Anyone wanting to build a more progressive society would ignore the powerful role of faith at their peril,” he said.
“We should continually seek ways of encouraging and enhancing the contribution faith communities make on the central issues of our time.
“Faith is a strong and powerful source of honesty, solidarity, generosity – the very values which are essential to politics, to our economy and our society.”
The minister said that the Government needed to be educated by faith groups on “how to inform the rest of society about these issues”.
Last year, the Church of England was highly critical of Labour, with bishops questioning the morality of its policies and accusing it of giving preferential treatment to the Muslim community.
Mr Denham said it was wrong to give special status to minority faiths, such as Islam, and stressed that faiths should not be free from criticism.
“I don’t think you should have special treatment or special favours for any particular faith. I think the treatment, in terms of the ability to have robust debate or criticism of it, should be equal.”
He added that he was sympathetic with religious leaders, such as Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had complained of the rise of aggressive secularism in Britain.
“I don’t like the strand of secularism that says that faith is inherently a bad thing to have and should be kept out of public life,” Mr Denham said.
I don’t know who he thinks is making a claim that faith is inherently a bad thing to have. I don’t believe it is – the question is where religion belongs in civil society. And I would maintain until my dying breath that religion doesn’t belong in politics, that it’s toxic to the political process, that informing a process based on reason and evidence by one which is founded on belief and nothing else should be counter-intuitive. It’s monstrous to suggest that the only meaningful sources of honesty, solidarity and generosity are mainstream religions – it gives them social value disproportionate to their real worth.
The National Secular Society is quite right when it complains about unelected people influencing decision-making, but that’s not the heart of the problem here. This is a government which has throughout its life-span undermined the rule of law, attacked evidence-based policy making and made the most dangerous and reckless decisions based entirely on faith. It’s brought our political process to the brink of self-destruction, and aimed more people than ever at the political fringes. Maybe Denham should give that a little thought before he complains about secularism.
Straight Couple Protest Against Straight Marriage
Heterosexual couple Tom Freeman and Katherine Doyle have given notice of their intention to form a civil partnership, in protest against the discriminatory split between marriage and civil partnerships:
Under UK law, same-sex couples are banned from civil marriage and heterosexual couples are banned from civil partnerships (called civil unions in the US).f
Freeman said:”We think the ‘separate but equal’ system which segregates couples according to their sexuality is not equal at all. All loving couples should have access to the same institutions, regardless of sexuality. There should be parity of respect and rights”.
Doyle added: “Just as gay couples should be able to have a civil marriage, civil partnerships should be available to straight couples who don’t like the institution of marriage.”
It’s an unlikely protest, but one which pricelessly shows the discrimination at the heart of civil partnerships. Whilst they were a step in the right direction almost half a decade ago, it really is time the inequality of marriage was properly highlighted and addressed in the UK. When western European nations are forging ahead and making marriage universally available, the UK is still *ahem* wedded to a conservative model of marriage, which as this story shows doesn’t even suit all heterosexual people anymore. And as the couple goes on to say:
Freeman said: “Ideally we’d have the option of a civil partnership or a marriage, regardless of whether we were straight or gay. Effectively marriage and civil partnerships are exactly the same – it’s a duplicate law. The effects and legal processes are identical. The rights and obligations are identical. Civil partnerships are equality in all but name – so why not just have equality?
“The answer is there are conservative people who feel offended by having gay people in their precious institution. It’s quite an insulting compromise.”
Doyle added: “Marriage is patriarchal. The whole idea of dressing up in a big white dress and being given away by your father and taking your husband’s name is a bit old fashioned.”
Met’s Riot Police Get Away With It (Almost) Every Time
A request made under the Freedom of Information Act has revealed some appalling figures detailing complaints made about the Metropolitan Police’s Territorial Support Group (TSG):
The TSG has been the subject of 5,241 allegations since August 2005. They include 376 allegations of discrimination and 977 complaints of “incivility”. More than 1,100 of the allegations concerned what members of the public said were “failures in duty”. However by far the largest number of complaints – 2,280 – were categorised as “oppressive behaviour”.
Just over 2,000 (38%) were “unsubstantiated” by the Met’s department for professional standards, while the rest were resolved at the police station, dismissed, discontinued or dealt with in other ways.
It left just nine complaints ‘substantiated’ by the Met. The Met responded to the figures:
Senior Met officers say the TSG’s work, involving drug raids and demonstrations, means they are more likely to face complaints than other officers.
