civil liberties Archives

Civil Liberties – is the legacy living on?

17/06/2019 By ACOMSDave Leave a Comment

I wrote this article some time ago, to be exact in Sep 2013, for another organisation, but it is time we think again as we are going through the sham elections for a new Prime Minister, and with the candidates who are standing:

Civil Liberties

Over the last few weeks papers, television and radio have been referring to Martin Luther King jnr’s speech ‘I have a dream’ which was delivered in Washington on August 28, 1963.

The speech was the high point of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom; which in itself became the focal point of a campaign against discrimination, voting restrictions, unfair treatment by the police and statutory barriers against social mobility and economic opportunity.

The impact of this speech was felt across America, and then across the world, and whilst MLK was not initially billed as the main speaker, his speech has now become synonymous with Civil Rights, and led within two years to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 1965 Voting Rights Act being passed in the USA.

Rustin Bayard and Martin Luther King jnr - Civil Liberties

March on Washington Aug 28 - Civil Liberties

Non-Violent Action

MLK developed his commitment to a principle of non-violent action through the tutelage of Bayard Rustin, a man who was black, gay, and a Quaker. Bayard’s own life had been through many phases. Bayard was brought up by his grandparents acting as his parents, who were Methodists ( he later found out that his ‘sister’ was his mother). He was a member of the Young Communist League until 1941 after the Nazi invasion of Russia led the U.S. party to switch gears into building American opposition to fascism, and racial justice issues fell by the wayside.

Rustin was a deeply committed pacifist, owing largely to his Quaker background, and got thrown in jail for conscientiously objecting to service in World War II. It was his introduction of Gandhi’s tactics of nonviolent resistance (which he learned when visiting independence activists in India) to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr which served as a platform for MLK’s enduring success in civil liberties along with his oratory.

Bayard being gay, and also that he had been arrested for 1953 and sentenced under the lesser charge of ‘sex perversion’, was often used by his enemies both in the establishment and in the civil liberties camp as an indication of his unsuitability. However, it is interesting to read the FBI synopsis on him:

Federal Bureau of Investigation

A Federal Bureau of Investigation internal memorandum (25th January, 1966)
Rustin is a very competent individual who is widely known in the civil rights field. He is personally familiar with numerous individuals with communist backgrounds. As one of Martin Luther King’s closest advisers, he is in a position to wield considerable influence on King’s activities. Technical coverage of Rustin is an important part of the overall coverage of King, who is the most prominent civil rights in the country today. Because of the influence being exerted on King by persons with subversive backgrounds, it is necessary for us to maintain coverage of individuals such as Rustin. In order to fulfill the Bureau’s responsibilities to uncover communist influence in racial matters, it is recommended that technical coverage of Rustin be continued.

Written out of History

Bayard Rustin, has been a man written out of history due to his abilities and to him being black and gay; fortunately society has moved on today, and more importantly the USA has a black president who this year has recognised the importance of Bayard by awarding him Presidential Medal of Freedom earlier this month.

Unfortunately some 50 years after MLK’s speech, and it’s impact worldwide, I must report that civil liberties in the United Kingdom are under threat. Our freedoms, whether those of the LGBT community, black, white, religious or non-religious are important to us. History has shown that we must fight and succour our civil liberties; that we must not allow governments to sequester them in the pursuit of security. So having said this how do we in one of the first democracies of the world now have one and a half times as many surveillance cameras as communist China (Tom Kelly, Mail Online, Aug 2009). According to the Association of Chief Police Officers, as of Aug 2011, there are in actuality 1.85 million CCTV cameras in the united kingdom.

To this we can also see the implementation of ‘Stop and Search’. In June of this year, it was stated that there were a million stops each year, with only 9% leading to court cases (BBC, July 2, 2013). However an article in the Sunday Post dated August 25, 2013, said that in the last year the Scottish Police have actioned six hundred and twelve thousand (612,000) stop and searches in the last year – approximately a 50% increase, with only thirteen percent (13%) possibly finding anything!

I do not believe that England and Wales only did 400,000 stop and searches over this period, and looking back a few years ago I wrote about the police tactics of stopping people and confiscating cameras and videos during various times of unrest ‘in the interest of the public’. A tactic which has since been clarified as being unjustified.

Our civil liberties belong to us:
As for civil liberties, any one who is not vigilant may one day find himself living, if not in a police state, at least in a police city. Gore Vidal
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/gore_vidal_704644?src=t_civil_liberties

Civil liberties in the United Kingdom have a long and formative history. This is usually considered to have begun with the English legal charter the Magna Carta of 1215, following its predecessor the English Charter of Liberties, a landmark document in English legal history. However it could be argued that the Declaration of Arbroath of 1320 in Scotland was the first attempted implementation of civil liberties in part of the United Kingdom. Today the United Kingdom’s relationship to civil liberties has been mediated through its membership of the European Convention on Human Rights.

