CRIMINAL-FRIENDLY BRITAIN AGAIN

The "human rights" of foreign ex-prisoners on the run from police are being put before public safety. Detectives across the country are refusing to issue "wanted" posters for the missing criminals because they do not want to breach human rights laws. Forces said that the offenders had a right to privacy and might sue for defamation if their names and photographs were released.

Critics condemned the decision as "ludicrous". It comes as the Government faces mounting pressure to reform or scrap the Human Rights Act, which was blamed last week for a murder by a serial sex attacker and for a court ruling that nine asylum seekers who hijacked an aeroplane cannot be sent home to Afghanistan.

Yesterday, the Lord Chancellor acknowledged public fears that dangerous criminals were able to remain at large because of the legislation and said the Government was considering new laws. Lord Falconer said: "I think there is real concern about the way the Act is operating. The deployment of human rights is, often wrongly, leading to wrong conclusions to be made about issues of public safety. There needs to be political clarity that the Human Rights Act should have no effect on public safety issues - public safety comes first." Last week the Prime Minister's official spokesman indicated that Tony Blair was also considering amending the Act to restore public confidence.

The Conservative leader, David Cameron, has already vowed to order a review of the law if he is elected and will consider rewriting the legislation or even abolishing it.

Meanwhile, Charles Clarke has revealed that he "did not lose a minute's sleep" over the freed foreign prisoners scandal that led to him being sacked as Home Secretary. The MP told his local newspaper: "My sleeping was completely normal, fortunately I'm not worried by sleepless nights. Sleepless nights occur when there are things which are genuinely exercising your worry." In his final Commons appearance before he was sacked, Mr Clarke said that police and immigration officers were engaged in "very intensive work" to find and deport 38 serious offenders who were released from jail without being considered for deportation.

His successor, John Reid, suggested last week that the true number may be higher, but could not give a figure. Police forces pointed to human rights legislation as the reason why names and photographs cannot be issued. They also said the on-the-run former prisoners were not sought as criminals, but instead as the perpetrators of immigration offences. The Metropolitan Police said: "Anyone who is wanted on any offence has the right to privacy." Greater Manchester Police said: "We could not be sure about putting out information now without possibly defaming somebody." The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) says in its guidance to forces: "Article 8 of the Human Rights Act gives everyone the right to respect for their private and family life... and publication of photographs could be a breach of that."

According to Acpo, photographs should be released only in "exceptional circumstances", where public safety needs override the case for privacy. Last night the Conservatives condemned the decision. David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said: "If true, this is a ludicrous interpretation of human rights. A criminal's right to privacy is as nothing by comparison to the public's right to safety. "Now that these individuals are on the run, their names and pictures should be in the public domain so that people are not put at even more unnecessary risk."

The Immigration Service has insisted that the decision as to whether to name the missing former prisoners is down to the police. A Home Office spokesman said: "It is an operational matter for individual police forces to decide whether to publish details or photos of the individuals concerned." Yet every force in the country has come to the same decision - to withhold the details of the former prisoners. The Met, Britain's largest force, said: "They are not criminals; it is an immigration offence. We will use all the tools in our tool box to try and find them without printing their identity - that's the last recourse." Greater Manchester Police said its fear of being sued for defamation was heightened because "this only happened two or three weeks ago and the investigations are in a very early stage".

Last week, Andrew Bridges, the Chief Inspector of Probation, concluded that worries over human rights had prevented the proper supervision of serial sex offender Anthony Rice following his release from a 16-year sentence for rape. He went on to kill Naomi Bryant.

Source



JOURNALIST CONDEMNED FOR POLITICALLY INCORRECT VIEWS

You can be as Leftist as you like but nothing else!

In 12 years as a reporter for Tampa's ABC affiliate, Don Germaise's experience with journalism has been mostly one way: He asks the questions, others answer. But he has found himself in the middle of a controversy over an appearance on the other side of the cameras lens. An interview he granted to a member of a white separatist group has been posted on the Internet, drawing thousands of downloads from viewers and criticism for breaching standards of journalistic objectivity.

"How could somebody as experienced as I was be so naive as to talk to this kid?" [A 28-year-old is a "kid"?] said Germaise, an energetic reporter known for his aggressive hurricane coverage. "I was trying to help him out. He said he wanted to be a journalist." Germaise said he submitted to the interview after videotaping his own talk with David Daugherty, the webmaster for an Internet site operated by the Tampa unit of the National Vanguard. The group maintainsthat the media are controlled by Jews and that ethnic diversity harms America. But Daugherty recalls a more explicit bargain: If Germaise wanted an interview about the National Vanguard, he also had to let Daugherty interview him.

