SOCIALIST UNITY

Congratulations to indefatigable campaigner, Tony Greenstein

At a day long hearing at Brighton magistrates court, Tony Greenstein was found not guilty of collecting money contrary to s.5 of the Factories and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 1916.

Brighton magistrates decided that because the Council’s implementing regulations stipulate that each collector has to have their own collection box, Mr Greenstein could not be guilty of being a ‘collector’ under the Act. On most stalls there is usually just one collective tin.

The Defence argued strongly that the effect of making stalls apply for a collection permit, when permits are only for one off events or at most a series of events, would be to make it more difficult to run campaigns such as Palestine Solidarity Campaign, No War/Solidarity Groups as well as the many ad-hoc groups who spring up over the building of a new supermarket etc.

The Council’s witness, Sara-Jane McNaught, was unable to comment on whether the Council itself had correctly implemented the Act and was forced to resile from crucial parts of her own evidence.

It was abundantly clear that the reason for the Police action, when Brighton PSC has run a stall a stall without police objecting to a collection tin for a decade, was that Brighton PSC had set up their stall alongside EDO-MBM, the group 8 of whose activists were recently acquitted of criminal damage for decomissioning an arms factory.

The Police believed that both stalls were one and the same. PC Dodd, who carried out the confiscation, and the undercover officer in charge, Police Sergeant Baker, had at best a hazy knowledge of the law in question or even the existence of implementing regulations having only been briefed that same morning. PSC was caught in the middle of an undercover operation the Police had mounted against Smash EDO.

The case of course sets no precedent other than in Brighton & Hove itself. What it does mean is that the Police will now think twice about harassing stalls using their collection box as a pretext.

Brian Richardson of Garden Court Chambers acted for the Defence.

This story was also covered in the Guardian Diary column

Salma Yaqoob defends a woman’s right to choose.

Yaqoob, who does not wear a burka, defends the use of the veil, as she debates with Tory MP Philip Hollobone after he calls for them to be banned in public.

Camila Batmanghelidjh from charity Kids Company also joins in the debate.

Broadcast Tuesday 13th July, on BBC1’s Daily Politics programme.

more videos of the event here, including Shami Chakrabarti from Liberty, WEST MIDS Police’s Sharon’ Rowe’s apology and Gareth Peirce.

The issue of course is the positioning of spy cameras in Birmingham deliberately focusing on those parts of the city with a higher proportion of Muslim residents; and implicit acknowledgement of police prejudice.

By Councillor Salma Yaqoob

The victory of appeals by Pakistani students Abid Naseer and Ahmed Faraz Khan against deportation should have marked a victory for human rights in this county. No matter what the charge against them, no person should be deported to a country where they could face torture. And as Mr Justice Mitting commented in his ruling, Pakistan has a ‘long and well-documented history of disappearances, illegal detention and of the torture and ill-treatment of those detained, usually to produce information, a confession or compliance’.

Yet the outcome of this case is anything but a victory for human rights. The entire case has set worrying precedents about the use of secret evidence and trial by media. The men’s lawyer, Gareth Pierce, ‘It’s no victory even though the young men have won, in the sense that they have been stigmatised for life and put at risk or even further risk in their own country on the basis of the shocking phenomenon of secret evidence. It’s no way to conduct justice. If people have committed a crime, put them on trial.’

Both students were among 11 men who were arrested in April last year on suspicion of planning a terrorist attack. Despite being released without charge a fortnight later, ten of the men were immediately detained for several months in prison and deported. Pilloried in the press, their reputations ruined, their lives are changed for evermore on the basis on secret evidence from Pakistan almost certainly attained under torture.

As Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty stated, ‘There simply is no shortcut, no substitute for charges, evidence and proof in these cases. We need to return to core values and the law, not the War on Terror’.

This is priceless, from Harry’s Place.

by Leonie Cooper

It’s not every day you find yourself desperately searching for the collective noun for photographers, but on the morning of January
23rd 2010, it seems to be an oddly pressing question. Even before the midday start time, photographers – amateur and professional – grasping thousands upon thousands of pounds worth of camera equipment are descending on Trafalgar Square. Is it a pack, gaggle, a snapshot or a click of snappers? Who knows, but either way there’s a hell of a lot of them and they’re all here for the I’m A Photographer Not A Terrorist mass photo gathering; a flash mob with flash guns. By 12 there’s a fair couple of thousand of photographers, all looking for that perfect shot, leading to an interesting scenario where the photographers, instead of documenting someone else’s story, have now become the story themselves. So at 12.15pm, when a school portrait style group shot is set to take place on the steps of the Square, everyone gets slightly confused as to whether they should be taking the picture or starring in it. “Cheeeese,” announces the grinning crowd as the sound of hundreds of shutters snapping fills the nippy
winter air.