In other words, civil liberties are the “rights” or “freedoms” which underpin democracy. This usually means the right to vote, the right to life, the prohibition on torture, security of the person, the right to personal liberty and due process of law, freedom of expression and freedom of association.[3]

(Wikipedia, 2013)

Stop the Police State

I call upon everyone to monitor their police and security forces, their local and national government – don’t allow the United Kingdom to become a ‘police’ state.

Further Reading:

Wikipedia –Civil Liberties in the United Kingdom
Wikipedia – Bayard Rustin
The Atlantic – Article by Kerry Eleveld ‘Obama, Bayard Rustin, and the New LGBT Civil Rights Movement‘
Spartacus Educational – Bayard Rustin
Washington Post – Wonkblog – Meet Bayard Rustin, the gay socialist pacifist who planned the 1963 march on Washington

Civil Liberties

16/06/2019 By ACOMSDave Leave a Comment

first published in 2008

”A strong commitment to civil liberties, once considered a defining British characteristic, has weakened dramatically over the past 20 years, the survey found ”

(Telegraph.co.uk 1:44AM GMT 24/01/2007)

National security is the first duty of government but we are also committed to reversing the substantial erosion of civil liberties.
Theresa May

As someone who was born into a service family, and who then went onto to serve in the Forces, with time spent in various areas of the world, I feel that the current debate and result is an insult to the British population.

The Government and its agents managed, albeit over a twenty year period, to contain and finally achieve a workable result for all of the people of Northern Ireland without resulting in a 42-day detainment. Indeed, all parties did agree that detainment without due process is counterproductive to the well being of the British people.

Why then have we now resorted to a further dilution of our civil liberties’ with the amendment to Habeas Corpus?

”The Habeas Corpus Act passed by Parliament in 1679 guaranteed that a person detained by the authorities would have to be brought before a court of law so that the legality of the detention may be examined. In times of social unrest, Parliament had the power to suspend Habeas Corpus. William Pitt did this in May 1793 during the war with France. Parliamentary reformers such as Thomas Hardy and John Thelwall were imprisoned as a result of this action ”

(http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRgagging.htm)

Loss of liberty and rights since 1997; a full list of these losses are contained on the Open Democracy Network and further information is also on the Liberty website.

This change in the law cannot be seen in isolation. Various governments have been eroding our rights and because it has been slow, and in a lot of cases, the changes have been slid through on the back of other innocuous legislation most people have not noticed what has been happening.

A lot of people will say that if you are doing nothing wrong then it won’t matter’, however a clear identification of the misuse of legislation was highlighted in May this year when it came to light that local councils through middle managers are able to authorise surveillance of people suspected of petty offences using powers designed to prevent crime and terrorism.

This to my mind is a clear misuse of the legislation involved, and signals that the government (both central and local) have no moral compass and will use any means to achieve their ends.

I regret the fact we as a people have lost sight of our rights and allowed ourselves to be blinded by very poor rhetoric and people who prey on fears, which may be slightly justified but not to the extent that we are being told, as indicated by the Head of MI5, Jonathan Evans.

Civil Liberties

09/01/2019 By ACOMSDave Leave a Comment

So when should we start worrying about our ‘Civil Liberties’?

The answer is off necessity at all times. If we as a nation are not careful then we lose our civil liberties; in the past, we have had police confiscating cameras and phones being used to cover demonstrations under the guise of ‘national security’, which was proved to be a falsehood. We have had people through the guise of rendition locked up without trial, and again later release and compensation paid.

In February 2009, Tracy McVeigh reported on a number of sold-out conferences which were about

‘The government and the courts are collaborating in shaving away freedoms and pushing Britain to the brink of becoming a “database” police state’

Have things changed and improved? That is for each of us to judge, but we need to realise it is our individual responsibility to monitor the government and hold them accountable, and that we do this be turning out to elections.

Civil Liberties

Justice?

12/01/2016 By ACOMSDave Leave a Comment

Editorial:

The definition of justice varies from individual, to individual, depending upon what has happened, how it has affected that individual, and also on how it has affected the societal group that he or she belongs to.

The Law Dictionary defines justice as:

“Protecting rights and punishing wrongs using fairness. It is possible to have unjust laws, even with fair and proper administration of the law of the land as a way for all legal systems to uphold this ideal.”

