Happy "Screw the Poor" Day, everyone!

Welcome to Budget Day, or as we've come to know it - the day where the government announce the new and innovative ways they've concoted to ruin lives and run this country into the ground.

In ten months of Tory government, plus five years under the Coalition, we’ve witnessed a comprehensive, ruthless, unrelenting attack on disabled people, low earners, unemployed people, families, elderly people, migrants, hospitals, schools, unions, civil rights, and the very fabric of democracy.

We were told that this was all necessary, and that our country’s fragile economy would be shored up as a result of all these cost-cutting measures. This should go down in history as one of the biggest LIES ever told by a government to its people. 

Here's a handful of truths instead:

Disability

• Over 14,000 disabled people have lost their mobility cars through switching from DLA to PIP
• 18,000 people lost vital assistance when the IndependentLiving Fund was closed last year
• The government used a loophole to reject calls from the House of Lords for an impact assessment before voting through a further £30 aweek cut to Employment Support Allowance (ESA)
• Proposed further cuts to PIP will see 200,000 disabledpeople lose £3000 a year
• The government admits that at least 2000 people have died following Work Capability Assessments, though campaigners say the true figure is much higher.
• WCAs have also been linked to 279,000 new cases of mental health problems, and 725,000 new prescriptions for anti-depressants.
• Disabled people have been hit up to 19 times harder byausterity cuts.
• While demand for mental health services has soared by 20% in the last five years, funding has been cut by 8% in real terms.

Credit: Centre for Welfare Reform

Housing and homelessness:

• The average house price is now over TEN times a person’s income, and in London NINETEEN times the average salary.
• Of the NINE MILLION private renters in the UK, one-third ofprivately rented homes fail to meet the Decent Homes Standard.
• More than 50,000 families are recorded as homeless every year, with over 103,000 children recorded as homeless for Christmas 2015.
• A third of homeless people are made so because of a privatetenancy ending, and being unable to afford to find another home – this figure has trebled under David Cameron, from 11% in 2009.
• The Tories rejected an amendment to the Housing and PlanningBill, which would see landlords required to ensure that homes are fit for habitation.
• The CAB estimates that over 700,000 families are living in privately rented homes that are unfit for habitation, with landlords taking in £5.6bn in rent for those properties.
• Over 15,000 homeless families have been put into emergency B&B accommodation in a different local authority – sometimes an hour and a half’s travelling time away from children’s schools.
• Research by letting agents Your Move and Reeds Rains showed rents in England and Wales had increased by 15% since May 2010, or 3.6% beyond inflation.

Credit: Shelter via ITV

Education and Teaching

• The government has announced that by 2020, all schools willhave converted to academy status.
• Overwhelming evidence has shown that academies are more thantwice as likely to become “inadequate” in Ofsted terms than schools under Local Authority control, and up to TWELVE times as likely to remain “inadequate” rather than improve.
• Teachers report working on average 59 hours a week, only 1/3 of which is spent on teaching. The rest is spent on planning, administration, and management.
• The number of teachers leaving the profession has risen by11% over the past 3 years, and 75% of those leave before retirement.
• Workload came top (61%) in reasons given by teachers who were thinking of leaving the profession in a recent YouGov survey for the National Union of Teachers, closely followed by seeking a better work-life balance (57%).
• 55% of 338 school leaders surveyed by the Association of School and College Leaders have reported a large rise in pupils with anxietyand stress.
• The NSPCC reported that the number of young people in Britain seeking counselling over exam stress has increased by 200% in recentyears.
• In 2013-14 ChildLine said it received more than 34,000approaches from young people over school worries such as revision, workloads, problems with teachers
• The “Prevent” agenda has been branded toxic and criticised for exacerbating Islamophobia, as families report feeling threatened with having their children removed.
• Some Further Education staff have experienced a real-termspay cut of 17% after years of below-inflation rises and pay freezes.
• Spending for adult education has been slashed by 25%, with a loss of over a million adult learners so far.
• £45million has been cut from ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) classes, affecting 16,000 places.
• University maintenance grants for the UK’s poorest studentswere scrapped without a Commons vote, after a legislation committee with just 17 MPs present took the decision.
• The poorest students will now graduate with an average £53,000 debt.
• Around 45% of student loans will never be paid off, creating a financial time bomb for future years.

TUC "Britain Needs A Payrise" demonstration, October 2014. Credit: www.civilserviceworld.com

So I originally started writing this as a shouty Facebook post to summarise a few key terrible things the Tories have subjected us to since getting their claws back into government in 2010, and what horrors may unfold as the 2016/17 Budget is announced today. I've had to stop, partially because the list is now SO long - and I've barely scratched the surface, and certainly haven't analysed the impact on people's lives - but mostly because it's thoroughly demoralising to actually try and pull together a comprehensive overview of just how bad this government is. 

