Free Speech and expensive speech / Their laws and ours / Site survey and Prize Draw

Free Speech and expensive speech

Four Islamists have been convicted for saying what they think about Britain’s current imperialist wars - and for choosing the rebel side. They committed their 'crimes' when attending an Islamist protest in London against the Danish publication of the Mohammed cartoons.

Mizanur Rahman, on the microphone at the rally, was found guilty of inciting both murder and racial hatred. He was reporting as saying "We want to see them coming home in body bags. We want to see their blood running in the streets of Baghdad...We want to see the Mujahideen shoot down their planes the way we shoot down birds. We want to see their tanks burn in the way we burn their flags."

Rahman adopted a novel sounding defence at his trial. He said he was just repeating the chants that he could hear around him but also stated that he didn't think anyone would take him seriously.

I can see how the State considers him guilty of incitement to 'murder'. But how he incited ‘racial hatred’ - through calling for the death of those, possibly fellow Muslims or Asians, who insult Islam - is something that you clearly need to be a highly intelligent barrister or judge to understand. Unless, of course, it was the other issue he addressed and it’s ‘racist’ to kill enemy soldiers.

His three co-defendants were convicted a few months ago. All four will be sentenced later.

Umran Javed, shouted: "Bomb, bomb Denmark. Bomb, bomb USA." He was found guilty of soliciting murder and stirring up racial hatred.

Abdul Saleem was convicted of stirring up racial hatred. He chanted "7/7 on its way" and "Europe, you will pay with your blood".

Abdul Muhid, was found guilty of two charges of soliciting murder. He said "Bomb, bomb the UK" and had a placard saying "Annihilate those who insult Islam".

When you can incite murder

Any day of the week you can read a British newspaper, or hear a British politician, espousing a mirror image of what caused these men to be convicted. You can say what you like about Iraqi or Afghani ‘terrorists’ without any fear of having your collar felt for ‘inciting murder’.

The way that you call for the ‘terrorists’ to be killed is likely to be determined only by the medium in which you transmit your message. Maybe ‘Better equipped British troops could bring hope’ in ‘The Times’ or ‘Give our boys the tools to terminate the Taliban' in 'The Sun'.

These four Islamists are clearly small-minded bigots with their unpleasant religious frenzy. But they’re also political prisoners who were convicted for taking an anti-imperialist line on the wars. They’ve been locked up because they stand opposed to the murderous frenzy of ‘their’ country. They should be freed, although I’m sure you’d wait forever for Amnesty International to take up their cases.

In a fully totalitarian society, I suppose that everyone would be obliged to express public support for whatever murderous military adventure their rulers were currently undertaking. Such a regime would need to be very well organised to ensure this - so it’s a lot more probable that whilst every opportunity would be given for you to express your gung-ho patriotism, you wouldn't often have to take part. But if you ever argued for the other side, a fascist or similar regime would doubtless deal with you in a terminal manner.

White Rose

The White Rose movement was a brave group of students in wartime Germany who distributed leaflets attacking the Nazis. They weren’t the pacifists that is popularly supposed - "Support the resistance movement!…it must be the sole and first duty, the holiest duty of every German to destroy these beasts…The dead of Stalingrad implore us to take action. Up, up, my people, let smoke and flame be our sign!”

The leaders were caught. Four days later they were sentenced to death and immediately beheaded. Britain is a long way from being such a totalitarian country. People aren’t executed for supporting the other side - they’re just locked up for a few years instead.

Provocations

As an aside, there’s also a lesson in the above. There’s an organisation called ‘Vigil.’ who are an unpleasant group of state touts who get a lot of media coverage through setting up agent provocateur websites with which to entrap Islamists into making illegal remarks and for their other 'amateur spy’ work. They boast about their supposed links with hardened reactionaries, from the FBI to the Saudi government.

It’s clear that it doesn’t take much for someone to break British censorship laws. Over in Left blogland there are several people who expend a lot of effort trying to provoke people into saying something illegal.

It can be tempting to argue the full detail of what you think. You don’t wish to not be forthright and indeed there are occasions when it's necessary to hold nothing back. But save such events, I do urge comrades to consider that it may well be Vigil or some other similar group trying to provoke you. I see no reason to walk into any trap that they may have set.

