Anyone who thinks they’re in danger is able to contact the police by phone or via email and the button doesn’t do much – beyond providing politicians the appearance of ‘doing something’. The death of Ashleigh Hall in particular wouldn’t have been prevented by the magical panic button as she, tragically, had no idea her killer wasn’t whom he appeared to be.

Far be it for me to suggest that Chris Huhne in advocating such a measure, especially in the light of circumstances where it wouldn’t have helped, is being a self-serving prat with one eye on the Mail’s readers and one on the up-coming election.

So as i said in the midst of all this ‘apparent fear’ the Mail decided it would publish a sensationalist account of what happened when an ex-policeman, now a ‘leading child protection expert’, posed as a 14 year old girl. Whats amusing is the internet is dealt with in a manner that evokes the mid to late 90s; its a big scary place with rapists on every metaphorical corner. The story didn’t make any sense especially as it dealt with Facebook as a ‘chat site’ rather than a method of social networking.

The Mail now appears to be doing some rapid backtracking.

hat tip to David Steven

Yet states counter-terrorism measures do little to defend and protect people’s customary pleasures or their fundamental right to freedom of expression. Instead, they negotiate away the rights of women and ignore the threat to religious minorities. Many governments in pursuing both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ counter-terrorism, play off one form of religion to control another that they deem to be more dangerous to their current interests. It is a cynical game and it is ultimately self-defeating. Governments, including Western governments have done much to promote organisations as their allies against terrorism against whom there are serious allegations of human rights abuses, which could amount to crimes against humanity. These they have termed ‘moderate Muslim’ groups.

It’s another reminder of why we need organisations like Amnesty and people like Gita Sahgal. The world isn’t overburdened with people and groups who are willing to stand up and document human-rights abuses. Gita Sahgal had some legitimate criticisms to make of Amnesty, but it doesn’t mean that Amnesty is somehow morally bankrupt either. Too many of us felt it necessary to pick sides, including me, which then caused collateral damage to the very causes that both Amnesty and Gita fight for (by shifting attention away from them). Fortunately I was disabused of that need to pick sides by a very wise woman. Amnesty should reinstate Gita, and both should be left to get on with what they do best: championing the rights of the weakest in the world.

One of a priest with a young girl kneeling in front of him and the words: “No, no my child, blow is just a figure of speech”. Another picture depicted the Pope with a condom on his finger, while a further page showed A Dangerous Book For Boys with reference to the Qur’an.

The cartoons included one taken from Danish images of a suicide bomber and another showed a pig excreting sausages labelled “Qur’an”.

All pretty unpleasant. But the most that should have happened was a fine for littering and a ‘don’t come back here again’. To make it an offence is not only wrong, but, unsurprisingly, sets a precedent for future cases. Religion is a personal thing. I don’t go out of my way to mock people’s religious beliefs, but believe that people should be free to do so. People mock my beliefs about, say, the EU, which is fine. It is a point of view, not a child: it doesn’t need protecting. Religion and faith is no different.

Sahgal was asked for specific evidence of anything Begg has ‘said or advocated for specifically that would suggest he supports violent jihadism’.  The answer given was the usual actions and words of other Cageprisoner members, specifically Asim Qureshi whose words on BBC Newshour are misinterpreted by Sahgal.

Raz went on to say:

But Begg has never said any of these things, I’m wondering if this is just guilt by association.  This is someone who has publically said he created a girls school in Afghanistan, he worked to bring to light the abuses of the Taliban in Afghanistan when he was living there as a volunteer.

Sahgal then answers by talking about Begg’s autobiography and her condemnation of Begg because of the titles of the books he sold in his bookshop.   This ’evidence’ obviously makes him a violent jihadi.  I just checked on Amazon and they don’t currently stock Defense of the Muslim Lands but they do stock Mein Kampf in several different versions including the ‘official Nazi translation’.  Guess that’s them fucked then – the evil fascists should obviously be sent straight to the ghost prisons of Afghanistan! 

I was impressed though with the way Sahgal managed to falsely link Begg directly to Abdullah Azzam (who died in 1989) and the horrible Mumbai attacks of 2008.  Such skillful conflation hasn’t been seen since the HUAC hearings.