I haven't even touched on what they've done to the NHS, the conditions endured by migrants and refugees, our failure to address our role in climate change, human rights, civil rights, and so many other areas that the Tories are continually wrecking. 

We were sold the austerity package as the only hope of stabilishing our economy in the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008/9. We were told there was no alternative, that we were all in this together. 

Well as the richest 1000 families saw their personal wealth double since the recession, while the net wealth of the poorest 20% has decreased by 57%, I don't feel very TOGETHER. 

With more and more devastating cuts wreaked on the most vulnerable sectors of our society, written into legislation by millionaire MPs who have personal stakes in private companies now holding contracts for the NHS, have massive property portfolios for private rental, and make a fortune from lobbying groups - I don't feel very TOGETHER. 

Countries such as Iceland, who were also hit by the recession, have gotten their economy back on track by letting the banks go bust instead of bailing them out, investing in public services and jailing the bankers who caused the economic crisis. Meanwhile, our deficit hasn't even been halved, when Osborne claimed he would have eradicated it by 2015, and we have created more new debt since 2010 than every Labour government in UK history combined. 

There was always an alternative. Austerity is a lie, and we continue to be conned by it. Eleven-million voters were conned by their promises in 2015, and now the remaining fifty-five million people in the UK are paying the price. 

Every single petition that calls on the government to reverse or halt another devastating decision under the banner of austerity, every last demonstration and protest, every piece of alternative media that exposes their lies - every small and seemingly inconsequential thing we do chips away at their facade. By getting organised, mobilising into a united front, and keeping up the pressure on them, we stand a small chance of making a difference. And if not, I'm sure as hell not going to let them get away quietly.

This seems like a logical place to plug the next People's Assembly demonstration. 

April 16th, central London - March for Health, Homes, Jobs, and Education.

On the campaign for electoral reform: "I didn't vote for these cuts".

"Two very different ideas are usually confounded under the name democracy. The pure idea of democracy, according to its definition, is the government of the whole people by the whole people, equally represented. Democracy as commonly conceived and hitherto practised is the government of the whole people by a mere majority of the people, exclusively represented. The former is synonymous with the equality of all citizens; the latter, strangely confounded with it, is a government of privilege, in favour of the numerical majority, who alone possess practically any voice in the State. This is the inevitable consequence of the manner in which the votes are now taken, to the complete disfranchisement of minorities." 

-John Stuart Mill, Representative Government, 1861

The 2015 general election... I'm still struggling to find words that really convey how I'm feeling, having watched with increasing despondency as the results rolled in and the Conservative seats went up and up. None of the opinion polls from the past few months indicated that we were headed for a Conservative majority, and there is a definite mood of pure dread at what the election result will mean for vulnerable people who have already borne 5 years of devastating austerity measures. 

There are some messages of hope, however. Caroline Lucas, Green MP for Brighton Pavilion, was re-elected with a massively increased majority. All over the UK, the Greens' share of the vote has surged upwards, with us coming second in more seats than ever before and sending a clear message to the establishment that people are not happy with the status quo and that the First Past the Post voting system needs to go. 

The Tories may have a majority this time, but it is a much smaller majority than the last government, with 331 seats compared to the 363 seats that made up the Coalition Government which formed after the 2010 election (306 Conservative, 57 Liberal Democrats). When you factor in the enormous increase in the presence of the SNP, who now have 56 MPs (up from their previous number of 6), a different picture of parliament emerges. There is now a much stronger - much needed - anti-austerity presence in parliament than ever before.

It is an indictment of our outdated voting system that we once again have a Prime Minister and a government controlled by a party whom two-thirds of voters didn't elect. If we include the number of people who didn't vote at all, the Conservative vote share drops to less than a quarter. 

More than 75% of registered UK voters didn't vote for a Conservative MP, and yet because of the First Past the Post system, 100% of people living in the UK will have to live under Conservative policies. 

Realising that little point has gone some way to restoring my faith in British people rather a lot, having spent a reasonable amount of the past couple of days wondering how on earth so many could vote for a party who have overseen such horrendous consequences of the austerity agenda, and an abject failure to have achieved their own goal of reducing national debt and eradicating the budget deficit in the process. 

On my way to the People's Assembly "No More Austerity" demo, June 2014

To briefly address those who may counter by saying that the call for electoral reform is because lefties are sore losers, I'd just like to point out that moving away from First Past the Post is something supported by a vast range of parties, and that the biggest gains would potentially be for UKIP - a far-right party! In actual fact, a move towards a more representative voting system would benefit everyone in the country. 

