Russia does not have a functioning criminal justice system at all, in the sense of a trial mechanism aimed at determining innocence or guilt. Exactly as in Uzbekistan, the conviction rate in criminal trials is over 99%. If the prosecutors, who are inextricably an arm of the executive government, want to send you to jail, there is absolutely no judicial system to protect you. The judges are purely there for show.
When critics of Putin like Alexei Navalny are convicted, therefore, we have absolutely no reassurance that the motivation behind the prosecution or the assessment of guilt was genuine. Which is not to say that Navalny is innocent; I am in no position to judge. People are complex. I sacrificed my own pretty decent career to the cause of human rights, but in my personal and family life I was by no means the most moral of individuals. I see no reason for it to be impossible that all of Navalny’s excellent political work did not co-exist with a fatal weakness. But his criticisms of Putin made him a marked man, who the state was out to get, and the most probable explanation – especially as prosecutors had looked at the allegations before and decided not to proceed – is that he is suffering for his criticisms of the President rather than a genuine offence.
It fascinates me that the Western media view the previous decision by the prosecutors not to proceed as evidence the case is politically motivated against Navalny; but fail to draw the same conclusion from precisely the same circumstance in the Assange case.
David Ward MP has not been sent to jail. He has however had the Lib Dem whip removed, which under Clegg’s leadership perhaps he ought to consider an honour. It is rather a commonplace sentiment that it is a terribly sad thing, that their community having suffered dreadfully in the Holocaust, the European Jews involved in founding the state of Israel went on themselves to inflict terrible pain and devastation on the Palestinians in the Nakba. Both the Holocaust and the Nakba were horrific events of human suffering. For this not startling observation, David Ward is removed from the Liberal Democrats. He also stated that, with its ever increasing number of racially specific laws, its walls and racially restricted roads, Israel is becoming an apartheid state. That is so commonplace even Sky News’ security correspondent Sam Kiley said it a few months ago, without repercussion. In Russia you cannot say Putin is corrupt; in the UK you cannot say Israeli state policy is malign. Neither national state can claim to uphold freedom of speech. Meanwhile, of course, David Cameron announces plans to place filters on the internet access of all UK households.
In the United States, the House of Representatives failed by just 12 votes to make illegal the mass snooping by the NSA which was not widely publicised until Edward Snowden’s revelations. What Snowden said was so important that almost half the country’s legislators wished to act on his information. Yet the executive wish to pursue him and remove all his freedom for the rest of his life, as they are doing to Bradley Manning for Manning’s exposure of war crimes and extreme duplicity.
Around this complex of issues and the persons of Manning, Navalny, Snowden and Assange there is a kind of new ideological competition between the governments of Russia, the US and UK as to which is truly promoting the values of human freedom. The answer is none of them are. All these states are, largely in reaction to the liberating possibilities of the internet, promoting a concerted attack on freedom of speech and liberty of thought.
States are the enemy. We are the people.
The Frequent Poster (16h05) has done us a service by giving a good example of how certain newspapers use titles which sensationalize the articles which follow.
In this example, the title includes the words “slits throat”, which might give the impression of someone killing himself in this fashion as a protest against the so-called bedroom tax.
Visions of Buddist monks burning themselves to death during the Vietname war. Or Jan Palach in Prague in 1968 (yep, under those lovely Communists!).
But read further, and what do we learn? minor injuries apparently not requiring hospitalization, lots of blood, no artery cut, man well enough to be spoken to by staff at the centre and police. Anticlimax!
These popular papers really know how to build up the suspense only to let you down with a bump.
I really don’t know why people bother to read them.
“32 die a week after failing test for new incapacity benefit”
http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/investigations/2012/04/32-die-a-week-after-failing-in.html
The milk of human kindness is overflowing at 4.24pm above.
Who was it who said “But I never thought i’d meet the original cow.”?
Keep the revolution in good humour!
@Flaming June. Did you mean this chappy,
http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/norfolk_man_speaks_of_his_lucky_escape_after_breaking_neck_following_waterfall_slip_1_2301527
or the one which will have to appear at the police station on the 29th., waiting to be charged for ….?I don’t know really, they are ganging up on him I think as there are no witnesses. But the hospital took photos of his injuries and they point to a certain view as to how his conditions have occurred.
I don’t want to say much more, as much as that he’s ok now, but very needy and disorganised, he produced a lot of platelets which somehow send his heart into a flutter and he had a light heart attack.
I shall keep you informed as to what will happen.
and for today’s mundane Speculatius, the Canaries have signed a Scotsman from Celtic, Gary Hooper, their top scorer from last year….
