07.31.07 - 05:48pm
Right wing extremist Robert Cottage, 49, a former British National Party election candidate, was jailed for two and a half years for stockpiling explosive chemicals and ball bearings at his home in Colne, Lancashire. He had previously been acquitted of charges of conspiracy to cause explosions. Sentencing Cottage, the judge, Mrs Justice Swift, accepted Cottage’s claim that he was manufacturing explosives for defensive purposes, fearing a civil war caused by mass immigration. Having already spent a year behind bars before and during the trial, Cottage is likely to be free within six months. Now, this verdict comes just two weeks after three men were imprisoned for six years and one other for four years after being found guilty of seeking to “foment hatred and encourage killing” after a protest outside the Danish embassy in London: that is, they said something.
Category: terrorism | Tags: | Be the First to Comment »
07.30.07 - 07:51am
As every single justification offered by the United States for this atrocity has been demonstrated to be utterly without foundation, including by a report by the US government’s own State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research, no doubt Judge Doumar also finds it depressing that his own nation would “execute its power for purposes which most countries would find intolerable and loathsome” and would support compensation for the thousands of Sudanese families who lost relatives. Unfortunately he seems to have forgotten to mention it in his ruling and CBS does not seem to think it relevant either.
Category: terrorism | Tags: | 4 Comments »
07.29.07 - 07:30pm
The assumption is that the “special relationship” with the United States is obviously a jolly good thing old chap and we’d better make sure we preserve it or we’ll be in a right pickle. But the first thing to do when hearing this kind of talk is to stop and ask: who is the “we” in this sentence and which “United States” is it that this mysterious “we” has a relationship with? I mean, I am pretty sure that I am not part of this “we”
Category: the special relationship | Tags: | 2 Comments »
07.27.07 - 08:49am
The Australian case, various British detention cases over the last few years and, of course, Guantanamo Bay, illustrate the dangers of the state having the power to lock people up without legal recourse. Once the state has you in its sights all kinds of factors come into play, totalitarian paranoia and the sheer bloody-minded refusal to admit a mistake among them. Civil liberties groups and, hopefully, a cross-party alliance of MPs, have a difficult fight on their hands to stop the British Government’s creeping power grab once again.
Category: terrorism, repression | Tags: | 2 Comments »
07.24.07 - 09:29am
It wasn’t hard to understand what was going on. The reporter was expressing incredulity at Dhiren Barot’s wife’s statement. The implication was that there were grounds for believing that somebody may deserve to be attacked by a prison inmate, have boiling oil splashed over him such that he was left horrifically burned, lost his hair in the attack and no doubt left scarred for life.
Category: terrorism, media | Tags: | 1 Comment »
07.21.07 - 03:50pm
Freedland is supposed to be a classic liberal columnist in Britain’s leading progressive newspaper, yet the article is an instructive example of the way the media accommodates to the establishment line, trying to manufacture consent by means of framing the discussion in a certain way.
Category: Iran, media | Tags: | 2 Comments »
07.18.07 - 09:23am
Respect MP George Galloway faces being suspended from the House of Commons as the establishment continues its campaign against the antiwar campaigner. The ludicrous “standards and privileges” committee has recommended Galloway be suspended for 18 days over claims that a charity he founded to help an Iraqi child suffering from leukemia received money from Saddam Hussein’s government via a complicated “kick-back” scheme.
Category: Iraq | Tags: | 3 Comments »