Whilst I may abhor UKIP's exploitation of xenophobia and discrimination against migrants to further their anti-EU agenda, the fact is that people vote for them. In fact, almost 4million people voted for them this Thursday, but the FPtP system yielded just one UKIP MP. Furthermore, because MPs are only permitted to respond to issues from people living in their own constituency, it is only the 19,642 people living in Clacton who voted for Douglas Carswell who will be directly represented in parliament. Likewise, while the Green Party secured over 1million votes, only the 22,871 who elected Caroline Lucas as MP for Brighton Pavilion will be able to contact her, while the remaining 1,134,742 Green voters in England and Wales are effectively left unrepresented. 

Photo from Another Angry Voice on Facebook

An electoral system which leaves 98% of voters with no representation in parliament for their preferred party is simply not fit for purpose, and people all over the UK are waking up to this fact. 

So how do we change things? Moving to a system of proportional representation (PR) would be one step, because it broadens the pool from which votes are counted so instead of electing one MP per constituency, seats in parliament would be drawn from a much larger pool and allocated according to shares of the overall vote. Depending on how this is organised, this would mean that votes in Brighton are counted alongside votes in Sunderland and that no voter is left unrepresented in the way they are now. 

If we pooled all the votes from the UK and allocated the 650 seats in Parliament using the D'Hondt method of PR (as is used in the European elections), the make-up of the House of Commons would look like this:

If we pool all the votes across the nation to allocate seats, how do we then decide which candidates actually take up those seats? Without constituency MPs (which isn't compatible with PR), how do we ensure that there is a strong link between voters, local government and their representatives in Westminster? There's a few different ways of doing this:

• by country - group the votes together for Scotland, then England, then Wales and then Northern Ireland, and allocate seats accordingly
• by region - as in the European elections - East Midlands, East of England, London, North East England, North West England, South East England, South West England, West Midlands, Yorkshire andthe Humber, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland
• by merging the current 650 constituencies into fewer but much larger constituencies

Each of these methods would require another step to decide which candidates takes up the seats won; the European elections use party lists, where the parties decide in advance a list of preference for the candidates, and seats are allocated in that order. This has many criticisms, not least that it should be down to the people to decide who their candidate is rather than being pre-selected by the party. Another Angry Voice author, Thomas Clark, has summed this up and suggested an alternative in his blog HERE.

When you change how MPs are elected, inevitably the local link to parliament is compromised. It is incredibly important for accountability and democracy that people feel that government is accessible, however, and so a move towards PR would have to go hand in hand with changes to how district, borough and town councils work. The most logical way to do this, would be to expand councils - have more councillors, devolve more power to councils and give them much more funding. Decisions should be made at the most local level possible, and that is something that the Coalition really undermined. 

My ideal electoral system would have fewer MPs, all elected by a form of PR; much more power and funding for local councils, with more councillors elected; reform of the role of MPs so they work more closely with councils to create a better flow between Westminster and local government; reform of how parliament operates, with the Prime Minister elected by MPs instead of automatically going to the leader of the party with most seats. 

If we can achieve this, and combine it with other steps such as capping donations to political parties, closer regulation of election spending, and establishing an independent regulatory body for press ethics, we could create a political system which is much fairer, more democratic, much more accessible - and actually represents the vast spectrum of political views across the nation.

All of this is possible. It's not a dream. Campaigning for proportional representation is one way that we can fight for the politics we deserve, but there are many other ways we can work together in the next 5 years against whatever nightmares the Conservatives plan to unleash. There will be demonstrations aplenty, community groups in need of volunteers, petitions to send to Westminster, social media to spread the word - and political parties you can join (*coff* join.greenparty.org.uk *coff*).

We've had a day to feel glum about the election outcome. Now it's time to dust ourselves off, prop one another up and get out there to fight. 

Remember, 75% of adults in the UK didn't vote Conservative.

Actually we'd probably have even more because nobody would have to vote tactically!

Palestine

A post about Palestine had to happen some time. I haven't been ignoring this stream of atrocities; I just haven't been able to gather the will to write something coherent and intelligent about it. I've shared stuff on Facebook and Twitter from people far more knowledgeable than myself, spoken with friends at length about our shared horror, joined the solidarity campaigns, signed petitions and written to my MP. And still the death toll rises, the UK & US governments trot out the faux-diplomatic subtly pro-Israel speeches, and an end to the violence feels as far away as ever.

Today is August 4th, and from the figures I can find, the death toll in Gaza stands at 1,822, the overwhelming majority of whom were civilians, children in particular. 

I have seen countless heart-wrenching images of dead children over the last few weeks. While the temptation to look away is strong, I feel it is my duty to see these losses, to share in my miniscule, feeble way, the anguish of their parents. I will not hide my head in the sand and get on with my cosy Western life, pretending that there aren't innocent people being killed. 

Violence of this nature is, of course, not restricted to Palestine. The Israeli government is not the only authority to exact terrible murderous atrocities against innocents. Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ukraine, Sudan, Nigeria, and more - all of these countries are experiencing ongoing violence and conflict, with untold numbers of civilian deaths and injuries. 

