Posts tagged: free speech
![How much money does the UK judicial system expend in its own domestic rape prosecutions on average?
anarcho-queer:
Photo Accidentally Reveals UK Determination To Arrest Assange ‘Under All Circumstances’
It is the “restricted” official document that sums up the Metropolitan police’s tactics towards Julian Assange. “Action required: Assange to be arrested under all circumstances,” says the handwritten note that was photographed under a policeman’s arm on Friday detailing a “summary of the current position” on Assange’s exile inside the Ecuadorean embassy in Knightsbridge.
It is no surprise that a fugitive from a European arrest warrant that demands removal to Sweden to face allegations of rape and sexual assault should face such a fate. Police officers are stationed right up against the front and back of the embassy where Assange has sought sanctuary and he recently claimed to have heard them “swarming” behind the fire escape.
There should be no escape, the note suggests, ordering that Assange is arrested if “he comes out with dip [presumably a diplomat] … as dip bag [which allows immunity from search for diplomatic communications, and which could be as large as a suitcase, crate or even a shipping container], in dip car …. in dip vehicle.”
The note mentions “SS10 to liaise”. The Met police press office said it had no idea what this might mean. Could it be a misspelling of SO10, the colloquial name for the Met’s covert operations group? The later mention of SO20 suggests what Assange and his supporters have always feared: that the western powers that WikiLeaks has done so much to embarrass might consider him some sort of terrorist. SO20 is the Met’s counter-terrorism protective security command.
However, on Friday night the Met said the reference to SO20 was not connected to the Assange case and were notes from a briefing on another matter.
The United Kingdom has invested an extraordinary amount of judicial resources in the attempted extradition of Julian Assange. The Government of Sweden has not even laid charges, but merely desires to question Mr. Assange at this time.
I wonder how U.K. rape survivors feel to see these extraordinary extremes pursued in aid of a foreign government that has not even availed itself of the opportunity to to simply question him on U.K. soil. I would think any criminal investigation would begin to lose its effectiveness as time passes.
Does the U.K. pursue all rape allegations so vigorously?](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m9bru6Ase01r4vpxio1_1280.jpg)
How much money does the UK judicial system expend in its own domestic rape prosecutions on average?
Photo Accidentally Reveals UK Determination To Arrest Assange ‘Under All Circumstances’
It is the “restricted” official document that sums up the Metropolitan police’s tactics towards Julian Assange. “Action required: Assange to be arrested under all circumstances,” says the handwritten note that was photographed under a policeman’s arm on Friday detailing a “summary of the current position” on Assange’s exile inside the Ecuadorean embassy in Knightsbridge.
It is no surprise that a fugitive from a European arrest warrant that demands removal to Sweden to face allegations of rape and sexual assault should face such a fate. Police officers are stationed right up against the front and back of the embassy where Assange has sought sanctuary and he recently claimed to have heard them “swarming” behind the fire escape.
There should be no escape, the note suggests, ordering that Assange is arrested if “he comes out with dip [presumably a diplomat] … as dip bag [which allows immunity from search for diplomatic communications, and which could be as large as a suitcase, crate or even a shipping container], in dip car …. in dip vehicle.”
The note mentions “SS10 to liaise”. The Met police press office said it had no idea what this might mean. Could it be a misspelling of SO10, the colloquial name for the Met’s covert operations group? The later mention of SO20 suggests what Assange and his supporters have always feared: that the western powers that WikiLeaks has done so much to embarrass might consider him some sort of terrorist. SO20 is the Met’s counter-terrorism protective security command.
However, on Friday night the Met said the reference to SO20 was not connected to the Assange case and were notes from a briefing on another matter.
The United Kingdom has invested an extraordinary amount of judicial resources in the attempted extradition of Julian Assange. The Government of Sweden has not even laid charges, but merely desires to question Mr. Assange at this time.
I wonder how U.K. rape survivors feel to see these extraordinary extremes pursued in aid of a foreign government that has not even availed itself of the opportunity to to simply question him on U.K. soil. I would think any criminal investigation would begin to lose its effectiveness as time passes.
Does the U.K. pursue all rape allegations so vigorously?
“To this day I find it astonishing that, in our country, we need the support of several thousands of individuals in order to put an end to the despotism of one or a handful of bureaucrats.” ~ Maria Alyokhina, Pussy Riot
Maplehurst
We were doing our holiday rounds at Christmas when we drove past Maplehurst, so I took this photograph, figuring I’d need it eventually.
Byron Sonne was incarcerated here as a “remand prisoner” (someone awaiting trial) for nearly a year because he was denied bail. Rapists and murderers are released on bail every day; not Byron.
I think Byron’s plight bothers me most as a mother; this is a young man who is willing to stand up for civil rights; and what can be more important for our children’s future than that?
Byron’s trial resumes tomorrow at 361 University Avenue, Toronto
(translated) Young people who protested against the pressure on independent journalists, gag statues, sculptures and hanging banners reading: “Belarus is forbidden to speak the truth,” “No - pressure on the independent press,” “I do not want to shut down independent sites!”
A similar action took place in the Ukrainian Lutsk, the website “Freedom Fight”.
These days Young European Federalists hold a pan-European campaign for the freedom of speech in Belarus. In order to draw public attention to the numerous human rights violations in Belarus, the gag statues throughout Europe.
Geoff Brigham, #Wikimedia Foundation’s General Counsel, provides excellent reasons why the amended version of #SOPA should not be passed,
via Glyn Moody
Getting Naked for Ai Weiwei
BEIJING — When Ai Weiwei’s assistant, Beijing artist Zhao Zhao, was brought in for questioning recently, the supposed charges were simple: distribution of pornography. The image in question was “One Tiger, Eight Breasts,” a shot of Ai with four young women, all of them naked. I first saw the photo in August 2010, when he tweeted a link to it and said “Trusting each other fully,” though the link to the image no longer works. READ MORE
Arrests at Free Speech Demonstration, Sunday 28 January 1912
Members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or Wobblies) being arrested for defying a ban on soap box orating at the Powell Street Grounds (Oppenheimer Park) in 1912.
For a detailed account of this and a similar campaign in 1909, see Mark Leier, “Solidarity on Occasion: The Vancouver Free Speech Fights of 1909 and 1912,” Labour/Le Travail #23 (Spring 1989)
Source: British Columbia Archives #D-0638
The more things change, the more things stay the same. Or get worse.
http://julianichim.wordpress.com/2011/11/15/the-politics-of-fear/
This young man wrote a blog and was told by the police that he had to redact it, because he named the undercover police officer who gained his trust, became his friend and set him up. Like any good activist blogger, Ichim began blogging about it. Now the police are trying to make him take it down, he’s been threatened with arrest, and his blog talks about what it’s like.
The name that he named was the Undercover Cop’s fake name.
Not even the real name.
You can read about it here.
http://julianichim.wordpress.com/2011/11/14/khalid-mohhamed-aka-police-infiltrator/
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