A British court today threw out charges against campaigners protesting against a London arms fair.
In the fourth in a series of trials at Stratford Magistrates Court involving demonstrations against Defence & Security Equipment International (DSEI) arms fair in London last year, the judge threw out the charges, describing the protestors’ actions as “reasonable”.
In a decision that is seen as a boost to the right to peaceful protest against the arms fair, District Judge Hamilton acquitted all four defendants of charges of obstructing the highway.
The decision marks a significant u-turn from last month’s decision by judges at the Stratford Magistrates Court who sentenced five protesters from the same group for demonstrating against the 2017 arms fair.
Following their victory, Hodge Jones & Allen solicitors said in their press release that all of the defendants had accepted that they had “locked on” in the middle of the road that leads to the arms fair. Describing the moment prior to their arrest, the solicitors said that the protest was “symbolic” and the group, who were all “committed Christians wanted to turn a road that was carrying weapons of destruction into a safe space for prayer for a short time. However, all were arrested after a matter of minutes by the police”.
Hodge Jones & Allen solicitors confirmed that more than 100 people were arrested in September 2017 outside the Excel Centre in east London during the DSEI arms fair which takes place every two years. It’s thought to be the largest event in the world attracting international arms dealers from countries including Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the UAE.
Charges against most of the protestors were dropped but the remaining 46 activists have faced trial throughout January and February.
In further defence of their clients, the solicitors mentioned that opponents to the arms fair have accused the exhibitors of promoting unlawful weapons, specifically in 2007 and 2011. These breaches were discovered by external bodies such as Amnesty International and other NGOs. Since 2015, DSEI has banned such organisations from the fair.
Denouncing the arms fair, the solicitors said: “[The] world’s most repressive regimes buy weapons at DSEI. Saudi Arabia, for example, is accused of committing breaches of international humanitarian law and crimes against humanity in Yemen, with the aid of weapons purchased from UK companies. Arms sales to Saudi Arabia have increased by nearly 500 per cent since the start of the war in Yemen, with more than £4.6bn worth of arms sold within the first two years of bombings.”
Prime Minister Theresa May was applauded on Monday when she pledged new measures to tackle online abuse against politicians. But has the Tory leader forgotten about the millions her party spent on smearing Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn?
In a speech marking the centenary of women gaining the right to vote in Britain, the Tory leader said new measures aimed at tackling online abuse will include a new annual report comprising of data on how social media giants moderate alleged abusers.
Speaking in Manchester, May said: “While there is much to celebrate, I worry that our public debate is coarsening. That for some it is harder to disagree, without also demeaning opposing viewpoints in the process.”
She said she will also ask the Law Commission to shake up legislation so it ensures abuse is illegal online just as it is offline.
“In the face of what is a threat to our democracy, I believe that all of us – individuals, governments, and media old and new – must accept our responsibility to help sustain a genuinely pluralist public debate for the future,” May added.
The comments appear to be a bit rich, however, as they come from the leader of a party which reportedly spent millions on a smear campaign against Labour during the 2017 general election.
The Conservatives were accused of circulating ‘dark ads’ on YouTube and Facebook to deter voters in marginal constituencies from voting for Labour. One of the last installments was an 85-second video made up of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s speeches circulated on Facebook with the caption: “On June 9th, this man could be Prime Minister. We can’t let that happen.”
The ad featured a snippet of an interview with Corbyn, given to Sky News in May 2016, received a widespread backlash as it erroneously framed the Labour leader as condoning IRA bombings. The Labour boss had argued: “All bombing is wrong, of course I condemn [IRA bombings].”
The video was only built to show the channel’s news anchor Sophy Ridge asking, “but you’re condemning all bombing, can you condemn the IRA without equating it to…?” to which Corbyn is heard adding “no.”
In the full footage, however, Corbyn goes on to say: “No, I think what you have to say is all bombing has to be condemned and you have to bring about a peace process. Listen, in the 1980s Britain was looking for a military solution, it clearly was never going to work. Ask anyone in the British Army at the time… I condemn all the bombing by the loyalists and the IRA.”
Corbyn representatives said the Tories were “running a hateful campaign based on smears, innuendo and fake news.”
Labour also sent out ads, but they focused on policies to appeal to the party’s supporters rather than attacking their rivals.
Who is James Le Mesurier, the former British army officer and military contractor who founded the White Helmets, the civil defence organisation which operates exclusively in opposition-held parts of Syria? It is a question more and more people are asking as their role and function comes under increasing scrutiny.
Le Mesurier carries about him the inescapable whiff of Britain’s malign legacy and history of dirty wars, waged in Kenya, Aden, Ireland, Iraq, Libya, in other words wherever London’s blood-soaked imperialist foot has tread around the world. A product of Britain’s prestigious Royal Military Academy of officer training at Sandhurst, he served in various UK military/NATO military deployments over the past three decades, specifically Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq and Lebanon.
In a short bio describing Le Mesurier’s work with the White Helmets, we are informed, “In addition to the White Helmets in Syria, Mayday is active in Mogadishu, developing the city’s emergency services network, and exploring the development of similar community-based resilience initiatives in other fragile and failing states (my emphasis).”
