21 Nov 11 | Europe and Central Asia, News and features
Leah Borromeo says the 2012 games in London could damage free expression in the United Kingdon
A series of Home Office proposals could ban protests during the London 2012 Olympic games. In reaction to the longevity and scale of recent Occupy London takeovers of public and private space at St Paul’s Cathedral, Finsbury Square and a former UBS bank, ministers are reported to be drafting legislation loosely based on part 3 of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 – paying particular note to restricting tents and “sleeping equipment” for up to 90 days around exclusion zones. Police and “authorised officers” will be allowed to disperse protests quickly. Presumably with “reasonable force”.
Don’t be too shocked or too quick to compare this to Beijing 2008. Then, the Beijing Organising Committee banned all foreign visitors and non-Beijing-resident Chinese from attending, watching or applying for the right to demonstrate in authorised protest zones. Athens had protest zones in 2004. So did the Salt Lake City Winter Games in 2002.
The reasoning behind these restrictions is always to “preserve the festivity” of the Olympic experience. And security. Always security. In London’s case, security means Britain apparently waives its own rights and customs to allow America to oversee its own security operations, laying on 21,000 private security contractors and enforcing the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006.
That allows police and “enforcement officers” the right of entry to private buildings suspected of contravening legislation on Olympic advertising. This includes: “advertising of a non-commercial nature” and “announcements or notices of any kind” paying particular attention to “the distribution or provision of documents or articles, the display or projection of words, images, lights or sounds, and things done with or in relation to material which has or may have purposes or uses other than as an advertisement”. In other words, protest.
Artist Peter Kennard, noted for overtly political art in a public context says: “The Secretary of State has regulations banning ‘advertising in the vicinity of the Olympics’. How big is a vicinity? Words fail me and because I make public art in the ‘vicinity’ of the Olympics it might be safer for me if both words and images continue to fail me until after the Olympics”.
A London swamped with police, security officers and spy drones might just dampen all the fun. Providing you sing along with the hymn sheet laid on by the Games’ sponsors and ignore the £9.3 billion price tag, you’ll be fine. But if you argue that a corporate agenda and exploitation is being sold under the auspices of uniting the world under sport and “generating jobs”, you might be in trouble.
The proposed legislation and the laws already in place only serve to secure the profits made by those with heavy financial stakes in the Olympic Games. These corporations read like an anti-capitalist wet dream: McDonalds, Coca-Cola, Dow, G4S, BP…. They may bring jobs to an area, but totally undermine the community-building that encourages grass roots businesses and the local relationships and interactions that stem from that.
It’s interesting to note that the Home Office sees protest as a threat. They’re not only worried about homegrown “domestic extremists” with a grudge against capitalism but international groups seeking to use the Olympics as a platform to air their grievances about authoritarian regimes around the world. Syria, China and Bahrain spring quickly to mind. So instead of giving an example of a functioning democracy where everyone gets a voice and can practise free speech, Britain hides dissent in an attic like it’s an invalid child.
The idea that ministers are considering bans on protest off the back of a global Occupy movement further legitimises the idea that these restrictions are directed at those who oppose one of the greatest and most murderous regimes of the world…capitalism.
So here we go. I hate the Olympics. Arrest me.
05 Nov 11 | Events
Night of the Imprisoned Writer
Tuesday 15 November, 7.30pm (Doors at 7pm)
Venue: The Tabernacle, 34-35 Powis Square, London, W11 2AY
A unique performance evening to mark the 30th annual Day of the Imprisoned Writer, in association with ice&fire theatre company.
Hello Mr Miller, Hello Mr Pinter
Don’t miss your chance to see this special one-off performance in which the powerful words of persecuted writers from Mexico to Bahrain, from Kenya to Azerbaijan, have been woven together by award-winning playwright Sonja Linden and English PEN’s Cat Lucas. Directed by Christine Bacon and performed by Actors for Human Rights, ‘Hello…’ is both a moving celebration of PEN’s work on behalf of imprisoned and persecuted writers around the world and a concrete testament to the bravery of those writers who, often at great risk to themselves and their families, continue to speak out.
