Thursday, February 17, 2011


End this human rights insanity: British PM's fury as judges rule paedophiles and rapists should have chance to get off sex offenders' register

David Cameron declared war on unelected judges yesterday after they put the human rights of paedophiles and rapists before public safety. The Prime Minister said he was ‘appalled’ that Britain’s 50,000 sex offenders can appeal against being kept on a police register for life.

In a highly-charged intervention, Mr Cameron called for an overhaul of the ‘completely offensive’ rulings from the European Court of Human Rights which have influenced our own judges. ‘It’s about time we started making sure decisions are made in this Parliament rather than in the courts,’ Mr Cameron said.

And he announced plans to ensure MPs make laws rather than the judiciary. He told MPs that a commission to draw up a British Bill of Rights to replace the Human Rights Act will be set up ‘imminently’.

Home Secretary Theresa May called for a return ‘to sanity’ and pledged to do the ‘minimum possible’ to comply with the judges’ demands to protect the rights of paedophiles. She said: ‘These are rights, of course, that these offenders have taken away from their victims in the cruellest and most degrading manner. It places the rights of sex offenders above the right of the public to be protected from the risk of reoffending.’

Mr Cameron’s outburst puts him on a collision course with Justice Secretary Ken Clarke and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg. But if he fails to deliver he will further enrage Tory MPs, who recently voted to reject a European Court ruling that prisoners should have the right to vote.

He spoke out after the Supreme Court, which is England’s highest court, ruled that rapists and paedophiles must have the right to be removed from the national sex offenders register if they can prove they are no longer a threat to children. It was relying on previous European Court rulings which enshrine the human right to privacy. It will mean offenders – such as former pop impresario Jonathan King, jailed for seven years for sexually abusing teenage boys – get the right to appeal against being on the register 15 years after their release from prison.

The judges said keeping serious offenders on the register for life was ‘disproportionate’ and a breach of their right to a private and family life.

The Prime Minister said it was ‘completely offensive’ to ‘have, once again, a ruling by a court that seems to fly completely in the face of common sense.’ He added: ‘I am appalled by the Supreme Court ruling.’

In response to the ruling, the Home Secretary announced new restrictions on convicted molesters who are released from prison to close a series of staggering loopholes left by Labour. Currently sex offenders on the lowest danger level simply have to attend a police station once a year, tell the police their name, date of birth and National Insurance Number and alert them to changes in their address.

In future paedophiles and rapists will have to alert the authorities whenever they are living in a house with anyone under 18. They must report to the police when they travel abroad, even for one day. Currently they can leave the country for up to three days with no restrictions.

Homeless sex offenders who claim they have ‘no fixed abode’ will have to tell the police every week where they are staying.

Mrs May also aims to close the loophole that means sex offenders can avoid staying on the register if they change their name by deed poll. Such a Bill, if implemented, would contain a series of non-negotiable declarations about the rights of the individual accompanied by their responsibilities. The idea would be to deter vexatious claims from serial litigants or criminals attempting to exploit human rights laws for their own personal profit.

But it remains unclear when the commission Mr Cameron intends to set up will report and who will head it. Senior government officials say the panel, chaired by an independent figure, will be asked to redraw the balance of power between Parliament and the courts, both in Europe and the UK.

Senior Tories conceded that dramatic change may have to wait for four years because of Liberal Democrat support for the Human Rights Act. But they pledged to put ‘more Conservative’ plans to crush the courts at the heart of the next Tory election manifesto in 2015.

Victims groups reacted with fury to the Supreme Court ruling. Andrew Flanagan, chief executive of the NSPCC, said: ‘Adults who sexually abuse children should stay on the offenders’ register for life as we can never be sure their behaviour will change.’

Lyn Costello, from Mothers Against Murder And Aggression, said: ‘I wonder what’s next? Are we going to say it’s against their human rights to lock them up at all? We’re playing with people’s lives.’

SOURCE






At last, a victory for the rights of the majority: Judges reject appeal by Muslims who shouted abuse at returning British soldiers

Judges yesterday staunchly defended the ‘rights of the majority’ as they threw out an appeal by a group of Muslims against their conviction for hurling hate-filled abuse at soldiers.

The High Court ruled that the men were not acting within their human rights when they heckled and jeered members of the 2nd Battalion Royal Anglian Regiment as they marched through Luton after returning from Afghanistan.

The anti-war protesters caused outrage when they called the troops – who had previously served in Iraq – rapists, murderers and baby killers. They also waved placards with slogans including ‘Butchers of Basra’ and ‘cowards, killers, extremists’.

Yesterday’s judgment was hailed as a ‘victory for common sense’. Politicians and campaigners believe the courts have sometimes helped promote minority rights and sensibilities over those of the majority of the British people.

After the Luton protest, five Muslim men were convicted of using threatening, abusive or insulting words likely to cause harassment, alarm of distress.