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Their laws, not ours

It’s been reported to me that a Labour Party branch - a unit that’ll include quite a few prominent councillors - has recently started holding its monthly meetings at a local restaurant and all those attending are fed for free.

The restaurateur, a well-known local entrepreneur with his fingers in many a pie, has a history of having some of his controversial planning applications turned down by the council.

Looking to undertake a bit of reporting for this column, I’ve been trying to investigate further. I thought maybe I could find out the right day and go along and order a Lamb Bhuna whilst hoping to do a bit of earwigging. But I might be recognised by a few of the Labourites with whom I’ve previously crossed swords.

I’d also need to break my rule of never eating in an Indian restaurant where the food is made for whites in the same way that I’d never set foot in a Chinatown restaurant unless at least 75% of the clients are Oriental.

(I did have a rule about never entering a Pie’n’Mash shop unless I saw both Chas’n’Dave and Mike Read inside slurping down jellied eels. If I’d kept to that promise, I’d never have had to enjoy having green ‘liquor’ sprayed over lumpy mashed potato alongside the smallest ‘meat’ pie I’ve ever eaten.)

I suppose I could just give all that I know to the local paper - but why should I support that rubbishy rag? And besides, I’m sure there’s nothing illegal in giving away free meals to whomever you chose. I’ve no evidence to suggest that this guy isn’t just doing this out of the goodness of his heart - a course of conduct that I’m sure capitalists, big and small, constantly undertake.

So I decided to approach the restaurant owner to ask him some questions. After failing to get the guy on the phone three times, I emailed him. There was no reply, so I tried emailing again.

Harassment and hidebound laws

The response from the restaurant owner was interesting. He threatened to report me to the police for breaching the 'Protection from Harassment Act 1997'. He (correctly) pointed out that that this law says it’s illegal ‘on at least two occasions (to subject a person) to behaviour causing harassment, alarm or distress outside existing civil and criminal law’. I’m sure being asked a difficult question does cause ‘alarm’ or ‘distress’.

This law was introduced to combat stalkers and sees thousands convicted each year for behaviour that ranges from the sinister and dangerous to doubtless sad attempts to stay in touch by the lovelorn. It only takes two forms of contact, after someone has told you to desist, to break this law and be subject to up to six months inside.

So I suppose my friend, for making six drunken and pleading phone calls to his g/f after she had dumped him (yet again), and each time having put the phone down on him, is now a ‘stalker’, or at least was until they got back together again the following night.

In fact, like all laws it's a class law that will be interpreted and implemented in ways that suit our rulers. I can’t see those ‘harassing’ me - though repeated junk phone calls, or cops wasting my time - are ever going to be done under such legislation.

Instead laws like this will often be used in such a way as to protect the interests of the powerful. Adrian Arbib, a freelance photographer, received a High Court injunction under the Protection from Harassment Act. Two solicitors and four black clad security guards, all working for Npower, served this injunction on Arib to stop his press photography work that was covering the energy company’s controversial activities at an Oxfordshire beauty spot.

Laws will also sometimes fail to protect those who aren’t powerful. Despite being convicted of offences under this Act, Michael Pech shot dead Clare Bernal - the victim of his harassment - whilst awaiting sentence.

Protesting and complaining

Working at public meetings or on statutory consultations, I’ve seen quite a difference in the ways that different classes of people can act when something’s been done that they don’t like.

At meetings on council estates, or in other poor areas, you can get threats made directly towards you at (or after) a meeting. ‘You just try and get this Channel Tunnel Link through here and you’ll be sorry. I’m not threatening anything but it’s just a warning, let's calls it that mate, you understand.’

The person making such threats knows his options are limited and sees his only hope as a bit of 'direct action' although only has the bottle to indulge in a bit of ridiculous bluster.

The middle classes, however, will often express their disagreement by means of a lot of pompous sounding legalese in reply to the most minor 'encroachments' on their ‘rights’. So I've seen them claim that proposals, such as to build sheltered housing for people with learning disabilities nearby, are against the ‘European Convention on Human Rights’ as it apparently disrupts ‘their right to family life’, or have heard them shout that 'they have been advised by their friend', a QC, that such housing is in direct breach of the Magna Carta.'