Stand Up For Writers In Prison
And because no-one speaks out quite like a comic, we’re delighted to be bringing you some of today’s finest acts to illustrate what freedom of speech is all about……
How to book
Tickets are £10 and all proceeds will go directly to English PEN’s Writers in Prison Programme.
To book, please click here: http://www.carnivalvillage.org.uk/all-events/night-of-the-imprisoned-writer/
English PEN’s Writers in Prison Programme would like to thank Richard and Elena Bridges for their invaluable support.
24 Oct 11 | Middle East and North Africa, News and features
Tunisians flocked to voting stations yesterday in the country’s first-ever free elections, but only the cultivation of an independent media will safeguard democracy and free expression, writes Rohan Jayasekera
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17 Oct 11 | Digital Freedom, Uncategorized
Copwatch, a French website that publishes photos of police brutality and publicise cases of French police officers with links to the far-right, was dealt a blow on Friday in a move designed to block access to the site on French soil.
In the High Court (Tribunal de Grande Instance) in Paris on the 14October, the case – dated 4 October — was brought against six FAI’s (Fournisseurs d’accès à internet or internet service providers). The injunction blocks any internet user within France from accessing Copwatch via the six largest internet providers; Free, France Telecom, SFR, Bouygues Telecom, Numericable and Darty Telecom. However, the site remains fully operational via Tor, aka The Onion Router, a layered encryption service allowing anonymous web publishing.
Claude Guéant, the Minister of the Interior and former Chief of Staff to president Nicholas Sarkozy, initially pushed for the deletion of 10 pages displaying personal details of police officers with connections to extreme right groups. However, following the six FAI’s countering that this would be “technically impossible” according to news site lePost.fr, the tribunal then selected a course of action intended to be far more punitive.
In a statement, the site administrators said: “We hereby confirm once more that this database was set up to collect information on members of the police force, who due to their status are both representatives of the state and the “democratic republic”, and are thus public officials by their own choosing.”
They continued that the database “is a tool which allows individuals to become acquainted with these same public officials” and that contrary to the position pushed by the government on Friday, only those with links to the extreme right have had their privacy infringed. Furthermore, they stated that “as for those members of the police force who felt “in danger” for themselves or their families and accuse us of…inciting reprisals, these are the same individuals who participate daily in the destruction of the lives of large numbers of people and their families, principally through an over-zealous use of their powers.”
Finally, the group stated that with regard to their allegedly stirring up “anti-cop hatred” within the French populace, that this hatred was already present due to the actions of the police force themselves, and that all that Copwatch have done is to allow this a public space within the media.
Fitwatch, the British equivalent of Copwatch, who monitor the actions of the FIT (Forward Intelligence Teams) within the police force and push to keep the right to protest without surveillance or harassment by the police, has issued a statement of “full solidarity” with Copwatch on its site. Included in this statement is the remark that offences of so-called “outrage” exist in France, including “insulting a public servant with supposedly unfounded accusations (eg; calling a cop a fascist to their face) and a law against publishing a public servant’s photo without their permission.”
In 2010, Reporters Without Borders added France to its list of “Countries Under Surveillance” due to the recent implementation of the pernicious HADOPI “three strikes” law and the government’s increasing crackdown on so-called ‘uncivilised’ web activity not to mention individual journalists. France prides itself on being the ultimate democracy, the states’ value of social equality before the law and respect to diversity of beliefs being written into Article II of its constitution. Yet this direct attack on Copwatch sets a dangerous precedent, attacking the site via third party providers and blocking citizens’ access to materials which provide a vital check to supposedly democratic powers. An inability to critique the police force by any means from within your own country cannot be considered democratic; it is an action that most residents of western Europe would typically associate with the repressive governments of Syria or Bahrain than France. If any national police force is ‘the long arm of the law’, then this ruling demonstrates that the French government’s version of democracy is increasingly selective.