As Sahgal says, the Mumbai attacks are believed to have been carried out by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a splinter group (formed in 1990 and active since 1993) from Markaz ad-Dawat wal Irshad to fight against India in the Kashmir conflict.  LeT are widely believed to be supported by Pakistan’s ISI, whilst being officially banned by the country.  Sahgal made a politically astute choice to highlight this ‘evidence’ of Begg’s terrible terrorist activity as LeT are current news following recent testimony from American ‘Intelligence’ about how they ‘could pose a serious threat to U.S. interests.‘   

Other recent impressive media appearances by Sahgal include her interview with DNA in which she repeats the hack Kerbaj’s rubbish in the Times in which it was reported that ‘Sam Zarifi … thought the relationship with Moazzem Begg was a mistake, which Amnesty International should admit.’   Sahgal’s fansite, Human Rights For All, hasn’t bothered to publish Sam Zarifi’s subsequent letter to the Sunday Times.  They also reject comments on their post which republished Kerbaj’s Second Amnesty chief attacks Islamist links, but the rest of us have read the letter and haven’t failed to note that Zarifi clearly said:

Your recent article (‘Second Amnesty chief attacks Islamist links’, 14 February) mischaracterizes my views.

I have been a part of the internal AI debate surrounding the issue of AI’s collaboration with various groups as part of its campaign to close down Guantánamo. My opinions have been heard, considered, and where appropriate, implemented.
I do not oppose our current initiative working with Moazzam Begg in the recent European tour seeking to convince European states to receive more of the Guantánamo detainees who cannot be repatriated because of the risk of further human rights abuses.

And then of course there is Sahgal’s interview in The Wall Street Journal with the line that made me laugh out loud: ‘Then, when the Sunday Times story broke, everything I uncovered was deemed ‘innuendo’.  Almost as funny as Sahgal’s story about all the human rights lawyers refusing to represent her in an employment case – I wonder if they pointed out to her that a call to an employment lawyer would be a more appropriate choice?  Perhaps it’s time for Sahgal to concede that she IS peddling innuendo, and that using and abusing the high-profile name of Moazzam Begg to promote whatever agenda she really has is a step too far.

Oh and I almost forgot the best bit from yesterday’s interview.  Gita Sahgal said:

I don’t feel safe at Amnesty International

Bit like she doesn’t feel safe talking at the BBC then.  I wonder if Sahgal has received the death threats that Moazzam Begg and members of Cageprisoners have.

What next?  Fox News?

Original version posted at Earwicga

There is little connection between the use of stop and search powers by the Metropolitan police and reductions in knife crime, according to new figures analysed by a leading criminologist.

Professor Marian Fitzgerald says that in the case of one London borough – Southwark – a huge expansion in the use of “section 60″ stop and search powers has actually been accompanied by an increase in knife crime. The section 60 powers under the 1994 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act allow the police to search anyone without needing to have grounds for suspicion in a designated area at a specific time where they believe there is threat of serious violence.

In other words the correlation between stop-and-search and reducing knife crime wasn’t clear at all. And this was only reported in the Guardian and the BBC.

When I point out that not only is this policy silly, but it’s also racial profiling – something right-wingers constantly say they are against – I’m told that we should accept it because it reduces crime. But the evidence doesn’t even stack up in London. Will the likes of the Daily Mail and ConservativeHome now accept the truth? Unlikely. Will Boris Johnson accept what’s going on?

Here’s Dave Hill:

In a now sadly typical display of arrogance Mayor Johnson dismissed FitzGerald, who worked at the Home Office under Tory ministers for years, as “some professor”. It seems that most of Britain’s media mainstream has little appetite for questioning the efficacy of stop-and-search, which seems to be acquiring sacred cow status.

That pretty much sums up right-wingers: against highlighting people’s race or religion except when they want to use that to lock people up. Dave points to this excellent article in Australia’s The Age, which does a much better job of reporting and discussing the issue than we’d get here.
[hat tip Dave Hill]

The 69-page report, “Fast-Tracked Unfairness: Detention and Denial of Women Asylum Seekers in the UK” documents how women asylum seekers with complex claims are being routed into a system designed for much simpler claims. The women are held in detention largely for the UK’s administrative convenience, have very little time to prepare a legal case, and have only a few days to appeal if refused. But the claims often involve such sensitive and difficult issues as sexual violence, female genital mutilation, trafficking, and domestic abuse. There is little time for lawyers or other representatives to build the trust with their clients needed for them to explain their claims or to obtain medical or other evidence needed to verify them.