What makes Gaza stand out, for me, is the UK's role in creating and sustaining the oppression of the Palestinian people. I shan't attempt to outline the history here, but I do urge you to look into it if you don't already know the background. In short, the Palestinians have been systematically marginalised and oppressed over the last 60 years, and broadly speaking, much of the responsibility for that rests on the shoulders of the British and American governments, both historically and currently. Today Caroline Lucas, Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion, called for an urgent arms embargo on Israel, and highlighted that  since 2010 Britain has sold £42million worth of military equipment to Israel. Just a few days ago, after condemning the shelling of a UN school in Gaza, the US government opened up their Israel-based weapons store to the Israeli forces and yesterday, news broke that congress has pledged $225million to replenish Israel's missile stocks.

Meanwhile, the people of Gaza - the targets for all this weaponry supplied, largely, by Britain and America - cannot escape. They are literally walled in, and even their shelters in the forms of schools and hospitals are increasingly falling victim to shelling attacks.

The pretext for this month-long wave of attacks from Israel - the "collective punishment" meted out as retribution for the kidnapping and murders of three Israeli teenagers - has quietly been exposed as not in fact the work of Hamas, but a lone cell. But has the violence abated? No. It escalates daily. And people die by the hundreds.

I saw a post on Facebook that made for an interesting analogy:

Let's stop "other-ising" the people in Gaza for the moment, shall we. Let's imagine that these are fellow human beings, in a beyond desperate state with not so much as a hint of a light at the end of the tunnel. 

There are small things that each of us can do that, collectively, may make just enough of a difference to force the UK government to change its course of action (or lack thereof). There are petitions and open letters to sign, email templates to send to your local MP, charities you can support, marches and demonstrations to join - and you can carry on witnessing and acknowledging that the suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza is real and gut-wrenchingly unfair. 

To the people of Gaza: I see your pain and suffering. I see the destruction of your homes, hospitals, schools and livelihoods. I will not turn my eyes away from the obliterated streets lined with torn bodies and pretend you are not there. I see you. 

Some useful links:

Palestine Solidarity Campaign: http://www.palestinecampaign.org/

Open letter to David Cameron: http://act.palestinecampaign.org/petition/23

Petition to UK government to end the conflict: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/67165

The People's Assembly "No More Austerity" demonstration.

Yesterday, June 21st 2014, fifty-thousand people marched through London as part of The People's Assembly march against austerity cuts to public services and welfare imposed by the coalition government. 

Along with other members of Milton Keynes Green Party, I joined them alongside representatives from organisations such as National Union of Teachers, Unison, Fire Brigades Union, Socialist Workers Party, Left Unity, RMT, and many, many others. 

Me with other MK Young Greens members, getting ready to march to Westminster

Chorusing chants such as "No ifs; No buts; No public sector cuts!", "Hey - ho, Michael Gove has got to GO", "They say CUT BACK, we say FIGHT BACK", the crowd set off from outside BBC headquarters on Portland Place and walked along Regent Street, through Piccadilly Circus to Trafalgar Square, and then down Whitehall to the Houses of Parliament, stopping briefly outside Downing Street to call "Con-Dems OUT!". Passers-by took photos, cheered us on and some walked along side us. Cars driving by tooted their horns to show their support too. 

When the march had concluded at Parliament Square, speakers took to the podium to talk about the issues that had driven us all to take part in this demonstration. While the few media outlets who have covered the day's events chose to focus on Russell Brand's speech, there were many others worthy of attention. This from Caroline Lucas, for example:

If I learned anything from the day, it was that the number of people disgusted with the government's financial tactics over the past few years is higher than I dared to imagine. It is an anger that has united many and varied groups and organisations in the UK, all of whom demand an end to the demonisation of the poor, the exploitation of the vulnerable, the contempt for public sector workers, and the greed of the corporate elite and their government allies. 

This was not a standalone action. There are strikes to come, further demonstrations later this year and a committed campaign from The Green Party - who are the only mainstream political party with a manifesto that promises fair and equal treatment for all, regardless of wealth or status. 

The BBC and most mainstream media outlets elected not to give even a whisper of coverage to yesterday's demonstration. While I'm not surprised by the likes of the Daily Mail or Telegraph failing to bother with it, we should all be dismayed that the BBC, who claim to be a politically impartial news source and who are publicly funded by the licence fee - are clearly operating a right-wing, pro-coalition government agenda by covering up the people's endeavour to make heard their objections. 

Social media is a powerful tool, and many others like myself are trying to raise public awareness of yesterday's action and forthcoming events. Wherever you see a photo, blog or lesser-known news story about the demonstration, please share it and keep on sharing it. We don't have the luxury of mass media on our side to tell those who are sitting at home - frightened and desperate because they're suffering due to savage austerity measures - that there are people out there fighting for them, trying to stop an already dreadful situation from being made worse. We can only give a voice to the voiceless if we come together and don't stop telling the world that enough is enough and that things must change. 