The question of why a given state becomes fragile and failing is of course neither asked nor explored, for doing so would dredge up the subject of imperialism, which for Western ideologues such as Mr Le Mesurier would be akin to a vampire being exposed to daylight.
In a wide ranging 2016 article, former US marine and UN weapons inspector, Scott Ritter, provides a forensic account of Le Mesurier’s background, including the time he spent in and around the murky world of private military contractors, who exist in the cracks of Western military deployments, able to operate beyond the inconvenient glare of public scrutiny and accountability.
Ritter writes:
“the organizational underpinnings of the White Helmets can be sourced to a March 2013 meeting in Istanbul between a retired British military officer, James Le Mesurier—who had experience in the murky world of private security companies and the shadowy confluence between national security and intelligence operations and international organizations—and representatives of the Syrian National Council (SNC) and the Qatari Red Crescent Society. Earlier that month, the SNC was given Syria’s seat in the Arab League at a meeting of the league held in Qatar.”
So here we have a civil defence organisation being established in Syria by an ex-British army officer, a man with a background in the shadowy world of private security, in conjunction with a Syrian opposition group in exile. This civil defence organization, the White Helmets, receives funding from an array of states with a clear agenda of regime change in Syria, evidenced in the material, financial and political support they have given various armed opposition groups involved in the conflict.
In a 2015 speech Le Mesurier provides a précis of the roots of the conflict in Syria, starting with in 2011 a “volunteer uprising against the ruthless dictator, Bashar al-Assad,” before going on the assert that in 2012 the Syrian state turned its weapons on its “own people.”
Glaringly absent from this Manichean narrative is the fact that by 2012 various Salafi-jihadi groups, their ranks filled by thousands of extremists from outwith Syria, were rampaging across the country slaughtering and raping and terrorizing the very “own people” the Syrian army and its allies have been fighting to protect, save and liberate from the clutches of this latter day Khmer Rouge. And lest anyone has forgotten, the Syrian Arab Army is indistinguishable from the Syrian people, considering that its soldiers are drawn from the non-sectarian and multi-religious mosaic that makes up Syrian society.
Returning to Scott Ritter: “In this day of social media, it didn’t take long for photographs and video clips of known White Helmet members, in their distinctive uniform, openly celebrating with Al Nusra fighters in the aftermath of Syrian government defeats, and even carrying weapons, something their status as neutral first responders strictly prohibits.”
From the White Helmets’ own website, the lack of neutrality Ritter asserts is unambiguously expressed with the statement posted on its front page by Raed Saleh, the operational head of the organisation and himself a figure of some controversy. Saleh writes, “the UN Security Council must follow on its demand to stop the barrel bombs, by introducing a ‘no-fly zone’ if necessary.”
The barrel bombs referred to by Saleh, and emphasised by Le Mesurier as emblematic of the brutality of the ‘Assad regime,’ are inarguably indiscriminate and illegal under international law. But if we are judging the merits or demerits of a given side in a given conflict based on the use of indiscriminate weapons alone then regime change in Washington, Tel Aviv and Riyadh is long overdue.
The brutality of the conflict in Syria is a reflection of the monumental stakes involved in the outcome. The conflict is in itself is a crime, but are we seriously suggesting that Libya is better, safer and more stable seven years on from the toppling and murder of its leader Muammar Gaddafi, courtesy of NATO aligning with various Libyan opposition factions, prime among them Islamists, in 2011? And are we seriously arguing that Syria’s fate would not be Libya’s fate in the event of the toppling of Bashar al-Assad? And, too, is anybody able to maintain with a straight face that Bashar al-Assad does not enjoy the solid support of the majority of the Syrian people, who understand that the conflict is not about saving their government but saving their country?
Scott Ritter again:
“the White Helmets function as an effective propaganda arm of the anti-Assad movement…With their training, equipment and logistical sustainment underwritten exclusively by donations from Western governments (primarily the U.S. and U.K.), the White Helmets serve as a virtual echo chamber for American and British politicians and officials.”
Given Le Mesurier’s background, along with the evidence of how the White Helmets operate, it is reasonable to assume that what we have is the cultivation of the very Third Force Washington and London have been extending themselves in trying to locate and sell as the ‘good guys’ since the conflict began, doing so with the objective of enlisting domestic public support for intervention and regime change in Damascus.
Of course, there is always the possibility that Mr Le Mesurier is sincere in his desire to alleviate the undoubted suffering of the Syrian people – though in his case clearly not all the Syrian people, what with White Helmets only functioning and operating in opposition controlled territory, places where neither he nor any Western supporter of the White Helmets would dare set foot, knowing the moment they did they would be abducted, tortured, and brutally murdered.
But if so, if Mr Le Mesurier is sincere, then he is Britain’s answer to Pyle, the idealistic and naïve American interventionist in French-occupied Vietnam created by Graham Greene in his classic novel The Quiet American. To wit:
“He was young and ignorant and silly and he got involved. He had no more of a notion than any of you what the whole affair’s about, and you gave him money and York Harding’s books on the East and said, ‘Go ahead. Win the East for democracy.’ He never saw anything he hadn’t heard in a lecture hall, and his writers and his lecturers made a fool of him.”