No asylum system will never be perfect, and will always be open to abuses. There will be people who get sent back who shouldn’t be, and people allowed to stay who don’t really deserve it. But clearly the system isn’t working. There should be more time and help available to these women to present their cases:

Once routed into the fast track, women with complex cases have far too little time to prepare their case, obtain medical or other expert opinions, and establish the credibility of their claims. This is especially true in cases involving rape or abuse, where women may only be able to come forward with relevant information late in the process, or not at all, because they may be traumatized by their experience, frightened by the procedure, or simply embarrassed to tell an official.

Placing women in detention exacerbates the problems. Some of the women have no access to female interpreters, case workers, or medical staff.

HRW have suggested two steps to improve the situation:

# In the suitability guidance note for routing into this system, add complex gender-related persecution claims, such as sexual violence and domestic violence, to the list of “claims unlikely to be accepted into fast track.”

# Clarify the criteria for routing a person through fast track, including the factors that would enable a “quick” decision on a claim.

Seems sensible to me.

Evidence of this is further highlighted in today’s Sunday Times with a statement by Salman Rushdie. This is of course the same newspaper that blatantly misrepresented what Amnesty’s Asia director Sam Zarifi had to say to try and present it as another split.

Salman Rushdie was naturally a big supporter of the Iraq war externally driven regime change in Iraq and ideologically in the same camp as Cohen, Hitchens et al. The man who once said: “The only just cause for a war with Iraq is to liberate its population” – how’s that piece of advice working out for you?

Anyway, Rushdie’s blatant attempt to undermine Amnesty Int is so over-the-top that his mate Norm Geras distance himself from Rushdie’s agenda by saying: “Rushdie wrong about Amnesty“. Oh dear.

Meanwhile, a letter in today’s Observer lays out the contradictions that go to the heart of Nick Cohen’s facile approach to human rights:

Nick Cohen writes of his latest bogeyman, Amnesty International, that while they were “once the most principled defenders of human rights”, they have now “collaborated” with (ie defended) Moazzam Begg. He wonders what will happen when they realise that “the Islamists they embrace aren’t nice metrosexuals who support women’s rights”, and then hopes they will remember that “promoting human rights is a hard and often thankless task that has to be done regardless of the consequences”.

I’m baffled as to how this incoherent sneering is supposed to translate into a criticism of AI. If the organisation is to stick to its principles, as Cohen urges, then it has to oppose any transgression. Cohen manages to trumpet the fundamental value of universal and unconditional human rights, then point out the difficulties of consistently upholding these rights by using AI and Begg’s case as an example, then chastise AI for doing so (or is it not doing so?).

Update: Earwigca makes an excellent point:

I wonder if Rushdie was “suffering from a kind of moral bankruptcy” when he signed the petition in support of Polanski? You know, the man who raped a 14 year old then did a runner for decades.

Unbelievable hypocrisy.

Update 2: What next? The Chinese criticising Amnesty for being too nice to Muslims?

Yet it does need to be curbed. The rigorous nature of the system means that more and more people are not bothering to offer their services, whether on a part time of temporary basis. It is an expensive hassle. One friend of mine has undergone four CRB checks in the last one and a half years, despite his first one which was enhanced, so could have been transferred over to his other roles. Another friend was unemployed for three months while he waited for his to come through. And they were two of the lucky ones, with hundreds of people incorrectly being branded criminals by the CRB.

Now the ISA (which has a wider remit than the CRB) is poised to take this totalitarian (and it is totalitarian) regime one step further with new rules that would allow people to be banned from working with vulnerable people even if they have never done anything wrong:

Workers judged to be lonely and to have a chaotic home life could be barred from working with vulnerable people, even though there is no evidence that they pose a risk, according to guidelines from the Government’s new vetting agency. Decisions about staff will be taken by officials who have never met them, based on details passed on by their employers…

Guidance seen by The Sunday Telegraph, which has been given to more than 100 case workers at the ISA reveals that those referred could be permanently blocked from work if aspects of their home life or attitudes are judged to be unsatisfactory. It says case workers should be “minded to bar” cases referred to them if they feel “definite concerns” about at least two aspects of their life, which are specified in the document.

It means, for example, that if a teaching assistant was believed to be “unable to sustain emotionally intimate relationships” and also had a “chaotic, unstable lifestyle” they could be barred from ever working with children.

