Robert Sharp

Barrister

Tag: Human Rights (Page 34 of 41)

Filming the Police, Filming Us

16 April 2009 / / 8 Comments

Riot Police at the G20 Protests, London, 1st April 2009

Riot Police at the G20 Protests, London, 1st April 2009. Photo by PublicCCTV.


At the CentreRight blog (via LibCon), Graeme Archer has posted some ideas for reform of the police in light of the appalling Ian Tomlinson incident.
He begins

The police, particularly in London, appear to have forgotten that they police only with our consent. They are not the armed wing of the state. Some reforms are therefore long overdue

Of the suggestions he lists, I have mixed feelings about this pair:

  • Just as the storage of DNA from wholly innocent citizens is an outrage, so is the routine video-ing of members of the public by police officers. This must stop.
  • In contrast, members of the public must never be prevented from recording the activities of police officers.

I recall a point made by the former pedant Cleanthes, commenting on my Notes for Michael, who cited Robert Peel’s principles for policing:

An agent of the state???? That, Robert, in one succint phrase is the most daming indictment of the damage that has been done to the ethos of the Police over the last few decades.
Read Peel’s Principles here. Especially no.7:

Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.

Libertarian Ian Parker-Joseph made a similar point in the comments to the CentreRight post.
On the issue of filming, it seems to me we can’t have it both ways. If the police are indeed simply citizens in uniform, then they surely have the same rights to film people in public, as the rest of the citizenry? If we are allowed to film them, surely they should be allowed to film us, no? Placing a different set of restrictions on the police on this issue would violate Peel’s principle.
And before anyone brings up CCTV, Cleanthes and I have already discussed the difference between automated and eyeball policing at The Select Society.

Cycle Mounted Police at the National Theatre. CC Licence.

Cycle Mounted Police at the National Theatre.

Gay Marriage in America

9 April 2009 / / 4 Comments

The state legislature of Vermont has just voted to extend the right to marry, to homosexual couples.  Meanwhile in Iowa, the state supreme Court has ruled that denying gays the right to marry is unconstitutional.   If you believe Andrew Sullivan, then the floodgates have opened in America and gays are finally nearing the promised land that is  full equality.  However, Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight predicts that it will take a little longer for some of the deep south states to vote in favour.  His model says that Mississippi would not liberalise until 2024.
Predictably, there is a backlash from the socially conservative segment in American society.  The most intellectually inept I have seen comes from Michael Savage at WorldNet Daily:

There is a rising tide of pink fascism in this country, and it comes as a result of the election of Barack Hussein Obama.

The I think the ‘Hussain’ meme, which implies that the President is a secret Muslim, offers increasingly diminishing returns.  That some columnists in America are still earnestly deploying it is quite, quite sad.  However, to use it in the same sentence as the ‘pink fascism’ slur makes no sense whatsoever.

Abolish Seditious Libel

20 March 2009 / / 2 Comments

English PEN (my new employers, for those who haven’t been paying attention) have just published a letter in The Times, backing an ammendment to Coroners & Justic Bill by the the Liberal Democrat Evan Harris:

On Monday Parliament will have a unique opportunity to repeal the arcane and antiquated offences of seditious libel and criminal defamation. These two crimes date from an era when governments preferred to lock up their critics than to engage them in debate, and are incompatible with the universal right to freedom of expression. Their repeal is long overdue, and will send a powerful signal to states around the world which routinely use charges of sedition and criminal defamation to imprison their critics and silence dissent.

There’s more at the Times Online…

Blogging Can Kill You

19 March 2009 / / 0 Comments

… in Iran.  Omid Reza Mir Sayafi, Iranian blogger Dies in Prison.

In December, he was sentenced to two and half years in prison for allegedly insulting religious leaders, and engaging in propaganda against the Islamic Republic of Iran. Mir Sayafi was still awaiting an additional trial for insulting Islam.
…
In an interview [fa] with Human Rights activists in Iran a few days before going to prison, Omid Reza said his blog was a cultural blog and not intended to be insulting.

This is via the Global Voices Advocacy site, which has been nominated for a 2009 Index of Censorship Freedom of Expression Award.

Defamation of Religion

12 March 2009 / / 2 Comments

This doesn’t look good:

Stressing that defamation of religions is a serious affront to human dignity leading to restriction on the freedom of religion of their adherents and incitement to religious hatred and violence…

The above is tajken from a text of a proposed UN Human Rights Council Resolution, seeking to condemn “defamation of religion”.  It only seems to mention Islam, however, and also says:

Deplores the use of the print, audio-visual and electronic media, including the Internet, and any other means to incite acts of violence, xenophobia or related intolerance and discrimination towards any religion, as well as targeting of religious symbols and venerated persons…

The problem here is that incitement to hatered and defamation of religion are two different things. English PEN argued this point when a Bill of similar spirit was introduced in 2005. Part of the problem is that intolerant groups like the BNP use the cover of religious criticism to veil their extreme xenophobia, and to inspire violence. But on the other hand, the idea of blasphemy and defamation are increasingly used to block any criticism of religion, which is never healthy.
The UN Watch blog says that the resolution is likely to be adopted, but is not binding on individual countries.  Nevertheless, it could mean that the UN is neutered in many human rights/free speech cases, such as the current travesty in Afghanistan, where Pervez Kambaksh has been sentenced to 20 years in prison on blasphemy charges.
I’ve always thought that both constructive criticism, and even satire, of any given faith was a sign of acceptance, like the teasing banter between teammates.  Its a sign that the majority agree that the minority group is here to stay, and must be engaged with.  Indeed, thoughtful criticism of a religion is also a tacit admission that it contains valuable aspects too. It is something to be welcomed, something that makes everyone strong.
That’s not how others see things, though.

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