With pint sized placards doing the rounds, there are, handily, plenty of photo opportunities. The person in the fluro jacket and Guy Fawkes mask a la V For Vendetta understandably gets a lot of love from the lenses as do those sporting hoodies and t-shirts emblazoned with the events slogan as well as the person in the gorilla suit – there’s always one, isn’t there? Then there are the things that no one can quite see what anyone is taking photos of, but people get involved in the spiralling circle pits of snapping because, well, it seems like fun. And it is.

Less fun is the moment all the photographers are ordered down from the steps at the entrance of the National Gallery, which looks out over Trafalgar Square, and which provide a perfect vantage point for an all encompassing shot of the event. People are shooed down the stairs and flimsy barriers are placed at the bottom of the steps, but not before one young man argues his case to a security guard who shakes his head as the on-looking photographers give him a boo worthy of a pantomime baddie.

In amongst all the snapping and shooting, ‘Stop and Search Card’s, worded by Mark Thomas are being handed out, to be shown in times of need. “I pledge to waste your time if you decide to waste mine,” they say, informing officers that if the stop and search they carry out is intrusive, unlawful or malicious, a complaint will be made to the Police Professional Standards Department and then to the Independent Police Complaints Commission. With the cards duly placed in camera bags an announcement is made thanking the crowd for their attendance and informing them of that all important next step, a well deserved trip to the pub.

photos Richard Searle

by Richard Searle
Manchester Respect

Its bitter irony that in a country that has 25% of the worlds CCTV cameras with police forces that regularly deploy teams of photographers to photograph participants of demonstrations and other public gatherings, that our right to photograph is being curtailed and restricted.

Now wielding a camera in public place, whether you’re a professional photographer, or train spotter, or anything in between, you run a very real risk of being, stopped, searched, questioned and detained by the forces of law and order.
Such is the impact of Sec 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, and the new Section 76 of the Counter Terrorism Act - that means anyone taking a photograph of a police officer, or member of the armed services could be deemed to have committed a criminal offence.

However, this is not just another notch in the racheting down of our civil liberties, it goes much further. This impacts on our ability to document, record, not just to capture that ‘decisive moment’ but to photograph, the mundane, the ordinary, the vernacular. In essence it threatens artistic expression per se.

To give you example, a good friend of mine with whom I’ve photographed many a demo, won’t take a camera out late at night in Manchester. He works late, and when leaving work 12- 1am in the morning, he would like to explore night photograph around the streets of Manchester.

But as he says “Imagine being stopped by the police at 1-2 in the morning photographing some public building or whatever misty northern scene you can imagine, as a muslim man, with a degree in Electronics. You try explaining that one to the coppers”

Who can blame him in a city where we have major terrorism raids on a quarterly basis.

This legislation is a clumsy tool in the hands of the Plod, it creates nothing but fear and suspicion

Over the last few months the Indy has carried a number of stories of photographers harassed, searched, detained.
I can also recall an incident of a friend who being caught photographing a sealed drain on one of the streets outside the Labour Party conference in Manchester on his camera phone, he was arrested, and detained and they raided his flat and took his PC.

The issue is surely this.

Next time it could be you and the most dangerous thing you have said is “say cheese”.

However, help is hand, with I am a photographer not a terrorist and all hail to those who set it up (Jess Hurd, David Hoffman, Jonathan Warren and Marc Vallee and others)

With a website with the info that you need, and a Facebook group of 10,000 and growing.
A call to action has been called for this Saturday 23rd January
12 noon Trafalgar Square.

This is an action open to all photographers.

As they put on the website

I’m a Photographer, Not a Terrorist! invite all Photographers to a mass photo gathering in defence of street photography.
Following a series of high profile detentions under s44 of the terrorism act including 7 armed police detaining an award winning architectural photographer in the City of London, the arrest of a press photographer covering campaigning santas at City Airport and the stop and search of a BBC photographer at St Pauls Cathedral and many others.