Law Dictionary: What is JUSTICE? definition of JUSTICE (Black’s Law Dictionary)

So you are probably asking why I am discussing this topic, and as you can probably guess it is because of an article written in one of our daily newspapers, in this case The Telegraph: ‘The Church, the police and the unholy destruction of Bishop Bell’
I have to state that I have no knowledge of Bishop Bell, or of the case that is outlined in the news article, indeed in terms of religion I am an atheist – but open to discussion. My problem with religion is that man is involved, and to often man has used religion as a means to elevate themselves above the ordinary being.
So to get back to the article; Charles Moore, the writer of the article writes critically on how it appears that church in an attempt of heading off bad publicity, has decided that Bishop Bell is ‘guilty’ of a sexual crime without there having been a court case to assess the evidence. Indeed the Church has gone even further, in that it has demoted Bishop Bell, flowers placed on his memorial in the cathedral are removed, and what was the ‘George Bell house’ (a centre for vocation, education and reconciliation) is to be renamed shortly.
The fact that the church has jumped in with both feet, instead of following the due process of law, is why I have an argument with the Church.

The key legal principle – the presumption of innocence – is being set aside’

I would urge you to read the article, to then to read the article ‘Police State UK: The Rights You Didn’t Know You’d Lost’ written by Scriptonite / March 19, 2013

I believe in justice, but justice must be seen to be done fairly and without favour to one side or the other. I will leave you with the last paragraph from Charles Moore’s article…

Justice is not guaranteed by passionate feeling against a particular, horrible crime such as child abuse. It depends absolutely on proper process. When public bodies set that process aside, what trust or “transparency” is left? If Bishop Bell had been a Nazi war criminal, the charges against him would have had to reach a far higher standard of proof than those by which the Church of England has destroyed him. The restoration of justice should be its New Year resolution.

Is the British Government Spying On Us?

27/01/2014 By David McFarlane Leave a Comment

Like most governments, the British government has played fast and loose with the legalities, and has often broken the spirit of the law if not the actual law (probably because there wasn’t one that was up to date!).

The latest element to come out is that USA bases in Britain are still governed by laws and agreements made in 1951, and which therefore do not take into account the developments in technology that have occurred in relation to snooping.

A group of British MPs have called for American military bases in the UK to be properly scrutinized under cross-party proposals after evidence emerged that they are being used for mass spying activities and drone attacks – it has been discovered that RAF Croughton – a US Air Force base and CIA relay station in Northamptonshire in southern England – was used last year to funnel data back to Washington from the network of diplomatic spy posts across Europe, known as the Special Collection Service.It also has a secure link with a US counter-terrorism facility in Djibouti, which is used for drone strikes in Yemen. Meanwhile, RAF Menwith Hill in North Yorkshire is a National Security Agency (NSA) listening facility.

Kat Craig, legal director of Reprieve, has said that “It is a scandal that there is so little oversight by the British government of potentially criminal activities taking place on our own soil. Moves to ensure the current unquestioning support is brought out of the shadows are therefore very welcome”

What is also interesting is that Tony Blair’s government gave America permission to store and analyse the email, mobile phone and internet records of potentially millions of innocent Britons. At the same time US security officials drew up plans to spy on British citizens unilaterally, without the knowledge of the UK government.
As I have said before, our civil liberties have been eroded, and are being eroded, and liberties are being taken – tell the government to stop at the next election.

Further reading:

An participant's report on Belfast Pride 2013

17/07/2013 By David McFarlane Leave a Comment

Belfast Telegraph - Picture of Belfast Pride 2013

Last weekend Belfast LGBT pride march was very successful, and as a Gay man i was proud to march with a poster calling for the ‘freedom of Bradley Manning’, a Gay man jailed in the Untied States for exposing war crimes against humanity.
Belfast pride is now the biggest LGBT pride in Ireland , while this is a victory we must remember why we are marching . Homophobia has died down but it is not yet fully dead and until it is dead we must march with pride and stand in solidarity with the LGBT movement to kill it.
Here in the North of Ireland Gay and Bi sexual men are refused the right to give blood and blood is a much need thing to save lives , yet Gay and Bisexual men can not give blood that would save peoples lives – this is being seen as outright Homophobia by Health Minster Edwin Poots., and illogical in the light of measures taken in other parts of the United Kingdom.
Both the Orange order and the Catholic church stand united in their opposition to LGBT marriage. The right of LGBT Northern Irish Citizens to marriage is a right that Stormont has blocked.
Queer bashing is still something that many LGBT people in the North of Ireland encounter, and they suffer mental heath issues which results in them taking their own lives.
Many LGBT people in the North still have a fear about coming out. In state schools many young LGBT students face homophobic bullying which the schools do not proactively handle. Until and unless the school system in the North Of Ireland is separated from the church , this abomination of abuse of power by the church will continue to impact on LGBT youth.
The word GAY means Good as You and we are. Some day we shall have our liberation and no more shall Gay people live in fear We shall over come some day.

Seán óg Garland