The British Ministry of Defence (MoD) attempted to censor a document showing it has assassinated people outside of armed conflict zones using drones, it has been reported. The government is now under pressure to come clean.
The ministry removed a passage from its report on drone use, titled ‘Joint Doctrine,’ which was published in September 2017, according to the Canary. In the report, it acknowledged that critics have raised concerns about the legality of unmanned and remotely piloted aircraft missions and their potential for misuse.
The MoD acknowledged it was targeting people outside of war zones, and said arguments against drones “may also arise from the recent UK practice of targeting suspected terrorists outside of the armed conflict itself, and the meaning and application of a state’s right to self-defence.”
This passage was missing, however, in the updated doctrine that the department uploaded late last year. Scottish National Party (SNP) spokesperson Stewart McDonald wrote to the MoD in December about the issue.
Minister of State for the Armed Forces Mark Lancaster responded by saying that the September document contained “erroneous drafting.” He claimed the report had “misleadingly” noted that MoD policy was to use drone strikes outside of armed conflicts.
The head of human rights organization Reprieve said the government appears to be in “complete chaos” over the issue. Head of Reprieve’s Assassinations team Jen Gibson told the Canary: “We had a long overdue, official document saying the government have a ‘practice’ of killing people outside of armed conflict zones.
“And now we have a minister claiming there is no policy at all and their own document was ‘misleading.’ The public has a right to know the government’s policy on taking lethal strikes in our name,” she said.
Leaks have revealed that drone strikes have an appalling record in terms of accuracy. During one five-month period of a US operation in Afghanistan, for example, nine out of 10 people killed in airstrikes were not the intended targets.
Two lodges for Freemason MPs and political journalists are continuing to operate secretly at Westminster, it has been revealed. The ‘brotherhood’ is said to be so covert most lobby reporters are unaware of its existence.
According to the Guardian, the Chambers are still home to the New Welcome Lodge, which recruits MPs, peers and parliamentary staff, and the Gallery Lodge, reserved for the political press corps. Freemasonry records reveal that a third lodge called the Alfred Robbins Lodge, also for journalists, carries on gathering in London on a regular basis.
While the identities of members are unknown to anyone outside the organization, David Staples, the chief executive of the United Grand Lodge of England (UGLE), the governing body for Freemasons in England and Wales, rejected claims that politicians and journalists who are masons might have divided loyalties.
“Contrary to populist perception, being a Freemason helps those members in roles serving society in the broader sense, including journalists, politicians, policemen and lawyers, to be better in those jobs by encouraging them to act as better people themselves.
“Their membership is a positive for both them as individuals, and for society at large,” Staples said.
The newspaper reported that many Labour MPs left the Freemasons in the 1980s for fear they would lose their seats when questioned about their allegiance to the highly-secretive circle when reapplying for Labour membership between general elections. Declaring one’s membership was compulsory at the start of the decade.
It is understood at least one Labour MP withdrew from the New Welcome Lodge recently, and asked for his membership to be temporarily suspended so he could rejoin once certain he had secured his parliamentary seat.
The New Welcome Lodge is understood to have between 30 and 40 members, of whom only four are MPs and none are peers. The Gallery Lodge is reported to have 18.
A spokesman for the UGLE said: “None of the members who have joined either of these two lodges since 2000 have their occupation recorded as journalist or anything obviously linked to the newspaper industry.”
Freemasonry can be viewed as an international organization with an estimated 200,000 members worldwide. It is the oldest and largest non-political organization in the world, whose members call each other ‘brothers’ or ‘brethren.’ Sometimes confused or conflated with the Illuminati, Freemasons comprise a society that believes the universe has an architect, though Freemasonry is not considered a religion nor its lodges places of worship. It has been criticized for its secrecy and accused of serving the interests of its members over the those of the public.
Under instructions from the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the Greek government pushed through the most anti-union legislation in Europe on Monday 15 January.
The move was demanded, along with other draconian measures, as a condition of the latest tranche of what is called Greece’s bailout but which in reality is bailing out the European financial institutions which recklessly encouraged Greek borrowing.
The key concession required from the Syriza government was that industrial action would now require a yes vote from more than half of the total number of union members in a workplace, regardless of the actual turnout. This is even worse than the provisions in the Trade Union Act which came into law in the UK in March 2016.
Astonishingly – or perhaps not – there has been not one word about this from the TUC, which continues its scaremongering about the effect of Brexit on workers’ rights. While it prattles on, the European Union is turning the screw on the most fundamental of all workers’ rights, the right to strike, and using Greece as a test bed for policies it would like to see across all member states.
Without the right to take effective strike action, workers have no protection save the courts, and capitalist courts consistently favour the employers.
The European Court of Justice ruled (in the Laval case, 18 December 2007), that employers have the right to bring workers from a low-wage EU state to a higher-wage EU state on the wages payable in the cheaper country, regardless of any collective bargaining agreements in the higher-wage state. It has also ruled (in the Viking case, 11 December 2007) that effective industrial action to stop outsourcing to cheaper countries is illegal.