Given how many roles this involves it is chilling. If the Conservatives don’t pledge to sack every single individual at the ISA and emasculate the CRB on their first day of government they aren’t fit to take over.

(Via Tim Worstall)

That “white liberal guilt” card is played by Nick Cohen et al so many times that it’s a wonder no one has coded a Nick Cohen column generator program yet.

Anyway, let’s take a little trip down memory lane shall we?

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher angrily criticized Amnesty International yesterday for requesting details of what it called a possible “extrajudicial execution” by the military of three unarmed Irish Republican Army members last month.

She called the human-rights organization’s request “utterly disgraceful” and added, “I hope Amnesty has as much concern for the more than 2,000 persons murdered by the IRA since 1969.”

What do you mean that sounds suspiciously like the arguments those trying to undermine Amnesty are making now? These people are lefties don’t you know? They may occasionally be ok with torture but they stand for universal human rights!

And then there’s this from 2001 highlighted by Kevin Blowe:

Timothy McVeigh is scheduled to become the first federal prisoner to be executed in the United States of America since 1963. Amnesty International urges you to prevent this retrograde step by announcing an immediate moratorium on all federal executions.
…
Such suffering deserves compassion, respect and justice. As an organization that works with and on behalf of victims of human violence on a daily basis, Amnesty International has the utmost sympathy for the families and friends of those killed in the Oklahoma City bombing. Nevertheless, the organization unreservedly opposes the planned killing of Timothy McVeigh, as it does all executions, in the belief that such a policy represents no more than a continuation of the cycle of violence it purports to confront. By imitating what it seeks to condemn – the deliberate taking of human life – society will once again have allowed violence and vengeance to gain the upper hand. Justice will not have been served.

What, Amnesty standing for the rights of a terrorist? A white terrorist? And I was told those guilty white liberals only cared for the rights of Islamists.

The obvious point in that over the course of its history Amnesty has always been accused of pandering towards nasties that certain commentators would rather pretend were just not given any attention to. Far better to let them languish in prison right? It’s far more convenient for these people to forget history and pretend that Amnesty just didn’t exist before the advent of Islamist terrorism.

————-
I’m a fan of WLUML, SBS and WAF however I think their statements are misguided. Gita Sahgal is indeed a respected human rights activist but I think she has got it very wrong here.

To take a quote from their statement above:

Gita Sahgal’s concerns are about Amnesty International’s association with fundamentalist groups that have claimed to support the Taliban and promote ideas of the Islamic Right…
(my emphasis)

For this statement to be fair one would have to prove:
a) AI has “an association” with a “fundamentalist group”. As mentioned above AI are not associated with Cage Prisoners. They have conducted speaker tours with Begg who is not a fundamentalist. The quote Sunny uses above shows he is not a fundamentalist. If you think he is you will have to provide recent quotes that contradict the one above.

b) That Begg supports the Taliban. He has stated his position on this more times than I can count, it is a nuanced position which isn’t particularly liked by those who want them/us type simplicities. He is not a supporter of the Taliban, saying that the UK Govt should talk to the Taliban does not make him a supporter of the Taliban. Saying that they were better than the preceding 25yrs of bloody war does not make him a supporter of the Taliban. Those who advocated talks between IRA and UK were not pro-terrorist they were pro-peace.

c) That Begg promotes the ideas of the Islamic Right. As someone who went to Afghanistan to build a girls’ school I also do not think this is defensible. When he gives speeches about Gitmo, he talks about Gitmo. Not jihad, not death to Americans. He has even done a speaker tour with an ex-Gitmo US Guard. This is not the action of a jihadist who wants to kill Americans.

I commend WLUML for being the first of these groups (as far as I know) to condemn the right-wing hijacking of this debate. However, on the suspension of Gita Sahgal they only have half the story, hers.

I am not willing to condemn AI’s internal processes for this until we have all the information, at the moment we don’t. They are rightly not slagging her off in the press as she is doing to them. Of course you would suspend an emplyee if they did this. If they find severe failings and that she was right then she should be reinstated. But on the basis of what she has said on Begg and Cage Prisoners, I doubt that will happen.

On the wider issue of principle, I think those who are engaging in an anti-Amnesty campaign are not able to hold a consistent line on this. AI should campaign against Gitmo but not use former inmates to tell their story? They should protect Begg’s rights until he gets out and then ignore his rights to accountability?