Enough is Enough

I don't actually know where to start today. The content of this post should probably come under several different topics, but in my head right now it's all part of a big spectrum of Stuff I Think Is Just Wrong. Forgive me if the following stream of consciousness is a little jumbled. 

There's a protest in three days' time, called by the People's Assembly, against the coalition government's programme of austerity cuts to public services and benefits. I'm going, as are several of my peers, because I want to join my voice to those who are trying - really trying - to change people's lives for the better and protect vital public services like the education system, the NHS, trade unions, etc. from budget cuts and frankly insane changes to legislation which erode the quality of life and basic civil rights of ordinary folk like you and me. 

I have been urging everyone I know to join and support this demonstration; to show those in power that the voices of the many condemn the actions of the elite few. If ever there was a period in history where the ordinary people had the means to consolidate their collective anger at the government and pressure them to alter their course of action, it is now. We have the internet right at our fingertips to spread information and arrange demonstrations all over the country. We don't NEED to rely on corporate-controlled mainstream media to tell us what's happening in the world and whose fault it is. We COULD go out there and get the real information for ourselves, free from any elite bias or right-wing political influence. 

So why don't we? Why is electoral turnout at an all time low? In the recent local and European elections, national average turnout was 35%. More than half the eligible electorate didn't even bother to vote. Even in general elections, turnout averages around 65% - so one third of voters just abstain. I hear the "well I'm not voting because all politicians are the same" logic and want to bang my head into the wall. 

Political apathy enables things like this to happen:

From: Another Angry Voice

Industrial action is a necessary tool for employees of public services to demand fair pay and treatment. This legislation undermines that fundamental right, and is proposed by politicians whose election is not representative of what the public actually want because hardly anyone turned out out to vote for or against them. That is how people like this get into power and damaging legislation is passed. The point at which we start to get angry about it is too late. 

Here's another one for you. You may or may not be aware of the creation of "Summary Care Records", that is, an electronic copy of your medical records which is stored on a central database and - crucially - available to third parties. Confidentiality? Nope, not anymore. Did you know you could opt-out of this? The deadline has since passed, and one major criticism of the database system is the inability to delete a record once created and viewed, so it is absolutely, irrevocably too late now. We were ALL supposed to receive an opt-out form in the post, ensuring that every one of us could make the choice as to whether or not to be included in the scheme. Did you get a form? I didn't. I had never even heard of such a form until last night. 

Information taken from medconfidental.org

There is still an opt-out form which you can download, fill in and send to your GP but in all honesty I don't know what possible efficacy it could have: http://www.nhscarerecords.nhs.uk/optout/optout.pdf

One final thing I learned today that made me sick to my stomach:

Information from the DWP

Wait - what??? So someone from the DWP can just turn up - unannounced - to a person's home, and demand to see personal documents and financial information? What exactly happens if that person refuses to divulge said information, y'know, because they value their right to privacy? Why exactly does someone from the DWP need an hour to check through all this information? And before you tell me it's to prevent benefit fraud, let me remind you that fraud comprises 0.7% of benefit claims, meaning that more than 99% of claims are legitimate. What does this really achieve then? Well it fulfills the government's agenda of dehumanising benefit claimants and reminding them that they have forfeited the right to autonomy because they had the temerity to claim benefits. Let me also point out here that a minority of benefits are paid to the unemployed; most go to working families and pensioners. Actually - just read my blog post on this very issue: "Oh Mr.Cameron" 

How does this all relate to Saturday's protest then? It is all about getting active. I can sit in my armchair, write ranty blog posts about stuff I think is Wrong, but it doesn't achieve anything. It might get some more information out there and express solidarity with other people feeling the same way I do, but it doesn't change anything. You can sit in your armchair, read my ranty blogs and feel just as frustrated as I do - but it doesn't change anything. 

As long as people are apathetic about voting in elections and actions against unfair and discriminatory legislation, the privileged minority who make up our government will continue to implement austerity cuts and regulations which further erode our basic rights and quality of life. It won't change until our attitude to action does.  

I will end with one final plea to engage with those who are trying to change things for the better. Come along to the demonstration on Saturday. Make it known that the government's current course of action is unacceptable - forcing people out of their homes, causing soaring rates of suicide and depression, decimating the very institutions on which British life is founded. Enough is enough. There IS another way.

Human Rights and Human Wrongs Part Trois (and I promise, the final piece!)

Part Deux of this post ended with me asking why I ascribe the same claim to human rights for people who have committed violations of human rights themselves as I do to the ordinary, peaceful, every day man, woman and child. 

