"Think you there was, or might be, such a man?"

posted by k

When I began this blog, I was inspired by two men.

Gerard Mulholland lived in a Paris suburb. For many years heart problems and, more recently diabetes, affected his capacity to work and travel. This didn't end his concern with the state of the world and with human beings. From his computer he engaged in political debate – on public message boards and through email correspondence with his friends. He was always concerned with questions of liberty and the related question of equality. In his discussions on public forums his unusual sense of democracy shone – he was as happy at a lively debate on the Sun message boards as in forums run by the BBC, the Guardian or Republic. His concern was dialogue and, while he would put his own view as forcefully as he could, he would listen to what other people said and question his own assumptions. Despite his occasional assertions of pessimism at the state of the world and human beings – he never stopped being shocked by the cruelty people could inflict on one another – he also wanted to do his best for the world and his fellow humans.

David Rose was a poet who worked in Colne in Lancashire. He had practical skills, an understanding of engineering and was also a successful barman. Only those who have never worked behind a bar think that's an easy job – the best bar staff care not only about the quality of beer they serve but also about their customers and colleagues. David cared about serving good beer but he cared for people even more. This brought him into all kinds of local projects, including work on the Millennium Green, an open space in Colne. Like Gerard, he saw people – including those who were disregarded - as equals and was good at finding the skills they could bring to share in local projects. I imagine that some of these qualities had been honed when he was involved in the free festivals movement. He was used to seeing past the damage that people had suffered to find their real value. His concerns for liberty and humanity led him to a critical analysis of the way in which the voluntary – or third – sector was being hijacked by the state. Most recently, his worries about state surveillance and intrusion led him to advance detailed arguments about the ways in which government policy was finding people guilty not just of thought-crime but of pre-crime – he noted the ways in which government agencies were asked to identify potential criminals at nurseries and earlier – even among babies before birth. While Gerard's contribution to Areopagitica was through the comments he made, David posted thoughtfully to the blog.

Both Gerard and David had rejected careers that would have aligned them with the establishment. Gerard turned down the offer of pupillage as a barrister in a well-known set of chambers to become a tour guide. In the 1970s this enabled him to take part in Liberal politics, always on the radical wing of the party. David, whose degree was in engineering, worked initially in big industrial companies - what today are called multi-nationals - but he left this career to live outside a system with which he felt little sympathy. Neither was rich – they lived with the everyday worries about family and bills that most people experience. Neither lived a perfect life – nor claimed to do so. Both acted at times in ways they later regretted, would be angry on occasion – and then would apologise. They were critical of themselves and their actions but offered sympathy and understanding to the mistakes and flaws of friends.

If Gerard and David were standing in the current general election, the media would probably spend a lot of time raking through their lives and assuring the electorate that they were too flawed to represent us in parliament. We're encouraged to support candidates with perfect pasts, photogenic family lives, who never lose their temper or question the received platitudes of political life (although these change from day to day). In the past thirty years, photogenic men and women with perfect pasts have dismantled a caring society, created and encouraged chasms of mistrust and intolerance between groups and individuals, built a surveillance state, permitted and encouraged torture, condoned illegality, led the country into wars and bombed cities into such pain and chaos that only hatred remains - but our clean-living, respectable leaders have wrapped up their actions in neat, media-friendly soundbites.

Gerard and David were prepared to ask difficult questions and reach uncomfortable conclusions. They cared that human beings had the opportunity to live free and fulfilling lives and take part in genuinely thoughtful political debates. I wish I had the chance to vote for them.

Gerard died in July last year. His health had been deteriorating for a long time but he seemed immortal. The last text message I received from him, which must have been sent about an hour before he died, rejoiced that the right had “done their duty” and voted against Marine Le Pen in the Pas de Calais mayoral election.

David died at the end of December. He was on his way back from a holiday on Skye with his wife and a friend. I've seen some of his photos from that holiday. Again, my last communications from him were text messages. Before his holiday he delighted in the unlikely sight of of seventeen mountain-biking santas arriving at the pub where he worked. On Skye he observed the sea frozen at the loch-heads.

I feel uneasy writing an obituary for Gerard and David even now. They are mourned by family and friends who knew them better than I did. Much of my friendship with them was maintained and developed through emails and telephone calls. It wasn't just a correspondence about politics. There were poems, music, ideas, history and lots of jokes. I miss them a lot.