PHNAT feels now is the time for a mass turnout of Photographers, professional and amateur to defend our rights and stop the abuse of the terror laws”

As with all attacks on our civil liberties, we have to resist, defy and campaign, either until the law is repealed or made redundant.

The images that came out of the G20 demos of last year turned the tables on the surveillance society, we shouldn’t forget that lesson because I’ll can bet you that the authorities haven’t.

Photography in the UK is under attack.
Because No photography means…
No history
No art
No freedom
——————–

Website
http://photographernotaterrorist.org/

A London straight couple, Tom Freeman and Katherine Doyle, plan to challenge the ban on opposite-sex civil partnerships by filing an application at Islington Registry Office in London this Tuesday, 24 November at 10.30am.

They want “heterosexual equality.”

The denial of civil partnerships to straight couples is, they say, “discriminatory and perpetuates legal inequality.”

Doyle and Freeman expect to be turned down by the registrar but they plan to get the refusal in writing, with view to taking legal advice and appealing the refusal.

“If necessary, we are ready to take our appeal all the way to the European Court of Human Rights,” said Mr Freeman and Ms Doyle.

The couple’s equality bid is backed by the gay rights group OutRage! and by human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell. He will join them on 24 November when they give notice of their civil partnership at Islington Town Hall’s Registry Office.

Mr Tatchell commented:

“We are against both homophobic and heterophobic laws. In a democratic society, everyone should be treated equally. There should be no legal discrimination. The ban on same-sex civil marriage and on opposite-sex civil partnerships is a form of sexual apartheid. It is one law for straight couples and another law for gay partners. Two wrongs don’t make a right,” he said.

Outlining the reasons why they decided to opt for a civil partnership instead of marriage, Katherine Doyle said:

“We have been together for three and a half years and would like to formalise our relationship. Because we feel alienated from the patriarchal traditions of marriage, we would prefer to have a civil partnership. As a mixed-sex couple, we are banned by law from doing so. By filing an application for civil partnership, we are seeking to challenge this discriminatory law.

“Our decision is also motivated by the fact that we object to the way same-sex couples are prohibited from getting married. If we got married we would be colluding with the segregation that exists in matrimonial law between gay civil partnerships and straight civil
marriage. We don’t want to take advantage of civil marriage when it is an option that is denied to our lesbian and gay friends,” she said.

Doyle and Freeman will be giving notice of their intention to form a civil partnership at 10.30am, on Tuesday 24th November 2009 at Islington Registry Office, Islington Town Hall, Upper Street, London, N1 2UD

Tom Freeman (25, civil servant) said:

“We want to secure official status for our relationship in a way that supports the call for complete equality and is free of the negative connotations of marriage.

“If we cannot have a civil partnership, we will not get married. On a point of principle, we will remain unmarried until opposite sex couples can have a civil partnership and same-sex couples can have a civil marriage.

“We are taking this stand against discrimination and in support of legal equality for everyone, regardless of sexual orientation.

“The ’separate but equal’ system which segregates couples according to their sexuality is not equal at all. All loving couples should have access to the same institutions, regardless of sexuality. There should be parity of respect and rights,” he said.

Katherine Doyle (25, civil servant) added:

“We don’t like the institution of marriage. We would much prefer a civil partnership. It is time there was full legal equality, with both civil marriage and civil partnerships open to gay and straight couples. We want a choice and all other couples should also have a choice, irrespective of their sexuality.

“Just as lesbian and gay couples should be able to have a civil marriage, civil partnerships should be available to straight couples who don’t like the institution of marriage,” she said.

Under UK law, same-sex couples are banned from civil marriage and heterosexual couples are banned from civil partnerships (called civil unions in the US).

Mr Tatchell commented:

“The ban on heterosexual civil partnerships is heterophobic. It is disciminatory and offensive. I want to see it ended, so that straight couples like Tom and Katherine can have the option of a civil partnership.

“I applaud their challenge to this unjust legislation,” he said.

From Canadian Press

TORONTO: British MP George Galloway who was denied entry into Canada on the grounds he supported a terrorist group welcomed a court decision to hear his case, saying Monday he would like to testify in person.

In a statement from London, George Galloway called the decision by the Federal Court to review the ban a “substantial” win.