Of course this is a ludicrous defence, which would suggest a thoroughly implausible situation whereby thousands of people regularly make unfounded allegations against the TSG – the unit’s attack on Babar Ahmad was only the tip of the iceberg. And Ahmad’s lawyer Fiona Murphy points out why:
The reasons are clear: the commission continues to rely upon poor-quality local police investigations and adopts a decidedly “arm’s length” approach to its supervisory and management responsibilities. In consequence, it has failed to identify the inadequacies in those investigations at a sufficiently early stage to have any prospect of remedying the evidential deficiencies. This formal system is permeated by a lack of will, and the outcomes stand in marked contrast to the redress achieved by individual victims on their own account in the civil courts.
Compensation claims are a flawed and inadequate response and have proven wholly ineffective in the face of oppressive and discriminatory abuse of powers by the TSG. Officers continue to enjoy an effective immunity from criminal and disciplinary sanction.
Babar Ahmad’s attacker continues to get away with it, and Ian Tomlinson’s attacker has still not faced justice for his actions. For all the Met’s mealy mouthed words about changes in policing after the G20 fiasco, they’re still quite literally getting away with murder.
Three gay teenagers are on death row in Iran: please help to try and save them
Iran is preparing once again to execute young gay men arrested while they were a minor.
Guilty of ‘lavat’ (i.e. sexual conduct between two men, regardless of penetration), the three teenagers do not yet have dates set for their state-sponsored murders, but according to Human Rights Watch and Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees it could happen any day with no warning.
They are Mehdi P., from Tabriz; Moshen G., from Shiraz; and Nemat Safavi, from Ardebil and who has been detained for over three years.
Under Iranian law lavat is “punishable by death so long as both the active and passive partners are mature, of sound mind, and have acted of free will” — something that not only conflicts with the boys’ age at the time of the alleged ‘offenses’, but also a gross violation of international law, which forbids, under any circumstance, the executive of juvenile offenders.
In 2008, the Deputy Attorney General of Iran announced that Iranian judicial authorities would ban the juvenile death penalty for non-murder-related offenses, effective immediately, pending parliamentary approval. Iran has signed two international treaties on the protection of children.
Nemat Safavi is part of the list maintained by Amnesty International of minors tried and awaiting execution in Iran. The European Parliament, the UN, and the Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi have all urged Iran to end juvenile executions.
Read more about the cases in the Human Rights Watch report.
What can I do
This blog (in Spanish) is devoted to the cases http://nematsafavi.blogspot.com/ and has suggestions on what can be done, primarily:
- alerting the media (there has been virtually no media coverage)
- contacting Iranian embassies (it has links)
It also has an avatar (‘I ♥ Nemat’) for use in social media.
Spanish, French and Italian gay sites as well as some progressives in those countries and a few elsewhere have been reporting their cases.
IRQR are asking for donations which they say will help with the legal case in Iran. They are also calling for “all human rights organizations to take up this urgent cause. We ask that people write, fax, call, or email to Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and any LGBT and/or international organizations to support Nemat and vigorously oppose his execution and the laws against homosexuals.”
There is a Facebook group: Save Nemat Safavi
Youtube video about Nemat (in Spanish)
If there is any action you can take please do. As far as we are aware, these gay kids haven’t been hung yet.
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Trafigura’s Compensation Must Reach the Victims
Oil traders Trafigura have gone to a great deal of effort to make the story about toxic waste dumping in Ivory Coast go away – from using law firm Carter-Ruck to initiate libel proceedings against the Guardian and BBC, to attempting to stop questions about it being raised in the House of Commons. They’ve even paid $45 million to Ivory Coast in compensation to 30,000 victims (which was on top of $200 paid to the government for the clean-up operation), but even that is far from the end of the story:
A court in the Ivory Coast has ruled that compensation due to thousands of victims of dumped waste should not be paid to one man to distribute.
Oil trading company Trafigura had agreed to pay $45m (£27m) to 30,000 victims in an out-of-court settlement.
Claude Ghourou argued he should be given responsibility for the money, but there were doubts he would pass it on.
However, despite the ruling the money remains blocked and victims cannot yet gain access to their compensation.
Before the ruling Amnesty International intervened, urging:
the authorities in Côte d’Ivoire to ensure that £27 million compensation paid by the oil trading company Trafigura to victims of one of the worst toxic dumping scandals in recent years reaches the people to whom it is owed.