Daugherty, 28, posted Germaise's interview on May 9, saying Thursday there had been more than 4,300 downloads of the video, featuring the reporter's views on free speech, illegal immigration and the control his bosses at Tampa's ABC affiliate exert over his stories. The site also offers links to information about pro-white music and a glowing report on a speech by convicted Holocaust denier David Irving, now in prison in Austria.

Daugherty has asked to swap interviews with other journalists, but no one agreed until Germaise did. "You very rarely see one of these guys who is a standard foot soldier reporter (interviewed) in front of a camera," said Daugherty, who denounces most news stories about pro-white groups as "propaganda" developed by a Jewish-controlled media industry. "They're kind of a faceless people. When I posted the story, it generated a ton of traffic because everybody wanted to hear what this guy had to say." "ABC Action News Reporter Blasts Media Bosses, ADL!" the headline reads over the link to Germaise's interview. (ADL refers to the Jewish advocacy group, the Anti-Defamation League.) "Don Germaise confirms what many of us have suspected about 'mainstream' media," adds a blurb on the site.

"All these illegal immigrants are causing a huge strain on government services because they want free medical care, they want to be able to drive, they want all of these resources that are available in this great country of ours," Germaise says on the video, filmed at an Ybor City park. "Yet they're not paying taxes because they're illegal immigrants. If you're in the country illegally, you shouldn't be here."

When asked by Daugherty whether media owners influence the news process, Germaise said, "When the boss speaks, the workers listen. I have definitely had my manager say we need to do this kind of a story. Did it come from ABC, did it come from Walt Disney? Did it come from someone else? I don't know. I do know there have been times when I've been told to do a story."

The interview drew praise from visitors to the message boards at Stormfront.org, a "white pride" Web site. "I'm speechless," wrote one user, identified only as Zemi. "We need more voices like his in the MSM (mainstream media). I hope he gets to keep his job. Or will someone find a illegal immigrant to do his work?"

Germaise, who eventually developed a story on the National Vanguard for WFTS earlier this month, maintained he did not provide the interview to Daugherty in exchange for permission to interview him. However, Daugherty made the same demand of a St. Petersburg Times reporter who hoped to write about the National Vanguard unit, but editors declined. And while experts on hate groups at the Southern Poverty Law Center knew activists sometimes videotape journalists interviewing them -- as protection against misquotes -- they had not heard of someone insisting on interviewing the interviewer....

Famous locally as the "hunker down" guy for his kinetic reports from inside raging hurricanes, Germaise insisted his earnest attempts to answer Daugherty's questions were distorted by heavy editing. Now he's left wondering whether the world thinks he's a closet white separatist. "This is a guy who told me in an interview he wanted every black person in America moved to another state," Germaise said of Daugherty. "I can state unequivocally that there is nothing about this group that I like. I was naive ... to let them use my words to make it appear the way they did. I was wrong."...

Don Heider, an associate professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, said Germaise was "seriously compromised" as a result of the interview. "What comes through (this interview) is that there's some conspiracy at the station to cover the (news) in a certain way," said Heider, a former TV news reporter who watched Germaise's interview over the Internet from his office in Austin. "I'm not sure his news director would agree with that."...

Source



U.K.: LITTLE KIDS TO BE HARASSED OVER "OBESITY"

Nobody seems to be mentioning that moderately "overweight" people live longest!

Children are to be weighed at the ages of four and ten and their parents warned if they are too fat. The school screening regime is aimed at fighting the obesity epidemic which threatens a generation of youngsters with a lifetime of ill-health. But the plan triggered angry claims that the Government is trying to dictate the size of children. Critics dismissed the weigh-in scheme as misguided, costly, bureaucratic and a dramatic extension of the 'nanny state'. They said pupils branded overweight could be stigmatised and bullied.

Under the programme, children will be weighed and measured as they start primary school and again before they leave. Parents of those judged too heavy will be sent letters warning of long-term health problems unless they lose weight. School nurses will conduct the first checks this summer and the results will be used to create a 'fat map' of the country.

Ministers are understood to be studying a trial scheme in the U.S. which uses three standard letters - one saying the pupil is within healthy limits, a second raising concerns they may be getting out of shape and a third warning that the child is obese. Details of the scheme emerged as a Parliamentary written answer revealed that one in three youngsters aged two to 15 is now overweight or obese, putting them at risk of a host of serious illnesses. Thirty-three per cent of boys and 35 per cent of girls are estimated to be too heavy. [In the opinion of the do-gooders only] ...

Parents are expected to be told how their children's weight compares with healthy youngsters of the same age and height. Public health minister Caroline Flint has insisted that it is parents who 'first and foremost influence what their children eat'. But parents' groups warned that the weigh-in letters could be ignored or deeply resented while psychiatrists warned of a surge in eating disorders among children.