A much better bet than predicting the name of a newborn might be a punt on Norwich City, they are motivated and could very well end up playing in Europe at the end of next season.
Do it now for good odds.
The Frequent Poster (at 16h24) cannot bring herself to mention my name, preferring to use the time of my comment instead.
Reminds one a little of referring to the “State of Israel” as the “Zionist entity”, doesn’t it.
@ Someone (16h13)
If the facts are exactly as stated in the report you quote from the Brighton Argus, then bringing a charge of “using threatening/abusive/insulting words/behaviour to cause harrassment/alarm/distress” against Mr Alex Cline for calling local MP Mike Weatherley a “coward” does indeed seem to constitute an absurd, even sinister, misuse of the law.
I say “exactly as stated in the report” so as not to exclude the possibility that Mr Cline either repeated the words enough as to be considered to be attempting to disrupt the meeting, or accompanied them with a few choice adjectives of an obscene character, or acccompanied them with physical action or actions again intended to disrupt the meeting, or indeed any combination of the above. Were any or all of the above to have been the case, then the charge of course would become somewhat less absurd, even entirely reasonable.
Anyway : as Someone is perhaps someone local, I should be interested to follow up on this case and keep us informed; the Brighton Argus will presumably be reporting on the outcome and so it would be helpful if Someone could keep an eye on it and give us more info on exactly what the charges were, what came out in court and whether Mr Cline was eventually convicted or not.
Thanks in advance.
*********************
La vita è bella, life is good! (follow up is important)
More on Navalny; http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21582316-kremlins-erratic-behaviour-navalny-case-reveals-split-navalny-power-game
“The Kremlin’s erratic behaviour is also a sign of a growing split within the ruling Russian elite between siloviki, a powerful faction comprising former and present security servicemen, who were keen to lock up Mr Navalny immediately (and at first gained the upper hand), and civilians in the presidential entourage, including Sergei Sobyanin, the Kremlin-appointed mayor of Moscow, who is said to have persuaded Mr Putin to release Mr Navalny from jail.”
I would like to be a fly on the wall, first at White House briefings, then at the Kremlin.
There are growing numbers within both governments who are slowly arising from the Security Hypnosis of Nationalism uber alles. At least that’s my naive hope
The criminalisation of young people with prospects in life, by taking much of their time up with judicial rigmarole and bourgeois police zeal, eager to perform to the political minority of the Government of the day. Those living in Brighton will most likely get court dates in Lancashire.
Fracking is being politically policed on behalf of biased orders from above, Osborne’s idea of providing funds for the next pre election tax cuts must not be stopped by locals or those who object to it anywhere. This issue is pursued with even more zeal as the drive to cut a dual carriageway through Twyford Down.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jul/27/twelve-charged-sussex-fracking-protests
Mr goss
Resisting in peices (spelling?$)
Helen Thomas Upi
An usually ‘pregnant’ old school mainstream medium journo#!
Ptss
Arbed
‘Forum sliding’
What’s all that about?
Pt
Helen Thomas
Upi rip
Well noted
But cud she get away with it in the mainstream these days (if she was not a 90 something old fart, soon to die)?
Pt
People I’ve upset and petty bureaucrats call me Mr Goss.
If it’s dyslogia as a fellow-sufferer I can empathise.
http://exiledonline.com/the-deep-dark-secret-of-dyslogia/
John Goss, you dry wit you. If you are a sufferer, you hide it well. Your filter must be cleaned daily.
Dear jon / dr dicklogia
I don’t know you. Nor you me.
No disrespect intended. Helen t. In her old upi fashioned way was a significant journo. So perhaps ru.
Pt x
The attack on free speech
Ht upi
Spent most of her life in The relatively free usa mainstream, ..
Then she happened to mention That ..,
“British Muslims donate more to charity”
“The survey commissioned by the London-based polling agency, ICM, shows an estimated 280,000 Muslims in the UK give more money annually to charity than Jews, Christians, Hindus and Sikhs.”
http://rinf.com/alt-news/breaking-news/british-muslims-donate-more-to-charity/53723/
“A previous article discussed Thatcherism. It’s Chicago School fundamentalism writ large. It’s financial terrorism. It’s hugely exploitative.”
“It’s forced-fed austerity. It’s corporate welfare. It’s mass privatizations. It benefits business and society’s wealthy. It’s government of, by, and for privileged elites alone.”
http://rinf.com/alt-news/breaking-news/escalated-thatcherism-in-britain/53719/
@Someone. 9 41pm
Thanks. A few lines from your link here.
The ICM survey showed that Muslims say they donate about $567 per person per year, with Jews (also numbering around 280,000 in the U.K.) A in second place, with $412 per person annually. A Christians gave considerably less – just over $300 per person, and atheists were at the bottom of the list, with $177 donated.