They appealed against their convictions at the High Court, arguing that they were legitimately exercising their rights to freedom of expression and to protest under European human rights laws. But in their ruling two judges said the men’s actions had gone well beyond ‘legitimate expressions of protest’.

Tellingly, they added that ‘the focus on minority rights should not result in overlooking the rights of the majority’.

Lord Justice Gross said: ‘There was all the difference in the world between expressing the view that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were illegal or immoral and that British forces should not be engaged in them and the abusive and insulting chants of the appellants. To attend a parade of this nature and to shout that this country’s soldiers were “murderers”, “baby killers”, “rapists all of you” who would or should “burn in hell” gave rise to a very clear threat to public order.’

He said the men were fortunate there had been no serious outbreak of violence and attributed their safety to ‘skilful policing’.

Lord Justice Gross added that freedom of expression was not an unqualified right and ‘the justification for invoking the criminal law is the threat to public order’. In striking ‘the right balance when determining whether speech is “threatening, abusive or insulting”, the focus on minority rights should not result in overlooking the rights of the majority’, he added.

Mr Justice Davis agreed, saying the right to exercise freedom of expression – under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights – ‘necessarily carries with it duties and responsibilities’. He added: ‘These were not just generalised statements of views, vigorously expressed, on the morality of the war but were personally abusive and potentially defamatory of those soldiers. ‘That the soldiers themselves were, as it happened, broad shouldered enough not to care one jot does not matter.’

Although the battalion is currently based in Cyprus, Bedfordshire is one of their main recruiting areas.

Trouble flared on March 10, 2009, when the 200 members of the battalion – who had lost 12 men during two tours of Iraq and one in Afghanistan – marched through Luton to a meeting with their colonel-in-chief, the Duke of Gloucester.

There were heated exchanges between members of the public who had turned out to cheer on the soldiers and the anti-war contingent, who had been penned into a small area for their safety.

Five protesters – Jalal Ahmed, 22, Munim Abdul, 29, Yousaf Bashir, 30, Shajjadar Choudhury, 32, and Ziaur Rahman, 33, all from Luton – were later found guilty at the town’s magistrates court of public order offences. Each received a two-year conditional discharge and was ordered to pay £500 costs.

SOURCE






Will Multiculturalism End Europe?

Multiculturalism has “totally failed,” says German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “State multiculturalism has had disastrous results,” says Britain’s David Cameron. Is multiculturalism a failure in France? “My answer is clearly yes, it is a failure,” says President Nicolas Sarkozy. Ex-Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar has declared multiculturalism a failure in Spain, saying it divides and debilitates Western societies.

Only in Canada and the U.S., it seems, is the issue still in dispute.

Yet these European leaders are not leading anyone. They are far behind the people, and their belated appreciation of the idea of national identity is but a product of political panic. Take Merkel in Germany.

Last summer, Thilo Sarrazin published a book the title of which may be translated as “Germany Abolishes Itself.” Sarrazin argued that Germany’s gastarbeiters, guest workers — Turks, Kurds, Arabs — are dumbing down the nation. While Germany’s birth rate fell below replacement levels decades ago, these foreigners with less intelligence and much higher dropout, welfare and crime rates are rapidly replacing the declining German population.

“It is a matter of culture,” said Sarrazin, and “Islam is the culture.” This is why Muslim immigrants are “socially, culturally and intellectually inferior to most everyone else.” Yet Sarrazin did use the phrase a “genetic minus” to describe migrants from the Middle East.

Were these the ravings of a neo-fascist intellectual and closet admirer of the late Fuhrer? Not at all. Sarrazin was a proud member of the Social Democratic Party of Willy Brandt and a board member of the Bundesbank.

With Merkel and the German establishment howling for his head, Thilo resigned, unrepentant. Two-thirds of Germans said he had a right to speak his mind, a third said they agreed with him, and “Germany Abolishes Itself” has sold over a million copies.

It was in response to the firestorm of the Sarrazin affair that Merkel discovered that multiculturalism was a failure. Her EU colleagues have since been falling all over one another to agree.

Another factor has contributed to the sudden awakening of the EU’s elite — an explosion of anti-immigrant parties that are siphoning off working-class voters from socialist parties and nationalist voters from conservative parties.

Among these are Jean-Marie Le Pen’s National Front in France, the British National Party, the Vlaams Belang in Belgium, Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party in Holland, the Swiss People’s Party of Christoph Blocher, which won the battle to ban the burka, the Austrian Freedom Party and Alliance for Austria’s Future, the Jobbik Party of Hungary, the Lega Nord in Italy, which favors secession, the Danish People’s Party, and the Sweden Democrats, who just won a toehold in parliament.