Margaret Morrissey of the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations said: "It appears to be more of the 'nanny state' and I don't think it's going to be terribly effective. "What we do in our own homes is our business and some parents may not react particularly well. "We all appreciate guidance on good diets but most of us think we are already doing our best to provide that. "Parents may say 'so what?'. If parents have a particular lifestyle and they prefer it, all the letters home in the world will not make a difference. "This will be extremely expensive to introduce and I do not believe it's the most efficient way of tackling obesity."

Dr Robin Arnold, of the British Medical Association's psychiatry committee, said: "It may well be justified in public health terms but one wonders what it will do to rates of eating disorders like anorexia nervosa in the future."

Sociologist Patricia Morgan said youngsters who were tubby as children often became slimmer naturally without outside interference. She said: "It used to be called puppy fat and it was accepted children would often grow out of it. "This is another piece of surveillance and another layer of bureaucracy. The risk is that people will become less likely to change things on their own initiative." ...

The Children's Commissioner, Professor Al Aynsley-Green, has expressed reservations about the scheme and nurses have warned that it could amount to an invasion of privacy. Chris Etherington, vice-chairman of the Royal College of Nursing school nurses forum, said: "The RCN is not opposed to primary school children being weighed and measured but we have concerns about how it will be done to avoid stigmatising them. "Children will pick up on the tallest, largest and smallest. Is this a positive experience for them to be going through?" ...

More here



Politically correct Australian judge admits he was wrong

But there's still a long way to go to see justice done



Northern Territory Chief Justice Brian Martin has admitted he made a mistake in sentencing an Aboriginal elder to just one month's jail for having anal sex with a 14-year-old girl and bashing her with a boomerang, because he placed too much emphasis on Aboriginal customary law. In a case that triggered a national outcry, the judge gave weight to the 55-year-old man's belief that he was within his rights to have sex with the girl because, at the age of four, she had been promised to him as a wife. "I was wrong. I got the sentence wrong. The Court of Criminal Appeal said I was wrong. I have no problem with that," Justice Martin told The Australian yesterday.

But while he accepts his error, the Chief Justice warned against the "simplistic" view that Aboriginal offenders are hiding behind traditional law. When courts considered an Aborigine's belief in customary law they were applying a principle that was used in courts across the nation, he said. "The principle is the same. It goes back to the offender's circumstances, their background, their culture - all of those things go to their make-up and reflect on their moral culpability," Justice Martin said.

Justice Martin's defence of customary law is at odds with the views of federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough, who wants to prevent it being used as a mitigating factor in sentencing indigenous offenders found guilty of violent crimes. Mr Brough said on Monday that customary law "has been used as a curtain that people are hiding behind" and it should be excluded as a factor when judges are determining sentences.

Justice Martin, a father of three daughters and a son who is on leave in South Australia, delivered his defence of customary law before he became aware of the moves to wind it back. After learning of Mr Brough's plan, Justice Martin said he had no intention of entering a political debate. Justice Martin handed down his original one-month sentence in August last year while sitting under a tree surrounded by residents of the remote community of Yarralin, 380km southwest of Katherine. The sentence for the crime of sexual intercourse with a child under 16 was increased on appeal in December to three years after the Northern Territory Court of Criminal Appeal ruled it was "manifestly inadequate".

Mr Brough said not only was Justice Martin's decision wrong, but that the appeal judges had also failed the victim by increasing the sentence to three years suspended after 18 months. "If you think giving a man an 18-month prison sentence - that's how long he was actually to be in jail for - for raping a girl for two days at 14 years of age, then I think our society has some very serious questions to answer," he told ABC Television.

Yesterday, Mr Brough told the Coalition partyroom many indigenous communities were run like "communist" states with individuals having no property rights. But Mr Brough has been accused of bigotry and a lack of understanding by West Australian Aboriginal Legal Service chief executive Dennis Eggington over his plan to scrap customary law. "Aboriginal people do not hide behind customary law," Mr Eggington said. "Whether he (Mr Brough) understands it or not, in Australia there are two sets of laws that will always apply to Aboriginal people who live according to their traditions and customs."

Justice Martin said it would be a mistake to view the Yarralin case as evidence that Aborigines were winning lighter sentences by hiding behind customary law. "What happened is that you get something like (the Yarralin case) and people start taking this very simplistic approach that they are hiding behind traditional law," he said. He said the appeal court had made it clear there were limits to the weight that could be given to customary law. "The system works. They increased the penalty and said there is a limit." He said his sentencing remarks in the Yarralin case had made it clear that when customary law was in conflict with the law of the Northern Territory "the Territory's law must prevail". "It is a balancing exercise. But if they commit a very serious crime then the weight that is given to the personal side of things decreases."

Source