It's actually a really simple thought process, the conclusion to which I arrived at after reading endless accounts of human rights violations across the globe. 

Anyone who's been on Facebook or Twitter in the past few days can't have failed to see something called Invisible Children, or the "Kony 2012" campaign. In short, there is a viral film approximately 30 minutes long and made by an American man, Jason Russell, documenting his campaign to bring about the arrest of Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda. The history of the LRA's actions in Uganda is a long and bloody one, incorporating the abduction of children to turn into child soldiers (boys) and sex slaves (girls), murder, rape, pillage, mutilation and torture. The video is an overly simplistic representation of a very complex problem and smacks slightly of a 'Team America' approach to saving the world and easing the "White man's burden" - but that's another blog in itself! 

The reason I bring up this particular issue is because of the incredible speed with which is has become a viral topic and how rapidly it's brought human rights onto the public and social networking agenda. The YouTube video (linked above) currently has 15, 173, 840 views. That's a lot. It's a lot more than this time yesterday. The hashtag #STOPKONY has been a top trend on Twitter for the last 24 hours (although now appears to have slipped down in favour of popular culture references I don't understand). There have also been a huge number of blogs, articles, personal posts and so on critiquing the Invisible Children movement - and this is where the issue gets very complicated. Some look to the organisation's ideology, others to its questionable ethical business practices  (do read this one, it's a much more thorough and well informed assessment of the situation than I could provide) and support of the Ugandan army - a force themselves guilty of rape, torture and murder. 

One thing seems to be emerging (and this highlights my incorrigibly optimistic nature) which is that more people are talking about the complexities of human rights on a larger scale than I've seen since I sat in a university lecture room with 40-odd people who all cared about it very passionately! Of course it may be that x-million people will blindly click "share" on the video link from YouTube and then never do anything else. Awareness is great, but it doesn't solve problems. Blind awareness and support solves even fewer problems, and in fact creates some of its own (another blog! One thing at a time!). BUT if more people take the time to read more widely around the whole issue, learn about Joseph Kony & the LRA, learn about the local community-based projects in Uganda who've spent years tackling this head on, go to organisations like Amnesty International and learn about OTHER human rights atrocities all around the world - Syria, Iran, Palestine, Zimbabwe - the list really does go on and on and on - then something positive will be achieved simply through more people acknowledging that this is happening right now. All around the world, people are being oppressed, tortured, executed, detained in horrific conditions, institutionally raped. It's very difficult reading - but try to bear this in mind next time you read a Daily Mail article wailing about how immigrants and asylum seekers are taking over Britain. What would it take for you to flee your country of origin, in fear of your life?

Back to the original issue behind this post then - we've established what human rights are, we've discussed how people around the world are suffering at the hands of others, we've touched briefly upon how misunderstood and underrepresented the plight of so many people is in Western media. What does this mean for my initial point, that even the really Bad People have rights.

As I said slightly earlier - it's actually incredibly simple. If you've been inspired by this post to go and do some more reading about the global human rights situation, you will probably have learned that there are more people living under oppressive and murderous conditions than you ever thought possible. The first time I realised that, I was heartbroken. I don't want to believe that we live in a world where people live their whole lives in fear, where children say they would rather die than try to fight and survive, where bad people go unpunished because of political preferences from national leaders. I WANT to live in a world where bad deeds are punished, bad people brought to justice, good people the world over live a life of freedom and peace. I think it's safe to say that's a ubiquitous desire. We can only ever hope to achieve this if we sustain a certain moral standard - in order to single out and bring justice to the Bad Guys, we must be the Good Guys. We cannot, either directly or tacitly, condone torture or execution, because if we do, we just become part of the spectrum of bad guys. If we deport known or suspected criminals back to their countries of origin where we know they will be tortured or executed as part of that country's penal system, we step into very murky waters and we stop being the good guys. We stop having the right to condemn others for torturing and murdering innocent people, if we are even complicit in the torture and murder of anybody. 

My human rights that protect me from being tortured and murdered exist because our country's moral stance prohibits this, but it should be prohibited worldwide and for all persons. Can we really say that we as a nation are outraged at Christopher Tappin's extradition to the US to face charges for which no evidence has ever been brought before a UK court, amidst an American media campaign to portray him as a truly evil man and a 'danger to the community' - the notion which has been used to deny him bail? Well yes, we can say we are outraged, because he's been treated very badly by what appears to be a corrupt system - there's no transparency to the case against him, and accounts I've read so far appear to believe that he's been falsely accused (or at least that the case against him has been constructed falsely). 

I am in no position whatsoever to speculate on his guilt or innocence - but I can say that his human rights risk being violated through the course of the last few weeks. That's certainly the perspective of the British media in reporting each new turn of events. But... he's not the only person in the current press limelight looking at being removed from the UK to face trial in another country. There's also Abu Qatada, albeit in a very different manner of media portrayal. 