What these parties share is that all are anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim and ethnonational. They want to retain, or restore, a nation of, by and for their own kind, with its own history, holidays, heroes, language, literature, music and art. They are fiercely resistant to any dilution of the ethnic composition or cultural character of their countries.

What is the menace of multiculturalism these people see? From Moscow to Marseilles, from Stockholm to Sicily, they see the Muslims pouring in and creating tiny nations within the nation, and being unwilling to embrace a new identity as Englishmen, French or German.

And their fears are not unjustified. For just as the populist parties are deeply ethnonational, proud of their identity as Swiss, Austrian, German, English, Dutch or Flemish, the newcomers, too, are deeply ethnonational: Turkish, Arab and African.

And Islam is a faith that is itself anti-multicultural. Devout Muslims do not believe all religions are equal. They believe there is one God, Allah, and submission to his law is the path to paradise. They do not believe in freedom of speech and the press if it means mocking the Prophet. They do not believe in Western dress codes or mixing men and women in schools and sports. They do not believe all lifestyles are equal. Some think adulterers should be stoned and honor killings are justified for girls who disgrace the family.

They wish to live their faith and their culture in our countries, to live alongside us but to dwell apart. “If you come to France,” said Sarkozy last week, “you accept to melt into a single community, which is the national community, and if you do not want to accept that, you cannot be welcome in France.”

A little late for that. Some 5 million to 8 million Arabs and Muslims are in France, their birth rate is higher, and more are on the way.

The real questions: Whose idea was it to bring these people in? And what do France, Britain and Germany do if they say: This is a democracy, we will live as we wish to live, according to our beliefs, not yours.

How does a liberal, permissive society that celebrates diversity impose its values on a militant immigrant minority that rejects them?

Answer: It doesn’t. All the rest is chatter. This is what James Burnham meant when he wrote that liberalism is the ideology of Western suicide.

SOURCE





Australia out of step on Muslim immigration

Germany, France and Britain are critical but both major Australian parties are resisting the reality of Muslim difference -- and too bad what the public thinks: They can be "educated"

Scott Morrison's predecessor in the immigration portfolio has condemned as "un-Liberal" suggestions the party should capitalise on Australian fears about Muslim migrants.

Leading Victorian moderate Sharman Stone, who lost her portfolio to Mr Morrison when Tony Abbott replaced Malcolm Turnbull as Liberal leader, said such a move would be unpalatable. “That approach would be most un-Liberal and it is totally contrary to Liberal values and beliefs. Our values and beliefs are non discriminatory,” she told The Australian Online. “It was the Liberal Party that began the breakdown of the White Australia policy in the early 1960s. The Liberal Party has a proud record of being colour blind.”

Dr Stone's comments come after reports that Mr Morrison told a meeting of shadow ministers in December the Coalition should make political capital out of Australians' concern about multiculturalism and fears about Muslim immigration.

Senior Liberals Julie Bishop and Philip Ruddock are reported to have rejected Mr Morrison's suggestion at the time.

The growing debate in Liberal ranks about how to approach immigration and multiculturalism comes as Immigration Minister Chris Bowen offered an impassioned defence of Australian multiculturalism yesterday - rejecting a rising tide of criticism directed at the policy by European leaders - as he unveiled a new multicultural strategy....

The Gillard Government will beef up a campaign supporting multiculturalism in the face of what is seen as growing resistance to new arrivals. Immigration Minister Chris Bowen tonight revealed the campaign would salute what he called "the genius of Australian multiculturalism".

The Government will create a new independent organisation, the Australian Multicultural Council, and ACT senator Kate Lundy will be made parliamentary secretary in charge of managing multicultural programs.

The fresh emphasis on the policy comes amid growing public hostility towards asylum seekers, and against significant population growth through immigration.

There also is apprehension that the increasing number of Muslim migrants will produce big cultural changes, and even the introduction of Islamic-based legal codes.

"Australian governments do not defend cultural practices and ideas that are inconsistent with our values and ideals of democracy, justice, equality and tolerance. Nor should we be expected to," Mr Bowen told the Sydney Institute tonight.

"For those fleeing persecution, terror and hatred, they come to Australia in search of peace, justice and harmony. "For many others, they come in the hope of creating, in this new land, a new life for themselves and their loved ones for prosperity and in the knowledge that, in Australia, their children will not be discriminated against for their colour or creed.

"For these men and women, the last thing they want is Australia to change, to become less free, to become less democratic, to become less equal." [Has he listened to any Muslims lately?]

The minister said the new multiculturalism council would "act as a champion for multiculturalism in the community, will advise the Government on multicultural affairs and will help ensure Australian Government services respond to the needs of migrant and refugee communities". "We will also establish a National Anti-Racism Partnership and Strategy to design and deliver an anti-racism strategy."

SOURCE 1. SOURCE 2

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine). My Home Pages are here or here or here or Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site here.

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