Amnesty has also written to the UK Justice Secretary Jack Straw, urgently asking him to contact his counterpart in the Côte d’Ivoire to press for swift action to prevent a potentially massive fraud being perpetrated. The call came as thousands of the victims of the illegal dumping of toxic waste in Abidjan, capital of Côte d’Ivoire, wait anxiously to receive their money.
DNA Database Being Illegally Added To
The European Court of Human Rights may have ruled it illegal to hold DNA profiles of innocent people on the national database, but that hasn’t stopped the Home Office:
More than 90,000 innocent people have been added to the national DNA database since a landmark human rights ruling that keeping indefinitely the profiles of unconvicted suspects was illegal, according to new figures.
The disclosure comes as the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is pressing the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) to withdraw guidance to chief constables to carry on collecting DNA profiles of innocent people. It says it will take enforcement action if the chief constables fail to act.
Liberal Democrat research, based on parliamentary answers, shows that 433, 752 profiles have been added to the DNA database since the ruling by the European court of human rights in Strasbourg on 5 December last year – the equivalent of 1,480 a day.
It’s unthinkable that ACPO – a for-profit advisory body should have the power to be able to instruct chief constables to defy the court’s ruling, and heartening that the EHRC has decided to do something about it:
The EHRC has given ACPO 28 days to confirm that the advice to chief constables will be withdrawn and replaced by advice that complies with the law. If ACPO fails to do this, the commission will consider taking formal enforcement action.
The Home Office repeatedly insists on the importance of the database, yet over the last year the number of detections as a result of matches to it fell, whilst its cost doubled to £4.2 million. It pointedly doesn’t comment on why, under those circumstances, there is a need to breach human rights law by continuing to store profiles of innocent people.
Sympathy for Lillian Ladele?
Civil registrar and Christianist zealot Lillian Ladele is at it again:
Controversial claims that Christians should not have to condone homosexuality will be made in the court of appeal today, as a registrar says she suffered discrimination by being required to conduct same-sex civil partnership ceremonies.
Lillian Ladele, 48, has said she was treated unfairly in her role as a registrar for Islington council, which expected her to carry out the ceremonies despite her beliefs that they were “contrary to God’s law“.
“If this decision is allowed to stand it will help squeeze Christians from the public sphere because of their religious beliefs on ethical issues,” said Mike Judge, a spokesman for the Christian Institute, which is backing Ladele’s appeal.
“The rights of Muslims and homosexuals are protected, but the rights of Christians always seem to be on a lower level,” he added.
It’s a now familiar refrain. Arch Christians, now armed with equality legislation protecting their right to believe from discrimination, trying to suggest that their fundamentalist beliefs should somehow trump the rule of law. And Lillian Ladele failed in her earlier case against dismissal on quite logical grounds, which I don’t believe for a moment will be overturned. Religious equality legislation doesn’t give Christian zealots or anyone else the right to pick and choose who they are prepared to serve in the world of work, and nor should it – it’s quite absurd. Peter Tatchell puts the case against Ladele brilliantly when he says:
“The issue is very simple. Gay people have no right to discriminate against religious people, and religious people have no right to discriminate against gay people.”
Despite the absurdity of legislation protecting belief from discrimination he’s fundamentally right. So why sympathy for Lillian Ladele? As Afua Hirsch puts it:
Ladele told the court of appeal this week that she felt her religious views had been “caricatured”, a claim which deserves some sympathy given passages in the previous judgment like this one: “fundamental changes in social attitudes, particularly with respect to sexual orientation, are happening very fast and for some – and not only those with religious objections – they are genuinely perplexing” a patronising remark that is unlikely to have made this an easier pill to swallow.
I think it’s fair to say her devoutness has been caricatured, also to say that she should be allowed to have private homophobic thoughts for any reason she chooses. But homophobic behaviour is illegal, we are governed by the rule of law, and Christianity has a unique place in the British constitutional order; to suggest Christians are losing out in the equality agenda is blatant nonsense. I have sympathy for people whose beliefs don’t serve them well in the modern world, but I have no sympathy for anyone who thinks they can use their belief to opt out of having to abide by the rules by which the rest of us are supposed to treat one another. That way after all leads to the fate which befell Ian Baynham and nearly befell James Parkes.