Now, I hear you exclaim, how can I possibly compare the two?! One is a nice, respectable British businessman falsely accused by a corrupt American legal system to provide them with a tidy scapegoat; the other is widely believed to be an Islamic extremist, indicted on charges of terrorism by a Jordanian court and believed to be affiliated with Al Qaeda. But let's look at that for a moment-  Abu Qatada has never been charged with committing a crime in the UK and was arrested and detained indefinitely, without trial, under dubious anti-terrorism legislation in 2002. As far as we know, since living in Britain he's lived a law-abiding life and at one stage was thought to be aiding British intelligence agencies with information about terrorist organisations. The charges against him in Jordan were founded on evidence and testimonies obtained through torture and the argument against deporting him back to Jordan for further trials is based upon the possibility that he himself would face being tortured. Again, whether or not he's guilty of the alleged crimes is something I am in no position to speculate on, but it alarms me that rather than strive to stamp out the use of torture in the Jordanian courts, the British press has instead focused on being outraged that such a dangerous man can be allowed to remain the UK at all, horrified that the European Court of Human Rights forbade his deportation.

 Let's just look at that again - if we take the British media's perspective at face value, we are saying that we would sooner accept the torture of a man than we would put the time and effort into ensuring that he faced a fair trial and was brought to justice for crimes which it had been proven he was guilty of.

That frightens me. Remember what I said before - what right do we have to condemn others for torture and murder if we are complicit in torture and murder ourselves? 

Well the short answer is that we don't. It's not justice if we accept any nation using torture and execution as part of its legal system. It's anarchy. 

I'm no legal expert; I can't tell you whether I think Christopher Tappin or Abu Qatada are guilty of the crimes of which they are accused or not. I can only tell you that the only way of guaranteeing that their respective guilt or innocence is reliably established is to ensure that both men - and all people in these situations - are tried by an uncorrupted court, using evidence that is truthful and accurate, and that if found guilty their punishments are proportionate to the crime. 

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At this point, I could start talking about existing laws regarding sentences for various crimes, but then we'd be here for at least another 3000 words! In short, I oppose the death penalty entirely, in all its forms and as a sentence for any crime you could think of. 

There is so much more that could be said on this issue. There are hundreds of books, written by well respected academics in the field of human rights and they are full to the brim of case studies, theoretical arguments and statistics on human rights topics. I started with a book written by my human rights lecturer at university, and I wholly recommend it as a basic start to understanding the subject: Human Rights: An Introduction by Darren O'Byrne

Human Rights and Human Wrongs: Part Deux

A couple of posts ago, I pontificated on my general philosophy about human rights and how they apply to the people of the world who have done Bad Things. 

As a very brief summary, I feel that preserving the human rights of every single human being on this planet is the absolute most fundamental basis of a true justice system - no matter how appalling a crime a person has committed. 

Up until now, I haven't specified exactly what I mean by "human rights". It's an intangible concept, a phrase that has popped up here and there in the media, mostly recently in the context of the UK government wanting to deport people out of this country, but being unable to do so because it would infringe their human rights. I now frequently see people tutting and raising their eyebrows at those two words, as though human rights is some terrible albatross around our necks, prohibiting us from disposing of people whose behaviour and philosophies aren't quite right for us.

For the sake of accuracy, let me highlight exactly what I mean by Human Rights, by referring to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948).

There are 30 articles to the declaration (which I won't copy and paste here, because it's very long and you can read it for yourself by following the above link), which set out the fundamental conditions for each and every person on this planet to be able to live a life of freedom and comfort. 

Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world

The UDHR was established following the Second World War, with the express intention that atrocities which had occurred during and prior to those awful years would never be allowed to repeat themselves. It is, however, impossible to ignore the widespread conflicts across the Middle East, the so-called "War on Terror" and escalating tensions between ethnic groups across the UK and USA. Within this framework, the topic of human rights has cropped up a few times and not entirely in the manner one might expect, given the relatively young age of the UDHR.

I said in my previous post that I would return to this subject later on and elaborate on specific cases to illustrate my point in practice, which is my intention with this post. I will endeavour to write sensitively and thoughtfully, support my statements with evidence-based research and in so doing, hopefully make an eloquent point about the different ways we apply human rights in practice to the people who find themselves falling back on them. As such, I thoroughly expect that this will be a very, very long entry, for which I apologise, but in the interest of making my point carefully it will be necessary to cover a lot of background. 

As I have said previously, it's not always a comfortable perspective to respect the basic human rights of a person who has, or is accused of having caused suffering to other people. Sometimes I have to work really hard at overcoming my anger when reading about those who have exploited or harmed others on any level - something that came to the front of my mind over the weekend when someone on Facebook posted a picture of the World Trade Centre in New York with the second tower in flames shortly after the hijacked plane had crashed into it. 