In the Alamo–Herron case (18 July 2013), involving Unison members transferred out of local authority employment, it ruled that whatever their contracts said, benefits collectively negotiated for local authority workers could be ignored by their new employers. “This case is an appalling attack on collective bargaining and is at least as serious as Viking and Laval,” wrote Britain’s leading employment barrister, John Hendy.
Hendy went on to say, “The EU has become a disaster for the collective rights of workers and their unions.”
As we have consistently said, strong trade union organisation backed up by effective industrial action if need be is the only way to secure and defend advances in the workplace. The EU murmurs about “rights” while consistently attacking the basis of workplace organisation.
Not one line of the Trade Union Act introduced by the Cameron government, or the even worse White Paper that preceded it, was contrary to EU law. The sooner Britain leaves the EU, the better it will be for trade union members (though some so-called leaders will resent being kicked off the Brussels gravy train). At least then we will just have our own employers to deal with.
Will Podmore is a librarian and writer living in London.
Newly published declassified files reveal the UK provided financial, material and practical support to jihadist fighters before and during the Soviet campaign, in what may well represent the country’s largest covert overseas operation since 1945.
On December 27 1979, the Soviet Union started a campaign in Afghanistan at the request of the country’s government, in response to a violent rebellion by extreme Islamic opposition elements. The conflict quickly became an international effort, with thousands flocking from the Middle East and North Africa to assist Afghan Muslims in a “holy war” against the Soviet Army.
American support for these fighters, under the auspices of Operation Cyclone, is well-documented. While supportive of these efforts, then-UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and other officials either did not mention, or actively denied, the country’s involvement in the conflict.
However, newly published declassified files reveal Britain played a significant role in the financing, arming and training of mujahideen fighters before and during the Soviet operation, going so far as to help execute sabotage missions in the Soviet Union itself.
On July 3 1979, US President Jimmy Carter signed a covert directive that provided secret aid to violent opposition fighters in Afghanistan. As Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter’s National Security Advisor, later explained, the aid was sent in the full knowledge it would prompt the government to request Soviet military assistance.
“That secret operation was an excellent idea. It [drew] the Russians into the Afghan trap. The day the Soviets crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: we now have the opportunity of giving the USSR its Vietnam War. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow [carried[ on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire,” Brzezinski told Counterpunch in 1998.
However, the files indicate the US was not alone – Britain likewise covertly supported the Afghan rebels before the Soviet invasion.
On December 17 1979, 10 days prior to the Soviet Army’s entrance to the country, US Vice President Walter Mondale convened a meeting in the White House – officials agreed to discuss with Britain “the possibility of improving the financing, arming and communications of the rebel forces to make it as expensive as possible for the Soviets to continue their efforts.”
The UK duly agreed to train the jihadist resistance in Afghanistan, and send military specialists to support their efforts.
While the operation was carried out entirely in secret, Thatcher effectively acknowledged the policy – and its motivations – on January 28 the next year, during a parliamentary debate.
“If [the Soviet] hold on Afghanistan is consolidated, the Soviet Union will have vastly extended its borders with Iran, acquired a border over 1,000 miles long with Pakistan, and advanced to within 300 miles of the Straits of Hormuz, which controls the Persian Gulf.”
The files reveal while the US provided far more in financial and material terms to the Afghan jihad, the UK played a direct combat role, with covert British forces – in particular the SAS – practically supporting resistance groups.
Current and former SAS officers trained numerous jihadi forces at MI6 and CIA bases in Saudi Arabia and Oman, teaching them sabotage, reconnaissance, attack planning, arson, and how to use explosive devices, heavy artillery such as mortars, and attack aircraft, among other things.
The SAS also, in conjunction with US special forces, training Pakistan’s Special Services Group (SSG), which led insurrectionary operations in Afghanistan, in the hope officers could impart their learned expertise directly to jihadists in Afghanistan.
Mujahideen were also trained in the UK – snuck into the country as tourists, they spent three-weeks at a time in camps situated in Scotland and the North of England. A key trainer was Brigadier General Rahmatullah Safi, former senior officer in the royal Afghan army who, who’d lived in the UK since the 1970s.
He trained as many as 8,000, continuing to live in the UK well into the 1990s, when he was regarded by the United Nations as the Taliban’s key representative in Europe, by then the undisputed rulers of Afghanistan.
Another key individual supported by the UK was Hadji Abdul Haq, of the Hizb-i-Islami group. He was provided 600 ‘Blowpipe’ anti-aircraft missiles missiles and maps of Soviet military positions by MI6, and introduced to the CIA.
Unlike many other jihadist groups, Haq had no qualms about targeting innocent civilians, arranging the infamous September 1984 bombing at Kabul airport, which killed 28, and attacks on hotels.
Despite this, in March 1986 he was welcomed to the UK as a guest of Thatcher. An official spokesperson explained at the time the Prime Minister had “a degree of sympathy with the Afghan cause” as they were “trying to rid their country of invaders, which you cannot say of the ANC or PLO.”