I wondered for a long while if I could continue this blog without them – it was born out of debate and shouldn't be a monologue. I think I shall continue but Areopagitica is bound to change without their contribution.

When I consider how to vote in the general election - and I'm still thinking about it - I recall the discussions I had with Gerard and David. I think about the principles of freedom and equality – and how these need to be rooted in a care for all human beings. I'll try to blog more about this later.

"A law indifferent to blame or praise"

posted by k



The year was 1670. Twelve jurors swore an oath to try William Penn and William Mead on the charges of addressing an unlawful assembly. On the bench, conducting the case and preparing the sentence, was Sam Starling, Lord Mayor of London, sitting with aldermen, Sherifs and a Recorder.

The case got off to a bad start when Penn and Mead, in accordance with Quaker practice, refused to take off their hats in court. The question of "hat honour" was thought important by Quakers as the time. They saw it as a way in which undue honour was given to certain individuals because of their wealth, birth or position. There were arguments over evidence and the law - the magistrates were particularly annoyed that William Penn cited statute law in his defence while William Mead demonstrated a knowledge of legal Latin. The case proceeded in a bad-tempered way until the jury, who had heard all the evidence, came back to deliver their verdict. And that's when the trouble began.

Initially there was disagreement between the jurors: eight agreed with one another and four dissented. The magistrates blamed this on a particular juror, Mr Bushel, who they threatened with violence. They sent the jurors out again and eventually they returned to deliver their verdict.

The jurors agreed that William Penn was guilty of speaking in Gracechurch Street but refused to add that the meeting was an unlawful assembly. They found William Mead not guilty.

The mayor and his fellow magistrates were furious. The mayor turned on the foreman of the jury. "I thought you had understood your place better," he said. Then the Recorder turned to the jurymen: "Gentlemen, you shall not be dismissed till we have a verdict that the court will accept; and you shall be locked up, without meat, drink, fire, and tobacco; you shall not think thus to abuse to court; we will have a verdict, by the help of God, or you shall starve for it."

The jury returned the following morning and repeated their verdict. The magistrates refused to accept it.

And so it went on, with the magistrates threatening all kinds of punishment and the jurors refusing to give in. The Recorder even threatened the jurors with that a new law would be made to deprive them of legal protection.

Finally the jurors changed their verdict; they found both William Penn and William Mead not guilty. The magistrates immediately imposed fines on Penn, Mead and all the jurors for contempt of court. On appeal, the jurors were freed under Habeas Corpus, setting a precedent which still protects those who sit on juries.

Today juries and jury trials are under further threat. The British government has already moved many cases from jury trials to magistrates courts. Now it is moving away from trials alogether and preferring detention without trial and summary "justice". On-the-spot fines are cheaper and less time-consuming than law and justice. The right to administer summary "justice" has even been sold to private companies, whose staff can be accredited on payment of a fee. At least the child and adult informers, bribed with rewards of up to £500 to spy and give evidence against their neighbours, aren't yet allowed to act as judge and jury in the cases.

Some cases still reach juries. However in the past week newspaper reporters and bloggers have fulminated against jurors for reaching an unexpected verdict in two cases. In the case of the would-be terrorists and alleged terrorists tried at the old Bailey, "sources close to the case" informed the press that the jury had behaved badly and the judge had conducted the case wrongly. The verdicts, which the jury returned after hearing five months' worth of evidence, were rubbished in a couple of paragraphs by people who hadn't heard the case or considered its strength.

Perhaps most worrying were the attacks on the jurors for taking time off for illness and medical appointments - and on the judge for allowing this. There is bound to be illness in any group of twelve people during a five month period and of course the case was held up when this happened - all the jurors must hear all the evidence. Had the jurors found the defendants guilty on all counts, I don't believe anyone would have made a fuss.

I was depressed too by blogs attacking the verdict in the case of the environmental activists at Kingsnorth, who were acquitted of causing crimninal justice. The defendants used the defence of "lawful excuse", arguing that climate change presented an urgent threat to people elsewhere in the world. One of their witnesses was an Inuit. The jurors were directed by the judge about the circumstances in which "lawful excuse" applied as a defence. They accepted the activists' argument that their action responded to an immediate need to protect the property of others.