“I’m really pleased that the first step in the eventual victory has been achieved,” Galloway said.

“I am confident that the court … will make the correct decision - that I was unfairly banned.”

Galloway was to make a four-city speaking tour in March but was denied entry to Canada. The case sparked an uproar about freedom of speech.

At the time, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said, “I believe folks that are supporting and promoting and helping terrorist organizations are not needed to visit Canada.”

The outspoken MP strenuously denied supporting terrorism.

He argued he supported the people of Gaza and could only do that through dealing with its elected Hamas government, which Canada considers a terrorist organization.

Kenney’s spokesman Alykhan Velshi said Monday it was never the minister’s decision to keep Galloway out.

“The minister of immigration refused to overturn a preliminary assessment by the Canada Border Services Agency that Galloway was inadmissible to Canada on the grounds he had supported a terrorist organization,” Velshi said from Ottawa.

“As the matter is currently before the courts, it would be inappropriate for me to comment (further).”

Galloway also launched a libel suit against Kenney, but dropped that several months ago.

“It’s so expensive, he couldn’t see it through to the end having already spent something like $30,000 or $40,000 - it was going to cost $1 million or more,” Galloway’s spokesman, Ron McKay, said from Scotland.

“So, we’ve concentrated our powder really on this case rather than on the libel case.”

McKay said the MP was keen to testify in person, but that would depend on whether Galloway would be allowed into Canada or otherwise be able to appear via a video link.

Galloway’s supporters, including the Toronto Coalition to Stop the War and other peace groups, failed in March to win an emergency injunction to allow him into Canada so he could speak.

In nixing that request, a Federal Court judge said he did not have enough information to make a decision, but added that he did believe there were “serious issues” to be tried.

Galloway later addressed his Canadian audiences on his opposition to the war in Afghanistan and his humanitarian support for people in Gaza via a video link.

His lawyers are now awaiting government documents related to the issue ahead of the Federal Court hearing.

Toronto lawyer Hadayt Nazami said he welcomed the decision to grant leave for the review.

“We are pleased that we are going to have our day in court,” Nazami said. “Obviously, it’s a significant step in the process.”

Federal Court is expected to hear the case Jan. 26

Steve Acheson is a Unite/EPIU member who has been protesting outside Fiddlers Ferry power station, Warrington, since his unfair dismissal by contractors in December 2008. He has now been served with notice of an injunction against his protest. Steve and his supporters stand outside the power station every Monday and Friday from 7. 30 am as a peaceful protest against his unfair dismissal and subsequent denial of a grievance process. None of them has ever attempted to enter the power station, or disrupt generation, or block the entrance to the site.

According to Labour Net, there is a truly Kafka-esque twist, that the papers he was served with for the injunction did not originally give a time, date or place for the court hearing. This is because Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) want to secure an injunction ‘without notice’, that is without Steve knowing of it before it is created. In law this will only be granted if there is an imminent threat of harm or loss. To this end the injunction makes various fantastical claims that Steve and his supporters pose a danger to the National Grid!

We now learn that the hearing is in the Royal Courts of Justice, London, on Wednesday 21st October at 10.30am, and the injunction is being brought under the Terrorism Act ; seeking to show that Steve, as the 1st respondent; others unnamed [as second respondents], by their constant picketing of the site represent “a threat to the energy supplies of this country”.

Because this application is being brought under the Terrorism Act, Steve will not be able to defend himself at this hearing. The basis of the application is that by picketing the site he is committing a Trespass because he and others are on the Firm’s property; that having issued leaflets to workers on the site calling for ‘direct action’ he is ‘inciting’ the workforce to commit acts contrary to the national interest which may impact on energy supplies and; that he has, at times, acted in a way that might have intimidated the workforce.

There is no mention in the company’s deposition to the Court that he was formerly employed by them, nor that his picket represents a campaign against blacklisting. One senior trade union leader in the RMT has already said that if this goes ahead it will have consequences for the whole trade union movement. This is importnat because if anyone has broken the law here it was Steve’s employers who broke local agreements, and the law of the land, in sacking him contrary to the agreed rules on the site. His employer, such is the abysmal contractor culture on these projects, was a sub-contractor to a sub-contractor to a contractor to Scottish and Souther Engery (SSE), and SSE could at any time have got Steve re-instated, or at least got him access to a grievance procedure.