In reality, far in excess of a “degree of sympathy” with Afghan fighters, by that point the UK’s role in the conflict entailed directly military involvement not only in Afghanistan, but the Central Asian republics of the Soviet Union.
MI6 organized and executed “scores” of terror strikes in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, on the basis Soviet Army troop supplies flowed from these areas – the first direct Western attacks on the Soviet Union since the 1950s. MI6 also funded the spread of extremist Islamic literature in the Soviet republics.
Soviet forces would eventually leave Afghanistan February 15 1989, leaving the government of Mohammed Najibullah to be overthrown in 1992. By 1996, the Taliban had taken control of the country, during which time strong restrictions were imposed on women, public executions were reinstituted, and international aid was prevented from entering Afghanistan, leading to thousands of deaths through starvation.
Consequences Ignored
The US/UK policy had significant ramifications not only for the future of Afghanistan, but the world. During the conflict, many individuals funded, armed and trained by the West formed militant groups, which in years to come would carry out terrorist attacks across the Middle East, Europe and North America.
For instance, the globally infamous Al-Qaeda was led and peopled by former members of the anti-Soviet jihadist resistance – in a July 8 2005 column for The Guardian, former UK Foreign Secretary Robin Cook noted the group’s leader, the now-slain Osama Bin Laden, was “throughout the 1980s” armed by “the CIA, and funded by the Saudis, to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan.”
“Al-Qaeda, literally ‘the database’, was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians,” Cook wrote.
Missing from Cook’s list of culpable parties were the British, and MI6. While there is no evidence of direct financial or material support given to Bin Laden by London in the files, he is known to have been granted entry to the UK on many occasions through the 1980s, speaking at several mosques and Islamic centers.
Moreover, several camps used by the mujahideen during the Soviet-Afghan war, such as the infamous Tora Bora,were constructed with British funding – these camps would subsequently serve as training centers and planning hubs for domestic and international terror strikes by Al-Qaeda.
The weaponry supplied by the UK to extremist forces also assisted the efforts of extremist groups in Afghanistan and elsewhere. For instance, Blowpipe missiles have regularly been found in Taliban and Al-Qaeda arms-caches across the country since the 2001 US-led invasion – as late as 2010, the mainstream media was reporting the shoulder-fired missiles were a major threat to US troops.
In essence, the UK both directly and indirectly assisted in the global rise of Islamist terrorism in the wake of the conflict – were it not for their arms, supplies, training and funding, scores of extremists would lack the means and infrastructure to plan and conduct major atrocities.
Mr Gideon Falter, 34, who runs the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAAS) was the chief witness for the Crown Prosecution service’s (CPS) against the British minstrel Alison Chabloz. On January 10th at Marylebone Magistrate’s Court we heard him swear the oath, to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. He then proceeded to give the court various hearsay conjectures, about what effect Ms Chabloz’ songs might be exerting, upon unspecified persons.
He averred for example that they were ‘spreading anti-semitic hatred’ and were ‘inciting to racial hatred.’ The Court was not given evidence for this,[1] nor advised where or in whom these emotions were being generated. Should he not have called witnesses to testify in support of these conjectures, or better still a psychologist to affirm that they were or had been generated?
The Court was advised of one offensive performance by Ms Chabloz, where she sang her songs ‘(((Survivors))) and ‘Nemo’s anti-Semitic Universe’ namely the London Forum in 2016 (September 24th). A problem here could be the signs of mirth and riotous applause in response to the songs: did this really show what Mr Falter had been alleging, or if not, what did?
She was recently introduced as ‘The brilliant comedienne and singer/songwriter Alison Chabloz,’ by Richie Allen, on his popular radio show (18 January).
The point of satire, is that it makes people laugh. Britain has a long tradition of satire from William Hogarth in the 18th century to Private Eye in the present time. Its future is surely at stake in this trial.
In October of 2017 she was arrested and jailed (or, ‘held in custody’) for 48 hours, for posting a video of herself singing a song. This had allegedly broken her ‘bail conditions’. As Ms Chabloz observed, “As far as I am aware, I am the only artist in modern British history to have been jailed for the heinous crime of composing and singing satirical songs which I uploaded to the Internet.”
We live in a society where just about any sacred belief is liable to be satirised for entertainment value, and those being satirised have not generally sought recourse to legal action. When punk-rock bands savagely mocked the Royal family for example, no-one prosecuted them.
The present case was being brought under the Communications Act of 2003. A degree of public support is said to exist for its controversial section 127,[2] by people fed up with online bullying. For example, a racially motivated tweet relating to a footballer was prosecuted under it. But many have objected to its catch-all character,[3] and the DPP has stated in 2102, that its section 127 ‘should not be seen as a carte blanche for prosecuting content which, however upsetting to some, would normally fall within guarantees of freedom of expression in a democratic society,’ and that freedom of expression should include the right to say things that ‘offend, shock or disturb the state or any sector of the population.’
Last year, at least nine people a day were being arrested in the UK on such dubious grounds. Annoying someone or causing distress has never been viewed as a crime — until now. The Communications Act was basically designed for the media.[4] In contrast, songs posted up on the Web are only heard by persons who choose to listen. One exercises that choice by clicking the ‘play’ button. Ms Chabloz has not ‘communicated’ anything in the sense defined by that Act.