I don't know all the scientific arguments about climate change but the defence of "lawful excuse" has a long history. I can see circumstances in which I too might break the law to protect other people and be glad of that defence. And I believe that the jurors who heard the case had a right to come to that verdict.

What would we do without trial by juries? "Trust the judges," some say. But judges are government appointees, dependent on the state for pay and promotion. While I'm sure that most judges act ethically, giving judges the power to reach a verdict lays them more open to threats and manipulation. The jurors force the lawyers to explain cases fully and clearly, so that each stage of the case and the law is explained publicly. They make the law and the evidence clear. The jury stand for the citizens of their country and have an obligation to justice.

When a jury stands out against public opinion or government, after hearing the evidence and the law, we should respect them and be grateful for their work.

At least one columnist has seen this and defended jurors against the rest of the press. When I read attacks on jurors in the press and the blogosphere, I can do no better than return to William Penn's words in 1670:

"It is intolerable that my jury should be thus menaced: Is this according to the fundamental laws? Are not they my proper judges by the great Charter of England? What hope is there of ever having justice done, when juries are threatened, and their verdicts rejected?"

Back in 1670 many people thought that a public Quaker Meeting was a source of danger. Today a marble plaque in the Central Criminal Court (the Old Bailey) commemorates the twelve jurymen who acquitted William Penn and William Mead.

The Government Will Protect

“It is part of the role of government not to wait till crime has been committed but, for the good of the wider community and the families themselves, to step in earlier when it is obvious to all agencies that this is the type of situation that can end in tragedy.” - Jacqui Smith: Home Secretary. The Times. 27th June 2008.

Is this not the same logic as has been used to propel the US and British peoples into support for an illegal war and occupation?
Is it not the same logic which underpins the ever more intrusive (and inadequately regulated) surveillance culture?
Is it not the same logic which is presumed to justify the dismantling of protections against injustice, against detention without trial, against abusive police interpretations of already abusive law?
Be reassured. The government will protect you. It will protect you from the witness and experience of the human condition, it will protect you from children and it will intervene to protect you from yourself.
Impossible, you say?

Dodo

We Have Been Advised of The Price of Liberty

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania (1759)

At 6.35pm on Wednesday 11^th June 2008, the UK House of Commons passed the Counter Terrorism Bill. With the the £1.2bn bung to Ulster to gain the support of the nine Democratic Unionist Party MP's, the price of liberty has been established as £85.7 million pounds a day.

A brief history. It was the Terrorism Act 2000 which introduced a provision for terror suspects to be held for 48 hours This could be extended to seven days with the permission of a judge. In 2003,that was extended to14 days and in 2006 to 28 days. We might expect certain Senior Police officers wll continue to press for the need for further extensions to that limit in order to psychologically destroy a segregated and degraded suspect. Blair argued for a 90 day detention limit, on advice from senior Police and Security staff.

“Six days felt like six years. I dread to think what 42 days would feel like.” Ratzwin Sabir, a postgraduate student at the University of Nottingham, was detained under the Terrorism Act for the offence of downloading (and arranging printing of) an edited al-Qaida training manual from a US Government website. For his dissertation. It has been reported that it was a junior clerical staff-member at the University who advised the Police of the matter.

As a nation, the people of the United Kingdom have yet another reminder that, in the eyes of both the Government and those who act as its security agents, the principles of liberty, of justice, of rights, have no longer any place in the scheme of things. And will use scurrilous political means to get their way. Even if the authority for the matter has been eroded by the unusual strength of the rebellion by Labour MP's' who have, in large part, been historically supine.

"In the end, more than they wanted freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all -- security, comfort, and freedom. When ... the freedom they wished for was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free." Sir Edward Gibbon 1737 – 1794.

Dodo

"What are the bugles blowin' for?"

posted by k

"The air of England is too pure for a slave to breathe, so everyone who breathes it becomes free."

These words are given the date 1772 and attributed to Judge William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield. They have been cited in other law-cases. This year we are celebrating the 200th anniversary of the British abolition of the trade in slaves.

Tomorrow an Uzbek asylum-seeker, Jahongir Sidikov, will be deported to Uzbekistan. According to Amnesty International, Uzbekistan has announced plans to abolish the death penalty next year, but there are no plans to commute existing sentences. There are no statistics on the number of people sentenced to death or executed. Human Rights Watch documents widespread torture in the "justice system". As Craig Murray has pointed out, opponents of the regime are frequently killed.