“The mutual-aid tendency in man has so remote an origin, and is so deeply interwoven with all the past evolution of the human race, that is has been maintained by mankind up to the present time, notwithstanding all vicissitudes of history.”
― Pyotr Kropotkin(1842 – 1921), Mutual Aid
Sorry. Re last post.
I did’nt make it very clear. The Kropotkyn quote was my comment on the theme of mutual aid.
Here was a man who, though born a prince, walked the talk of human rights. So maybe there’s some hope for the royal baby.
Not the Royal Baby but the Refugee Baby from Syria! Meet 10 days old Fayez born in a tent in Atmeh camp: pic.twitter.com/xVaWsuMS8E
Better link
https://twitter.com/jenanmoussa/status/359277158176284672/photo/1
Thanks Dreoilin, apart from its own beauty, it’ll give distraction to our little juvenile Sofia who seems so obsessed about how the Royal baby will turn out.
Surprisingly she doesn’t seem to acknowledge through her prism of Buddhism that this baby must have done great good in previous lives to now be born with (more than) a silver spoon in his mouth. Perhaps she’ll now ‘let it be’.
Why is it taking Downing Street longer to censor Detainee Inquiry interim report than it took to write?
Spy Blog has re-submitted our FOIA Request which was refused over 6 months ago, on the grounds of imminent publication.
Cabinet Office – 6 F Off IA exemptions not to publish Detainee (Torture) Inquiry Interim Report requested back in December 2012..
Still no Detainee (Torture) Inquiry interim report over a year after submission to Downing Street
The process of clearing the report for publication has taken longer than envisaged, but it is important for the Government to be able to publish as full an accounting of the Inquiry’s work as possible, without compromising national security and consistent with its legal obligations. Discussions with the Inquiry about clearing the report for publication are nearing a conclusion and it is hoped that the Government will be in a position to publish as full a version of their report as possible in the autumn, although no date has been set.
” in the autumn, although no date has been set.”
It is now over 3 years since Prime Minister David Cameron announced the the setting up of Detainee Inquiry on 6th July 2010
/..
https://p10.secure.hostingprod.com/@spyblog.org.uk/ssl/spyblog/2013/07/20/why-does-is-it-taking-downing-street-longer-to-censor-detainee-inquiry-interim-r.html
This is the ‘Gibson inquiry’ that Craig wished to give information to.
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2013/05/the-denial-of-justice/
Sir Peter Gibson Intelligence Services Commissioner, left voluntarily in December 2010. Sir Mark Waller, a judge, replaced him in January 2011.
http://isc.intelligencecommissioners.com/sections.asp?pageID=8§ionID=5&type=blog
Here is his report for 2012. http://cryptome.org/2013/07/uk-spy-commish-2012.pdf under these headings:
Letter to the Prime Minister
Foreword 1
My Statutory Functions 4
My Statutory and Extra-Statutory Functions 5
The Method of my Review 7
Discharge of my Functions 7
Selection Stage 7
Assessment of my Inspection Visits 9
Assistance to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal 14
Consolidated Guidance to Intelligence Officers and Service Personnel on
Detention and Interviewing of Detainees, and on Passing and Receipt of
Intelligence Relating to Detainees (Consolidated Guidance)
Errors reported to me 16
International Intelligence Review Agency Conference 18
The Intelligence and Security Committee 18
Confidential Annex 19
Operational Success 19
Statistics 20
Conclusion 21
Annex 22
Useful Background Information 22
Functions of the Agencies 23
Warrants and Authorisations 25
Hi Villager.
Was that inspired by your inner work? Gosh, you must have gone so deep!
Lets talk about issues.
What kind of life is mapped out for these two babies by others? What are the chances of either to live fully productive human lives?
As for my assumed Buddhism, surely that was yesterday. Today it seems I’m a Kropotkyan or should that be Kropotpot?
Theresa May has had Type 1 diabetes diagnosed.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2380142/My-shocking-illness-Home-Secretary-Theresa-May-reveals-Type-1-diabetes-needs-daily-injections–vows-continue-political-career.html
Yes, Mary, Theresa May and her diabetes have been all over the place today.
“Theresa May has had Type 1 diabetes diagnosed.”
She should go and see ATOS, allegedly they perform miracles!!!.
“200,000 victims of Equitable Life collapse may miss out on compensation after Atos slips up again”
http://www.independent.co.uk/money/spend-save/200000-victims-of-equitable-life-collapse-may-miss-out-on-compensation-after-atos-slips-up-again-8732807.html