Normally, if a Youtube video is found to be disturbing, a complaint is put through to Youtube, rather than the person who has uploaded it. Now Ms Chabloz’ songs have either been deleted or given protective warnings by Youtube, which further complicates the question, of how and to whom she is supposed to be causing offence.
The Defence lawyer Adrian Davies had suggested at an earlier hearing that his client’s songs might be ‘offensive’ but not ‘grossly offensive,’ and that remark was reiterated by the judge in the present hearing. That is surely so: it’s not as if they were snuff movies, or featured depraved or perverted acts, or personally defamed anyone living — except for one person, Irene Zisblatt who claims that she swallowed diamonds while she was at Auschwitz. The court discussed her case, with Mr Davies pointing out that the official Yad Vashem Holocaust centre in Israel had cast doubt upon the veracity of Ms Zisblatt’s story in her book The Fifth Diamond. It features of course ze evil Nazis ripping babies in half, making lampshades out of human skin, etc. Was this not a legitimate target for satire, Mr Davis asked the Court?
Some have commented that British politics would hardly be able to function if a distinction was liable to be made between ‘offensive’ and ‘grossly offensive.’ How is the law supposed to discern such a thing?
Others have wondered if it is really appropriate for the CAAS to be registered as a charity, i.e., a tax-exempt NGO, which goes around suing people. The CPS had not wanted to take this case, but was pressured by the CAAS to do so. That applies both to the pending case of British ‘nationalist’ Jez Turner as well as Ms Chabloz: in both cases the CPS had no inclination to prosecute, but arm-twisting by the CAA made them do it. In fact, the CAA works for a foreign power: its first action upon being founded in 2014 was to intimidate the Trycicle Theatre in Cricklewood so they gave up their BDS policy on Israeli goods. Why should a group specialising in legal intimidation be awarded tax-exempt charity status?
The second witness after Mr Faulter was Stephen Silverman, the CAA’s ‘Director of Investigations and Enforcement.’ Under examination he confirmed that the online character ‘Nemo’ who had been persistently trolling Ms Chabloz, was none other than Stephen Applebaum, the CAAS’s ‘senior volunteer.’ For the last two years she had received some quite intense twitter threats and curses from this character — thus on her website ‘Nemo’ declared: ‘Even if you are acquitted, we will still go after you.’ Earlier, in the first court hearing of this case in December 2016, Mr Silverman admitted that he had been tweeting as ‘Bedlam Jones’ who had likewise been making quite intimidating comments.
So, this is a case that could work a lot better the other way round, with Alison as the innocent injured party and CAA personnel as guilty of harassment and victimisation. Clearly, the CAA needs to be stripped of its charity status. As a general comment, one can either post envenomed tweets against someone or sue them, but it may be inadvisable to try both.
The case is adjourned until March 7th.
[1] As her lawyer A.D advised the Court, the ‘personal emotional reaction’ of Mr Gideon Falter was ‘entirely irrelevant’ to the case
[2] Section 137: A person is guilty of an offence if he— (a)sends by means of a public electronic communications network, message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character;
[3] Figures obtained by The Times through the Freedom of Information Act reveal that 3,395 people across 29 forces were arrested last year under section 127 of the Communications Act 2003, which makes it illegal to intentionally “cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to another”, in 2016′
[4] It aimed ‘to make provision about the regulation of the provision of electronic communications networks and services … to make provision about the regulation of broadcasting and of the provision of television and radio services, etc.
Former Scotland Yard detective Charles Shoebridge explains why claims of chlorine attacks in Syria should be treated with caution.
The alleged use of chlorine as a weapon in Syria is back in the news in the US and UK, with fresh incidents reported and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson taking the opportunity within the last few days to condemn Syrian President Bashar Assad over the issue. Unusually, he also later appeared to concede there may be some doubt – but asserted anyway that “whoever conducted the attacks Russia bears responsibility.”
So how does the alleged evidence that the Syrian government is carrying out chlorine attacks stack up?
Some years ago I pointed out the still rarely commented upon apparent correlation between the timing of chlorine incidents and the holding of important international gatherings on Syria, such as UN Security Council meetings. If the chlorine claims were true, it seemed that Assad for some reason was deliberately timing his attacks to best hand his opponents a propaganda advantage and to mobilize the world against him. Another explanation, perhaps more likely yet never mentioned in the Western media, was that to achieve this aim these incidents were actually false flags his opponents were fabricating.
The recent allegations seem similar in this respect, coinciding exactly with many world leaders including Tillerson meeting in Paris to discuss chemical weapons, and just as a Syrian government operation to clear eastern Ghouta of US- and UK-backed rebel forces allied with groups associated with al Qaeda is underway.
Regardless of factual basis, claims of chlorine use, along with those of barrel bombs and attacks on hospitals, have been one of the most enduring propaganda memes of the Syria war.