Jahongir Sidikov is a member of Erk, the banned opposition party in Uzbekistan. There's a strong chance he will be tortured or executed after his forcible return to Uzbekistan. I wonder if the people involved in his deportation - or members of the government that encourages such deportations - could be charged and taken to trial. The government suggests downgrading murders caused by "reckless indifference" to a kind of 2nd degree offence so they might not receive an automatic life sentence. But anyone complicit in this deportation may risk a long prison sentence - and will certainly deserve it.

"poor indeed"

posted by k

" Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls:
Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands:
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed."

I've seen those words quoted with approval on a number of websites. They even appear in the Harvard Gazette as an example of the value poets like Shakespeare place on an individual's reputation. But the websites rarely mention which character in Othello speaks those words. It's Iago, the villain of the play, and he uses his praise of reputation to further the plot which will end in the deaths of Othello, Desdemona and his own wife.

The law of libel does protect reputation. But the case of Craig Murray, whose blog was silenced by Uzbek billionaire Alisher Usmanov, raises questions about how this is done, who benefits and what truths are being silenced.

Of course, there is some value in libel laws. For instance, a candidate for a job or for public office shoud not be able to spread lies about another candidate. Nor should journalists be able to ruin the reputations, careers and personal happiness of footballers, pop singers or politicians by printing lies about them. I haven't been too worried about people in the public gaze moving to protect themselves from press intrusion. I don't see why I have the right to know about a sportsman's legal sexual preferences or behaviour on the spurious grounds that athletic brilliance turns its possessor into a role model.

But what about truths that need to be told? The Usmanov story - not mentioned in the press - concerns activities in other countries where Usmanov is protected by the regimes. If Usmanov really is, as alleged, a thug, criminal, racketeer and heroin trafficker, this is of direct concern as he attempts to take over Arsenal Football Club. The allegation of rape is trickier since the victim and witnesses seem to have disappeared before the case could come to court.

Usmanov isn't just accused of a particularly unpleasant criminal career. His role within Gazprom raises important questions about the role of big business in international political processes. It is of particular concern as European nations rush to privatise essential services. (The question has been raised by Tom Wise MEP - briefed by Craig Murray - in the European Parliament. Reporting has been lamentably scanty although the speech was given under parliamentary privilege and reporting is not covered by libel laws.) And that's before the question of human rights and international obligations is considered.

Craig Murray challenged Alisher Usmanov to sue him for libel and test the allegations in open court. This is a brave challenge. If Craig Murray were to lose, he would stand to lose everything, given the gravity of the allegations. He attacks both Usmanov's personal reputation and his international role. He urges people not to do business with him. A jury finding in Usmanov's favour would reasonably present him with huge damages.

But Usmanov doesn't want to go before a jury. His solicitors won't sue Craig Murray as the author of the allegations but instead attacked and threatened the people who published them - in this case, the company providing the web-host for his blog. Courageous individuals can be silenced by putting pressure on publishers, printers, bookshops and webhosts. It's the modern equivalent to the licensing of the press against which Milton wrote in his 1644 pamphlet Areopagitica. Milton argued that Truth should be allowed to "grapple" with falsehood in open debate through publication - and he feared that the licensing of books - the prevention of publication - would injure Truth.

At the moment, questions of libel seem to be decided with more attention to wealth than truth, though the McLibel case demonstrates some of the problems big corporations may face against poor, determined defendants.

But if the poor are libelled, they don't have the same chance to defend their reputations. The rich can defame the poor with little fear of prosecution. Usmanov is better protected than the refugee who flees his power in Uzbekistan or Russia. I doubt a cleaner at Arsenal Football Club could afford the fees charged by Usmanov's lawyers. It's unlikely the poor could even raise the court fees.

The current law doesn't seem to protect the truth. It doesn't act equally toward rich and poor. It has little to do with justice or the public good.



If you have a suggestion for how the British libel laws should be changed, please post a comment here or join the detailed debate at Ministry of Truth.

"honour's a name"

posted by k



When I was growing up - even in the 1960s - the British Empire was treated as a source of pride. We were the good rulers, bringing decent values and proper order to a savage world. Atrocities were barbaric. They were what the other side did - never the British.