Begg talking about his torture and imprisonment IS THE SAME THING as him *alledgedly* promoting radical Islam and support for the Taliban (even though there is not compelling proof of this)? Is a distinction between allowing someone to speak and “making them a poster boy”, if so what?

We immediately get into a grey area in what people keep trying desperately to make a black and white issue. What is most depressing about this is that it will do ABSOLUTELY nothing to promote the rights of women in Afghanistan or wherever. All it will do is damage a huge human rights org doing massive amounts of work on millions of issues all over the world and make it practically impossible for them to work with these women’s groups again.

I hope that doesn’t happen. But I can’t see a positive, progressive outcome to this that improves anyone’s human rights.

———————

I believe this is spot on and nuanced. But of course many of the ‘decents’ screaming hysterically for everyone at Amnesty to be fired will keep pretending otherwise.

Right on cue, here is Melanie Phillips:

The true intolerant, illiberal, unjust face of the ‘human rights’ industry has been on graphic display in recent days in the case of Gita Sahgal.
…
The point is that her real crime has been to expose the extraordinary sympathy by white ‘liberals’, committed to ‘human rights’, for Islamic jihadists — who are committed to the extinction of human rights. This love-in by white ‘liberals’ for theocratic totalitarianism is then further reflected by the totalitarian manner in which they themselves deal with anyone who opposes them.

Ergo, Amnesty are also committed to the extinction of human rights.
And what might be the reason for Mel Phillips’ ire?

When pondering the extraordinary obsession with Israel by the ‘human rights’ industry and the way in which it ignores real human rights abuses in the third world…

Well that was a surprise wasn’t it? Damn those people at Amnesty for not publishing a statement about Congo in the last 6 weeks! Also, apparently, it is Amnesty and HRW that are to blame for why the world hasn’t heard much about Congo over the last decade. Nothing at all to do with the media industry and prominent newspapers that Mel Phillips writes for. The Daily Mail and Spectator are of course known for their unparalleled humanitarian coverage of atrocities around the world.

To put it another way, Amnesty is living in the make-believe world of a phoney war, where it thinks that liberals are free to form alliances with defenders of clerical fascists who want to do everything in their power to suppress liberals, most notably liberal-minded Muslims.

Oh wait – that was Nick Cohen – sounding exactly the same. The agenda here is so blatant that you’ll forgive me for being so gung-ho about cheering them on.

And to make an obvious point: this doesn’t mean I’m hating on Gita Sahgal. I’ve had the utmost respect for WAF and SBS from day one. I just don’t agree with them here, and don’t want to get sucked into Nick Cohen and Mel Phillips’ agenda. But I expect such a nuanced position will be hard for some to understand.

Also, Louise is spot on.

Bruce Anderson starts off by saying:

Torture is revolting. A man can retain his human dignity in front of a firing squad or on the scaffold: not in a torture chamber. Torturers set out to break their victim: to take a human being and reduce him to a whimpering wreck. In so doing, they defile themselves and their society.

There is bound to be a ‘but’ here because Anderson is the resident war-mongering neo-con, employed by (supposed) liberal-left newspapers who like to think they should be balanced. Here’s his argument:

We and the Americans have long-established methods of intelligence co-operation, which are now even more important than they were in the Cold War. It also makes sense to work with other threatened nations, such as Pakistan, where a brave political elite is bearing a disproportionate burden, and receiving few thanks for doing so.
…
Before 9/11, in front of some serious lawyers, I once argued that if there were a ticking bomb, the Government would not only have a right to use torture. It would have a duty to use torture.
…
After much agonising, I have come to the conclusion that there is only one answer to Sydney’s question. Torture the wife and children. It is a disgusting idea. It is almost a tragedy that we even have to discuss it, let alone think of acting upon it. But there is nothing to be gained from refusing to face facts, in the way that the Master of the Rolls, Lord Neuburger, did last week.
…
There is a threat not only to individual lives, which is of minor importance, but to our way of life and our civilisation. Torture is revolting, but we cannot substitute aesthetics for thought.

If I wanted this kind of balance I’d read the bible of wingnut neo-conservatism – FrontPage Magazine. I thought that kind of crap was only limited to the US, but now we’re getting it here.