James Parkes’ Boyfriend Speaks
Tom Downey, the boyfriend of James Parkes, recently severely beaten in Liverpool by a gang of up to 20 boys after leaving a gay club, spoke to Liverpool EchoTV ahead of Liverpool’s anti-hate crime vigil. At the vigil he said:
“This time last week I never thought I would be standing here saying all this. The reason I am here is to stand up for not only what I believe in but what we all believe in and to push our right to freedom.
“The attack which happened last week was a massive shock to the nation and surely this is the final straw.
“No matter whether we are straight, gay or transgender it should make no difference – it’s what’s inside that counts.”
James thankfully meanwhile has been allowed to go home and is recovering from his ordeal. Thirteen boys have been arrested so far for his attack.
(video via Towleroad)
Iran prepares to execute a young man accused of sodomy
Source: Tetu
By Blaise Gauquelin
(Google translation)
Nemat Safavi was 16 when Iranian police arrested him. Convicted of sodomy, was sentenced to death and still awaiting his execution.
Reportedly, Iran is preparing once again to execute a young man arrested while he was a minor. Nemat Safavi, who was convicted of having practiced “sex acts that are not admitted, was sentenced by the court of Ardabil in Iranian Azerbaijan, the death penalty. Detained for over three years, he now expects that the supreme court approves the sentence and no information is given by the justice of his fate.
Iran has signed two international treaties on the protection of children. The country has pledged not to execute any citizen minor when the facts repprochés. Nemat Safavi is part of the list maintained by Amnesty minors tried and awaiting execution in Iran. The European Parliament, the UN, the Nobel Peace Shirin Ebadi urged Iran to end juvenile executions in vain.
Two other young men disappeared
Furthermore, in February 2008, two young men, ages 18 and 19, were arrested under the same conditions and in the same region. Identified as the Loghman Hamzeh-for and Hamze Tchave initially, these two Iranians have since given most of their new friends.
L’Iran s’apprête à exécuter un jeune homme accusé de sodomie
Par Blaise Gauquelin
Nemat Safavi avait 16 ans lorsque la police iranienne l’a arrêté. Reconnu coupable d’acte de sodomie, il a été condamné à mort et attend toujours son exécution.
Selon nos informations, l’Iran s’apprête une nouvelle fois à exécuter un jeune homme arrêté alors qu’il était mineur. Nemat Safavi, reconnu coupable d’avoir pratiqué «des actes sexuels qui ne sont pas admis», a été condamné par le tribunal d’Ardabil, en Azerbaidjan iranien, à la peine de mort. Détenu depuis plus de trois ans, il attend désormais que la cour suprême valide la sentence et aucune information n’est donnée par la justice sur son sort.
L’Iran a signé deux traités internationaux portant sur la protection de l’enfance. Le pays s’est engagé à ne plus exécuter aucun citoyen mineur au moment des faits repprochés. Nemat Safavi fait partie de la liste tenue à jour par Amnesty des mineurs jugés et en attente d’exécution en Iran. Le Parlement européen, l’Onu, la prix Nobel de la Paix Chirine Ebadi ont demandé à l’Iran de mettre fin aux exécutions de mineurs, en vain.
Deux autres jeunes hommes disparus
Par ailleurs, en février 2008, deux jeunes hommes, âgés de 18 et 19 ans, ont été arrêtés dans les mêmes conditions et dans la même région. Identifiés sous le nom de Loghman Hamzeh-pour et de Hamze Tchavi dans un premier temps, ces deux Iraniens n’ont, depuis, plus donné de nouvelles à leurs amis.
Statement by Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees
Nemat Safavi, 21 years old, has been sentenced to death by the juvenile court in Ardebil, a city northwest Iran.
Queers in Iran are put to death and persecution by their government, simply for being who they are.
Now more than ever we need your help.
According to the Human Rights Activist Group in Iran, Nemat was detained by Iranian authorities when he was 16 years old because of his homosexual acts (Lavat). He was sentenced to death after being tried in the court of Ardebil. Mr. Safavi spent time since his arrest in a ‘rectification and education’ centre, and is now being kept in the division of youths in an Ardebil prison.
A final determination of Nemat’s fate will be made by Iran’s Supreme Court. However, these sentences frequently stand as decided.
Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees calls on all human rights organizations to take up this urgent cause. We ask that people write, fax, call, or email to Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and any LGBT and/or international organizations to support Nemat and vigorously oppose his execution and the laws against homosexuals.
Your donation to IRQR helps us pursue every legal avenue to save the lives of people like Nemat Safavi. The fight is far from over.