Yet while headlines of chemical weapons are undoubtedly dramatic, the relatively low lethality of chlorine makes it an ineffective – and therefore arguably also unlikely – choice of weapon. Tillerson’s own comments bear this out. He spoke of twenty people being injured in an incident the day before, yet if ‘ordinary’ explosive bombs of the sort used not only by Russia and Syria but also by the US for example in Raqqa and Mosul had been used instead of chlorine, the effect on civilians in terms of both fear and fatalities would certainly have been very much worse.
Indeed, given the low toxicity of the allegedly small amounts used and the unpleasant bleach smell that always betrays chlorine’s presence, in most instances people could avoid being killed by simply walking away – another indication of its near uselessness as a weapon. Perhaps the only way it could be tactically effective is if used to drive people from trenches or bunkers to allow them to then be killed with bombs and bullets – but again, the amounts of chlorine needed would be far more than is alleged, and the accuracy needed to target in this way is unlikely to be achieved using unguided rockets as alleged this week in east Ghouta, or by dropping a ‘barrel bomb’ from a helicopter. Also, there has been little if any evidence offered or claims made of this tactic being used.
Given the above, it’s hardly surprising that First World War commanders who tried using chlorine as a weapon even in very high concentrations soon learned there were much more effective ways to kill. Indeed, this was one of the reasons why, when being pressured by US and UK politicians, media and NGOs to take action against Assad, even President Obama expressed skepticism, acknowledging that “chlorine isn’t historically a chemical weapon.”
Nonetheless, Western governments and media regularly cite a joint report by the UN and the world’s chemical weapons watchdog, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), that suggested Syria government forces were responsible for three chlorine attacks that took place in 2014 and 2015.
Perhaps as a PR tactic, the OPCW report prior to its public release was leaked to the media and other organizations sympathetic to the US and UK’s Syria narrative. The media then published selected excerpts alongside headlines suggesting that the OPCW investigation had proved Assad was using chlorine as a chemical weapon – and hence was in breach of the Chemical Weapons Convention, to which Syria since 2013 has been a signatory.
When the report was publicly released, a story of far less certainty emerged – a story that didn’t appear in US or UK media not only because it wasn’t helpful to US or UK policy, but also because with the selective leaks having dominated previous headlines, the release of the actual report was no longer considered newsworthy.
As one might expect from professional investigators, the OPCW report contains numerous caveats and reservations that cast doubts on its conclusions. For example, the report acknowledges that while evidence was “sufficient” in three of nine cases to allow a conclusion to be drawn that Syrian government forces had used chlorine, it also confirms that in none of these cases was this evidence “overwhelming” or even “strong.”
Such evidence included testimony from doctors who had witnessed chlorine symptoms but couldn’t know for sure how the chlorine had been delivered, even less by whom. Residents described hearing a helicopter at the time of the incidents, consistent with a helicopter dropping chlorine. Yet unmentioned by the report, this would also be consistent with chlorine being deliberately released by another party upon hearing a helicopter overhead, thereby encouraging a link to Syria government forces to be presumed.
In respect of this linkage, given that over many years a large number of “chlorine barrel bombs” have allegedly been dropped, it’s perhaps surprising in the course of a war in which almost everything is captured on video that no direct video proof of a helicopter dropping chlorine seems to have been recorded. Indeed, when on Twitter I asked for such helicopter linkage evidence, the only ‘proof’ I received was this animated video.
Crucially, and again wholly ignored by most US and UK media, the OPCW report itself highlights its own weaknesses, stating for example that the investigations were affected by the lack of a chain of custody for evidential material, the use of second or even third hand sources, the supplying by some parties of misleading information, and the difficulty of finding independent witnesses (page 8 of the report)
The report also found that some alleged impact locations had been altered, in some cases it appearing that munition remnants had been taken from elsewhere and placed at the alleged impact location (page 12)
Such a weak evidential basis and the possibility of fabrication have been apparent for years, yet overlooked by Western media and NGOs in their enthusiasm to promote an anti-Assad narrative. In what may be an example of this, what appears here to be bright green flare or signal smoke is claimed by rebels to be chlorine – a claim then repeated by western journalists and human rights groups despite the fact that some rudimentary research would have told them that heavier-than-air chlorine is unlikely to rise as the video shows.
Fabrication even involving real chlorine would be relatively straightforward because chlorine is in such wide use, for example for water purification, that as the OPCW report notes it is readily available to all parties in Syria. Furthermore, as the OPCW also note, al Nusra rebels seized and for a long period occupied a major Syrian chemical plant, from which much of the stored chlorine has disappeared and never been accounted for.
Along with the testimony of doctors and residents, the OPCW report also relies heavily on the witness statements of what are called “first responders,” but who are better known as the White Helmets – funded by, among others, the UK government’s secret security fund, and responsible not only for a continuous stream of anti-Assad propaganda, but also in many cases being the main ‘witnesses’ to atrocities ranging from chemical attacks to air strikes on aid convoys alleged by them to have been carried out by Assad. For any professional investigator who has followed the development of the White Helmets since their founding by a former UK army officer in 2013, such ‘witnesses’ could never be considered impartial, objective or credible.