An emotive image in itself, evoking memories of that pivotal change in global politics when I, as a 17 year old girl, suddenly felt very grown-up and a bit frightened of the world.  The image wasn't what got me riled up though, but the caption accompanying it did. It consisted of a letter (supposedly) written by a Canadian housewife to her local paper, venting her umbrage at the reported condemnation of US soldiers defiling the bodies of deceased insurgents and the allegations of torture and abuse by US and UK forces. Her precise point was along the lines of 'why should I care about them when they attacked us first?'. The last time I looked at the image on Facebook it had been shared by 45,517 people. That's a lot of people (I presume) agreeing with this woman. 

I am one person who doesn't agree with her. I could post the image and the accompanying text here for you to make up your own mind, but to be completely honest I don't want to. Reading it again fills me with such sadness for the seemingly huge number of very narrow-minded people, I just don't want to pollute my blog with it. If you really want to look at it, you can follow this LINK, but I will warn you now, it makes for very uncomfortable reading - not least because it's a very poorly researched rant, almost worthy of the Daily Mail. 

At this point, I would like to include one of my favourite and recently discovered quotes. It summarises very neatly how I feel about people who like to make extreme statements without having all the facts at their disposal:

"You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No-one is entitled to be ignorant." - Harlan Ellison

It's a beautiful point, nicely made. Hold whatever beliefs and ideas you want - but let them be well informed. READ widely about issues before you make your mind up and condemn one party or another. Tell me I'm an idiot for my views if you like, but please research as much as I do about these issues before deciding whether or not to agree with me.

The issue of human rights is a very personal one. You either believe that everyone is entitled to their basic human rights, or you don't. There's a wealth of logical - and even spiritual - arguments to support my belief on this matter, but an equal number of emotive and persuasive ones to the contrary. 

My view on human rights is informed by two things: firstly, the accounts I've read of torture, oppression, exploitation, and execution through the brief time I spent studying human rights at university. What I learned in that time made me feel so utterly despondent about how we, the human race, behave towards one another that I wanted to run away and live on the moon. Secondly, I thought about what MY human rights meant to me. What sort of scenario could I envisage where I might need to call on my human rights to protect me? 

Let's imagine a hypothetical situation where I am accused of some dreadful crime. We can expect that I would not be arrested or detained unless there was sound evidence against me, and in that instance I would receive a fair trial by jury, the evidence presented would be accurate, testimonies against me would be truthful and the sentence I received - if found guilty - would be proportionate to the crime I had committed. All of these elements of my treatment are protected exclusively by MY human rights - me, the hypothetical criminal. 

Let us change the scenario slightly and presume that I am innocent. The theory of the UK justice system is that everything possible is done to ensure that no innocent person is ever convicted of a crime they didn't commit. We can reasonably expect, therefore, to have our innocence presumed until guilt is proven. As such, we can expect that I will have access to competent legal defence, will be treated with dignity and respect if remanded into custody, fed and watered adequately, and at all times assured that the case against me will be examined fairly so that my innocence can be ascertained and I can be released back into my regular life with no repercussions from the incorrect allegations made against me. Once again, this relies entirely on my human rights being observed. 

I am a good, law-abiding person as and such I can be reasonably confident that my daily life will continue without the threat of arbitrary arrest, torture, systematic rape, oppression or censorship. The very fact that I can sit at home and write this blog without fear of repercussion from the state is actually quite a big deal when you put it into context with nations of poor human rights records. 

The whole entire point is that these rights of mine will always be there. Nothing will take them away. I will never be in danger of the police hammering down my door and carting me away because of something I've been falsely accused of, then watching a corrupted trial take place where the evidence produced against me has been entirely fabricated or obtained by torturing me. 

This is not true of many countries. In fact, it's not even always true of Britain. It's something of a myth that we as a nation have an impeccable human rights record. We are not a paradigm of morality- a statement that is only vaguely alluded to in the Canadian housewife's rant attached to the picture from September 11th, 2001. It is worth noting that she doesn't deny that there are substantiated claims of US and UK forces abusing and torturing detained insurgents in the Middle East - only that she doesn't care.


But what does any of this have to do with the rights of Really Bad People? You know the ones I mean - the ones in the papers, who've committed unspeakable acts of violence or abuse against one or more persons. They might be child molesters, rapists, terrorists, murderers, wife beaters, or any one of a whole spectrum of reprehensible acts a human is capable of perpetrating against another. WHY do I ascribe the same claim to human rights for these people as I do to you and me, the decent, respectable, well behaved, functioning members of society?

THAT is going to have to come in another instalment. Well done if you've managed to stick with me so far. I promise that part 3 is not far behind and worth reading! Go and grab a cuppa and the next part will be along shortly, possibly once I've had a cup of tea and finished editing it.