On Sunday, in the Observer, Nick Cohen was having a go at judges for the Binyam Mohammad ruling:

Jonathan Evans, the head of MI5, added a further complication when he said that the Mohamed ruling provided a propaganda victory for our enemies. And I am sure he was right.

Nick Cohen has earlier justified torture under certain circumstances.

Now all Bruce Anderson needs to do is condemn Amnesty for not upholding human rights and the circle would be complete.

[hat-tip @Naomimc]

I have always opposed the illegal detention and torture of Muslim men at Guantanamo Bay and during the so-called War on Terror. I have been horrified and appalled by the treatment of people like Moazzam Begg and I have personally told him so. I have vocally opposed attempts by governments to justify ‘torture lite’.

The issue is not about Moazzam Begg’s freedom of opinion, nor about his right to propound his views: he already exercises these rights fully as he should. The issue is a fundamental one about the importance of the human rights movement maintaining an objective distance from groups and ideas that are committed to systematic discrimination and fundamentally undermine the universality of human rights. I have raised this issue because of my firm belief in human rights for all.

I sent two memos to my management asking a series of questions about what considerations were given to the nature of the relationship with Moazzam Begg and his organisation, Cageprisoners. I have received no answer to my questions. There has been a history of warnings within Amnesty that it is inadvisable to partner with Begg. Amnesty has created the impression that Begg is not only a victim of human rights violations but a defender of human rights. Many of my highly respected colleagues, each well-regarded in their area of expertise has said so. Each has been set aside.

POLICE have arrested a bus driver who allegedly called a woman passenger a Muslim terrorist and asked her if she had put a bomb on his bus. An investigation was launched by First Buses in Leeds after Turkish-born Hatice McGraffin, 29, claimed a driver made the inflammatory remarks as she boarded her bus on Thursday morning.
…
Mrs McGraffin, 29, from Otley, who is married to Englishman Ian, said the incident had left her horrified and devastated. Cafe worker Mrs McGraffin claimed he said: “You are an Islamic terrorist – you have put a bomb on the bus’. I asked people on the bus ‘are you listening to this’ but they ignored me.

“I am not even a practicing Muslim and I am married to an Englishman. I got off the bus and went to work but I couldn’t work. I was crying so much and my hands were shaking, I had to go home.”

Bizarrely enough, none of the national newspapers thought this story merited any attention. Imagine if the religions were reversed however.

Kay Gilderdale, the mother of Lynn Gilderdale, 31, who lived with severe ME for 17 years, has been found not guilty of her daughter’s murder. In December 2008, Mrs Gilderdale helped to end Lynn’s life by handing her daughter two syringes of morphine, which Miss Gilderdale injected into herself.

When Mrs Gilderdale felt that the morphine had not achieved Miss Gilderdale’s aim of ending her own life, she crushed some tablets and gave them to her daughter through the feeding tube Miss Gilderdale used because she was unable to swallow.

On her personal blog, reprinted in the Times yesterday, Lynn Gilderdale wrote:

I really, really, really want to die and have had enough of being so sick and in so much pain every second of everyday and, basically, one serious health crisis after another. I am tired, so very, very tired and I just don’t think I can keep hanging on for that elusive illness-free existence.

Mum regularly goes through everything with me. I never waver, I just become more and more sure as time passes. I have always stated that if I was unable to make a decision myself the power goes jointly to my parents. I trust them implicitly with my life and death. I know they won’t do the selfish thing in keeping me here purely for themselves.

Last week, Frances Inglis was found guilty of the murder of her son, Thomas, 22, who became brain damaged in 2007. In November 2008, she went to his room at his care home and injected him with heroin.

Like Lynn Gilderdale, Thomas Inglis was tube fed. He was unable to speak and could only communicate through squeezing his mother’s hand. Unlike Kay Gilderdale, Frances Inglis only believed that her son would not have wanted to continue his life when she ended it. She did not know this- and nor did she try to ask her son what he wanted.

Many people have wondered whether Frances Inglis was really trying, as she claims, to end Tom’s suffering- or her own. Since no one will ever know what Tom’s wishes were, those people will always wonder. There seems to be clear evidence that the verdicts in both cases were the right ones.

The cases are equally tragic- one of a mother acting on her daughter’s last wishes despite her own pain, and another of a mother not considering the wishes of the child she claims to love because she was focusing so much on her own pain at having a disabled child. This is a pain many people have coped with very well in the past, which many others are coping with very well today and, it is to be hoped, which others will be able to cope with very well in the future.