Not only did the White Helmets provide much of the direct witness evidence of the alleged chlorine attacks but also, because the OPCW investigators weren’t able to visit any of the attack sites, it seems these ‘first responders’ also played a major part in producing the testimony of other witnesses, as well as producing and securing purported physical evidence. From the perspective of the integrity of an investigation, it’s hard to imagine anything more damaging than its effective outsourcing to an organization that, with their close working relationship with rebels including some linked with al Qaeda, has every interest in not only blaming incidents on Assad, but also a clear incentive to perhaps fabricate those incidents. Indeed, on many occasions the White Helmets have been accused of such fabrication, including in relation to chlorine.
It’s of course possible that the Syrian military is using chlorine as a chemical weapon. But if so, and notwithstanding years of allegations, no strong proof of this has yet emerged – even less a military or political motive as to why they would do so, or in any case of a direct link to Assad.
For the rebels and their powerful Western and Gulf Arab government supporters however, there exists a clear incentive to fabricate chemical weapons incidents for propaganda purposes – not only to push for western military intervention or a no fly zone that would seriously hinder the advance of government troops, but also to reinforce demands that Assad shouldn’t be a future leader of Syria, irrespective of the decisions of the Syrian people in any potential future elections.
Alleged chlorine attacks are also, as Tillerson showed, a useful tool to disparage and condemn Russia as being responsible for war crimes, regardless of the fact that Russia has proposed a new, comprehensive chemical weapons investigation – which the US has rejected, perhaps fearing what a far reaching, truly objective investigation might find.
In any event, claims of Syria government use of chlorine and other war crimes are likely to continue – not least perhaps because, despite the lack of a motive or any solid proof, a generally compliant, unsceptical and uncritical Western media will likely continue to report such claims as if they are unquestionably true.
Charles Shoebridge is an international politics graduate, lawyer, broadcaster and writer. He has formerly served as an army officer, Scotland Yard detective and counter terrorism intelligence officer.
A reading of the evidence presented by Vanessa Beeley regarding the UK FCO & USAID multi-million-financed White Helmet organisation embedded with terrorist factions inside Syria, also funded by the same hostile governments.
A university study that ‘proved’ Russia’s influence over the 2016 EU referendum has been thrown out by Twitter. The social media giant said one percent of the bots used during the lead up to the Brexit vote were actually Russian.
The data compiled in a City University study, published in October last year, claimed that some 13,000 bots were tweeting about Brexit before and after the referendum, has now been put into question.
In a letter to UK legislators trying to ascertain the extent of Russian interference – if any – in the Brexit referendum, Twitter largely dismissed the study.
Head of policy for Twitter in the UK Nick Pickles said the bots weren’t evidence of direct Russian meddling in the referendum.
In his letter to the Commons digital culture, media, and sport committee, Pickles said: “In reviewing the accounts identified by City University, we found that 1 percent of the accounts in the dataset were registered in Russia.”
“While many of the accounts identified by City University were in violation of the Twitter rules regarding spam, at this time, we do not have sufficiently strong evidence to enable us to conclusively link them with Russia or indeed the Internet Research Agency.”
In aid of an Electoral Commission investigation, last month Facebook announced that a grand total of 70p ($0.97) had been spent by a Russian-based company called ‘Internet Research Agency’.
The paid adverts were found to have reached just 200 Facebook news feeds, pouring cold water on claims that the Kremlin helped swing last year’s EU referendum.
This is the second time that Twitter has had to respond to UK MPs calling on social media companies to investigate the influence of Russian bots on the outcome of the 2016 referendum.
Even though both Facebook and now Twitter have insisted that Moscow-based social media accounts had little if anything to do with the Brexit vote, Chair of the Commons Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) Committee Damian Collins is determined to find proof of Russian meddling.
Responding to Twitter’s chief executive Jack Dorsey, Collins said: “I’m afraid there are outstanding questions from the DCMS committee that Twitter have not yet answered,” demanding to know “how many other accounts were being controlled from [sic] agencies in Russia, even if they were not registered there.”
Continuing, “I’m afraid that the failure to obtain straight answers to these questions, whatever they might be, is simply increasing concerns about these issues, rather than reassuring people.”
Russia has repeatedly denied any involvement in the Brexit vote.
Russia’s allegations that the US funded clandestine biological laboratories near its borders – claims denied until recently by Washington – have remained a persistent flashpoint in the steadily deteriorating relationship between Russia and the West for nearly a decade.
The biolabs affair was revealed in a 2017 exposé by RT that questioned a shady US military tender seeking the genetic material of living Russians. Over the years, Moscow has raised allegations against Washington of conducting clandestine bio-research, including potential WMD development and illicit human testing, in a network of labs located across multiple nations, the bulk of which operated in Ukraine. The claims were met with a blanket denial in the West, which repeatedly dismissed them as “Russian propaganda.”
This abruptly changed the past week when US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said that her department had identified more than 120 US-funded biological laboratories in 30 countries, with over a third of them located in Ukraine. The agency is now working to “identify where these labs are, what pathogens they contain, and what ‘research’ is being conducted to end dangerous gain-of-function research that threatens the health and wellbeing of the American people and the world,” according to Gabbard.
RT looks back at the timeline of the biolabs saga and the US denial of its existence until now. … continue
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