If they are upper middle class or wealthy (or are representing some organisations) they may actually be able to afford a lawyer to take up their complaints.

The more sophisticated type of complainer will also sometimes try and disguise their naked intolerance with a manufactured concern for those who would benefit from the proposals they’re opposing. ‘I want the very best for asylum seekers. This country rightly has a proud history of providing refuge for those unfortunate enough not to British. But they wouldn’t be happy here in our very traditional village. We’d be quite unable to cater for their cosmopolitan tastes in food and women.’

(It really is the Guardian types that we need to shoot first. Damn - is that ‘incitement to murder’?)

Laws and legalese

Laws like the Protection from Harassment Act also appear to have sometimes become a refuge for those who should maybe just get on with their lives and rise about petty unpleasantness.

Rachel North is a well-known blogger. She was on one of the tube trains that was blown up on the 7 July 2007 and has became known for her writing about that incident and the call for a Public Inquiry. She’s also revealed in her blog that she's been raped.

She suffered a year long campaign of unpleasant emails, blog posts and phone calls to her by Felicity Jane Lowde. The emails, etc. to North were undoubtedly nasty - ‘I fully believe you are capable of lying about being raped.’ But neither woman covers herself in glory. Both reported the other to the cops - North’s replies to Lowde are full of ‘my partner is a lawyer, I’m very important and I warn you that you are breaching this and that legislation.’

Lowde also asked difficult, if not unpleasant, questions of her nemesis ‘Why did you not stay to help the dying (on the tube train)’. There’s doubtless a thousand good answers to that question - because there was nothing I could do, I was scared, I was injured and reckoned I needed to get help for myself - as well as more difficult responses.

Madeleine McCann’s parents were recently asked a question by a journalist at a German news conference that implied they might be responsible for ‘disappearing’ their daughter. The following day’s Daily Mirror attacked that journalist for daring to ask such an ‘impertinent’ question as though a newspaper is completely unfamiliar with any obligation to breach difficult subjects. This possibly is beyond the Mirror’s idea of news investigation but no question should ever be off limits, no matter how baseless and so needlessly offensive it may be, as this query doubtless was.

North comes across as rather precious on her site. She makes the ludicrous claim that it’s illegal to quote from her blog without her permission and that, as a rape victim, it’s also against the law to report her personal details despite her waiving her anonymity in revealing the attack.

She describes her contact with Lowde as “psychological war, and in some ways it was worse than the rape and the bomb.” Amongst the comments that she says made her feel harassed was Lowde’s claim that she is “making a living on the backs of the dead”.

North says this in her new persona as a writer, and that after she claimed a few weeks ago that she wanted to put the Lowde matter completely behind her. She now has her first book out - about the bomb - an extract of which (including her relating the Lowde incidents) was published as a double page spread in Saturday's Daily Mail.

Lowde, meanwhile, is serving a six month sentence because of her actions and North's complaint.

Rape and rapists

Some laws just don't deliver. The conviction rate for rapists is shocking. Just 5.6% of those making a rape allegation to the police see a conviction result. Sure, a few allegations will be malicious, but that leaves many women suffering rape without any comeback.

Whilst communists don’t think locking people up is an answer to crime - we need to address why crimes happen and why violence against women is so prevalent - I certainly think rapists should be imprisoned for lack of any present day alternative.

So the government wants to make it easier to convict accused rapists - such as restricting the way that an alleged victim can be cross examined. Surely communists will support such moves? 'I mean, you're not in favour of rape, are you?' I could hear them asking.

The answer is no. Take the case of Clifford Francombe. He was jailed in 2006 for 8 years for a rape committed 21 years previously. From all that I've read about this case there was no forensic evidence - the woman says he did, he says he didn’t - and I can find no mention of any circumstantial evidence. Any case that is just someone’s word against someone else’s, for whatever crime, should never come to court.

Whose laws?

Laws aren’t neutral. They're there to be used to maintain the domination of the ruling class. Even progressive laws, such as those for the protection of women from violence, can be worthwhile reforms but unless they're implemented by a socialist regime, they can also be misused to protect the powerful or to indiscriminately oppress the innocent or the insignificant.

You should be careful what laws you wish for.

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