While there are many disabled people who will never want an assisted suicide, or be able to understand how anyone could ask such a thing of their parents, it is to be hoped that these cases will help them to realise the importance of considering every individual disabled person’s opinions and wishes about this issue.

It is also to be hoped that the opinions and wishes of disabled people who ask for assisted suicides will be fully considered in court during all future similar trials- and that the law on assisted suicide can be changed to show leniency towards people who clearly act on the wishes of the person concerned in such cases.

—————
Sarah Ismail blogs at Same Difference

Discrimination of any form is considered unacceptable is all civilised societies. The burqa or the niqab does just that. It allows one person to remain anonymous during face-to-face communication, thus depriving the right of the other to reciprocate whilst registering the changes in facial expressions, which is vital in such communication, in conjunction to voice that is used for everyday communication.
Whether in public offices, educational institutions or out on the streets, the disadvantage to those who are required to deal with women covered under a niqab or burqa is immense.

Furthermore, to all the men out there, it is insulting since it implies that every man on the street would somehow get aroused by the sight of a woman’s face and in therefore to protect these women, they must be put behind a suffocating layer of thick clothing.

This might be true for certain societies where men rarely get a glimpse of women’s faces or skin altogether, and any such sight might awaken their natural instincts.

Whereas in Western societies, especially within the French society, this rationale does not hold much weight since members of the public are exposed to significant display of the skin of the opposite sex, which perhaps renders them immune to any such mental state where they would readily pounce on a woman upon seeing her uncovered face.

The argument put forward by individuals and groups that somehow covering of women’s face is a religious obligation for the reason of their safety from the lewdness of men, falls flat on its face when recalling the etiquettes during Hajj.

It should be remembered that during this holiest of pilgrimages, worldly pleasures and distractions have been removed by the Almighty, thereby allowing the pilgrims to concentrate on their prayers and associated rituals.

During the Hajj, Islam forbids women from covering their faces, whilst at the same time removes segregation on the basis of sex during the days that men and women, who are otherwise strangers to each other, spend many days in close proximity to each other.

No wonder even amongst the vast majority of women who do choose to cover themselves, only a fringe element finds the niqab or burqa a religious obligation, while the rest are content only with a hijab.

Whether it’s security at airports, identification in banks or during job or dole (income support) interviews, it is the right of the authorities and businesses to be certain of who they are dealing with on the basis of identity and communication.

Furthermore, it is perfectly reasonable that the general public feel reasonably secure about the persons sharing the same public sphere. Not knowing whether an individual amongst them is a man or a woman due to their attire is deeply unsettling and any such anxieties must be addressed by the relevant changes to law.

Burqa or niqab neither has a place in Islam nor should it obtain a place in civilised Western societies where women are equal to men and public safety of all is paramount.

—————–
This was written first for Al-Jazeera

For example, see the Telegraph blogger Ed West, who at the time also said, “Wilders is not ‘far-Right’ by any reasonable standard – he is a classical liberal who thinks immigration has gone way too far”

Classically liberal eh? Geert Wilders also came up with a 10-point plan to save the west, which included measures like: encouraging voluntary repatriation; have every member of a non-Western minority sign a legally binding contract of assimilation; stop building new mosques; getting rid of the current weak leaders, etc.

So either I misunderstand what it means to be ‘classically liberal’ or Ed West is talking complete horse-shit. Perhaps Tim Worstall can clarify since he’s not only a UKIP comms director but also claims to be ‘classically liberal’.

Anyway, the point is that recently the former head of UKIP Nigel Farage called for the ‘burqa’ to be banned. No one listens to Farage anyway: it was a classic tactic of trying to get some media attention since he is fighting a very difficult seat in Buckingham. The guy wants some publicity so he tried a classic UKIP dog-whistle.

When asked about this policy, Lord Pearson claimed: “the burqa ban is a ban for freedom”. A ban for freedom! Haha! Either these people give ‘classic liberals’ a bad name or they are complete fuckwits.

Anyway, Ed West from UKIP Telegraph now says: ‘Don’t ban the burka. Ban liberals instead’ – how very tolerant of freedom of expression. It seems UKIP only believe in free speech when it applies to criticising or demonising Muslims, not otherwise.

– New York Times reports. Good move by Obama.