Please, donate now: http://irqr.net/donation.htm
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Supreme Court Attacks Independent Safeguarding Authority
The UK Supreme Court has spoken out against the Independent Safeguarding Authority‘s (ISA) Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS):
“The widespread concern about the compulsory registration rules for all those having regular contact with children, as proposed by the Government in September 2009, demonstrates that there is a real risk that, unless child protection procedures are proportionate and contain adequate safeguards, they will not merely fall foul of the Convention [on human rights], but they will rebound to the disadvantage of the very group they are designed to shield, and will undermine public confidence in the laudable exercise of protecting the vulnerable,” wrote Lord Neuberger, one of the panel of five judges considering the case.
It’s interesting to see the UK’s supreme legal body agrees that the direction the ISA is going in won’t just end up disadvantaging the vulnerable groups it’s supposed to ‘safeguard’, but that it will actually breach the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). I really hope Sir Roger Singleton, Ed Balls, anyone with influence over the ISA appreciates the significance of this, but I doubt it.
The ISA must be abolished. Only then can agencies and resources already tasked with protecting children and ‘vulnerable’ adults actually do their jobs properly. It’s reassuring to see that the Supreme Court understands this, but it’ll take more than this ruling to end the agency.
The ISA Grows in Scope Already
People have said there was no problem with the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) and its Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS) because its scope was restricted; it wouldn’t apply to everyone, nor to all work, so there was nothing to fear. The scheme has been running for only a matter of weeks, but its head Sir Roger Singleton has already suggested it’ll grow in scope and will increase its power sooner rather than later:
far from reducing the scope of this scheme, Sir Roger suggested that the reach of the database could actually increase because companies, even those whose work did not normally involve contact with children, would see commercial advantage in asking employees to get an ISA check. “The electrical contractor who wants school business may decide that although he is not required to have all his electricians registered with the ISA, there is a tendering advantage to doing so,” said Sir Roger.
It had been thought that this scheme would be limited only to those who regularly come into contact with children as an essential part of their jobs, notably teachers, though they have long been subject to special checks. But the ISA registration will be needed by doctors, dentists, opticians and others whose clients might include children. If Sir Roger is right and businesses believe that it is important to be ISA registered, where will it stop?
The answer is, as with every bureaucracy – once it covers everything and everyone. A power grab like this is inevitable – no government bureacracy of this nature ever stays stable. It’s in their very nature to expand and the ISA will grow in scope, as it’s nebulous ‘protection’ remit allows ever more businesses, areas of the public sector and organisations to define ‘risk of harm to children or vulnerable adults’ as they see fit. And what about activity of a ‘specified nature’ which involves children? Why not newsagents? Why not hairdressers? Any job could involve contact with children or vulnerable adults, so why shouldn’t the VBS encompass the entire British economy, presuming all the while that everyone might be a paedophile? Philip Johnston goes on to say:
Child protection has become a vast, self-perpetuating industry whose very existence depends upon maintaining the fiction that all adults are potentially harmful to children. Perversely, even though most abusers are known to the abused, and children are most at risk from relatives or their friends, the new ISA scheme excludes family or private arrangements. What sort of society is it where adults suspect other adults, and children are taught to suspect anyone other than their parents, who are often the people who cause them greatest harm?
I couldn’t agree more. The concept of the ISA is rotten to the core. Not only will it destroy social cohesion and the rule of law, but it won’t have a hope of actually protecting those caught under its remit. The VBS is a sop to the child protection industry, which in its zeal for total protection and the removal of risk from daily life, has failed to grasp where its attention needs to be focused. It’ll mean that the people guilty of genuine abuse will become ever more invisible to the authorities, as they search in vain only for people who are known to the criminal justice system, and worse in the case of the ISA for people against whom the vaguest, most unprovable of allegations have been made. Johnston is right:
An obsession with health and safety, an unwillingness to accept that there is an element of risk in everything we do and a requirement for virtually everyone dealing with children to be subjected to a criminal record check have turned volunteering into something unwarrantedly expensive, bureaucratic and intrusive. And to what end? As Sir Roger admitted, cases of abuse will never be eliminated. “Every now and then something inexplicable happens that will defy our best attempts to understand and explain it.”
The Independent Safeguarding Authority must be abolished.
Why Protest at Ratcliffe-on-Soar?
A Climate ‘Swoop’ protester explains the direct action protest at the Ratcliffe-on-Soar coal fired power station.