In comics and books, imperial rule was mapped onto a mythical class system in which grateful servants and peasants tugged forelocks and lived vicariously through master and mistress. At the end of their lives, they would be looked after.
There were almshouses for peasants, a tiny flat for nanny and ... something or other for colonial soldiers who fought abroad and imposed order on their fellow subjects in other lands coloured pink on the map.

Gradually the tales of atrocity emerge. The latest evidence tells of Indian soldiers used in experiments. They weren't killed - at least, not instantly - but they were sent into gas chambers to be burnt with mustard gas.

It wasn't just the Indian soldiers who were used. Between 1916 and 1989 20,000 soldiers of the Empire (most British-born) were subjected to trials of chemical weapons. In the 1930s there was an attempt to discover whether mustard gas caused more damage on Indian or British skin. The tests were continued through the Second World War. In 1942, a British scientist reported on the frequency of severe burns:

"Severely burned patients are often very miserable and depressed and in considerable discomfort, which must be experienced to be properly realised."

Had this happened in Germany, our soldiers and scientists would have been put on trial. But no-one prosecuted the victors.


We had our torture chambers too. After the Second World war, as the Nurmberg trials proceeded, British soldiers systematically tortured Germans suspected of Nazism or Communism. Some were starved to death. Our soldiers took photographs to chart what they had done.

During and after World War 2, in breach of international law, prisoners of war were kept in a dungeon in Kensington known as "the London cage". For most of this time, the cage was kept secret from the Red Cross. The Red Cross would have complained because the cage was used for torture. At first, torture was just for soldiers - members of the SS. Later civilians were captured and brought to join the soldiers. The Red Cross didn't have to be informed because civilians, it could be argued, fell outside the rules of war.

In today's tangled world, in which we're supposed to be bringing freedom and democracy to other nations, we routinely neglect those who work for us. The soldiers from the old empire who still fight for us, retire to neglect and disdain. Campaigns may help the interpreters who work with British troops and whose death receive little attention in the British press.

It's so tempting to speak of our responsibility to the people of Iraq - for we really are responsible. But with our history, what moral authority can we claim? Why should anyone trust Britain?

"an appearance of solidity"

posted by k

We now have a Ministry of Justice and a Minister of Justice. The language alarms me; it's a little too close to Orwell's Ministry of Truth. But then, the Health Ministry deals with sickness and the Minister of Employment is concerned with unemployment (or "job seeking" as it is now known). Perhaps the Ministry of Defence will soon be called the Ministry of Peace. "Ministry of Attack" might be a more honest name.

It's hard to see what the effects of the new ministries will be. The new Home Office, with its concern for telephone taps, immigration and surveillance seems like the U.S. Department for Homeland Security.

The Ministry of Justice remains controversial. I hope that the objectives of the Office for Criminal Justice Reform don't mean quite what they say; increasing "the number of crimes for which an offender is brought to justice to 1.25 million" is ambiguous at least. Presumably they don't really want to increase the number of crimes on the statute book to quite so high a number, nor to ecnourage criminal acts. A ratio between crime and conviction might be a better aim.

Meanwhile the hasty change leaves people uncertain. David Pannick's article in yesterday's Times is measured and thought-provoking. The relationship between parliament and the judiciary requires thought and attention. If justice doesn't protect everyone equally, it has ceased to be justice. And the government's tendency to attack decisions of the courts suggests a disregard for both justice and parliamentary process. After all, the government proposes laws which parliament debates, amends and passes or rejects. The courts' role is to uphold the laws that parliament has made.

To attack the courts is to bypass parliament and undermine the law.

"shameful corridors of time"

posted by k

Forty years ago today, the mainstream media in the United States attacked Dr Martin Luther King for a speech he had given the day before. Time magazine accused him of "demagogic slander". At the Riverside Church in New York, Dr King had called the United States "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today."

His speech, made in relation to the Vietnam war, called on the U.S. government to reconsider its values and alliances. It included this sentence:

"If we do not act we shall surely be dragged down the long dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight."

More substantial extracts from the speech can be read at Adventus, which also includes links to a full text and an audio version.

Exactly one year after making that speech, Martin Luther King was killed.

(This brief item has been double-posted elsewhere.)