Wrong Man, Wrong Europe
1 Apr 2008
Europeans are becoming accustomed to both insult and injury. For many excellent and well-examined reasons, in mid-2005 French and Dutch voters rejected the European Constitution. In France, it had been 13 years since anyone had asked its citizens what they thought about Europe, and they replied 55 per cent strong that it was going in an entirely wrong, neoliberal, inequitable direction. Yes, there were some far-right ?No? votes, but most came from pro-Europeans who refused to see Europe reduced to the status of a marketplace. This expression of popular sovereignty was intolerable to the elites. They have now remedied the situation by forcing through the Lisbon Treaty, a carbon copy of the constitution, with only ?cosmetic changes? to ?make it easier to swallow?, as former French president Valry Giscard d?Estaing phrased it. He should know, having drafted the original document. No official flag and no Beethoven hymn, but the rest is there. Don?t believe me ? listen to Giscard, Angela Merkel, Karel De Gucht, Giuliano Amato, Jos-Luis Zapatero, Bertie Aherne and Jose-Manuel Barroso, European leaders who all heaved huge, public sighs of relief to that effect. As for the thoroughly undemocratic process that brought forth the Lisbon Treaty, Gunther Verheugen, vice-president of the European Commission, put it best after the French-Dutch votes : ?We must not give in to blackmail?. They didn?t. One thinks of Bertolt Brecht, who in 1951 said of the East German regime : After the uprising of the 17th June The Secretary of the Writer?s Union Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee Stating that the people Had forfeited the confidence of the government And could win it back only By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier In that case for the government To dissolve the people And elect another ? So the text of the treaty will be pushed through parliaments with no time for discussion and debate. Nicolas Sarkozy himself told right-wing Euro MPs that if there were referendums on the Lisbon Treaty, they would be lost ; if the French voted, they would again vote ?No?. Under no circumstances should citizens be allowed referendums (and Ireland made a huge mistake in making them compulsory). Don?t make the mistake of letting people actually read a clear text. The Lisbon Treaty is what you get, like it or not, although we can?t actually give you a copy of it ? just five or six separate documents, protocols and declarations that you can spend the next few years collating and cross-referencing to your heart?s content. Oh yes ? and we?ve got just the man to lead the new Europe that this treaty intends to force upon you : Tony Blair. He?s perfect for the job. We can count on him to promote ?a more assertive Union role in security and defence matters [which] will contribute to the vitality of a renewed Atlantic Alliance?. And he will make sure that Europe ?respects the obligations under the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, which remains the foundation of the collective defence of its members?, according to Protocol 4 of the treaty (which, like the other protocols and declarations has the same legal force as the treaty and supersedes national law). We don?t know what Nato?s future policies will be and are signing on blindfolded. But we do know that the US will continue to lead it and that the US president will be its de facto commander in chief. Who better than Blair to polish the commander?s medals and shine his [or her] shoes ? The EU is terrific on market-oriented policies as well, and that can only be to Blair?s satisfaction. In the 410 treaty articles, the ?market? rates 63 references and ?competition? is cited 25 times. ?Social progress? gets three mentions, ?full employment? one and ?unemployment? none, but you can?t have everything. What you can have is a downgrading of social policy and of public services. Any upwards harmonisation of EU social [or fiscal] policy will require unanimity of the 27 members, so the pressure will be to reduce taxes and social services. As for public services, they are specifically made subject to competition. The treaty doesn?t affect ?the competence of member states to provide, commission and organise non-economic services of general interest? and that may sound reassuring. The problem is that ?non-economic services? are nowhere defined and in some interpretations they could be reduced to the police and the courts. The European Court of Justice has not shown undue affection for public services and the Commission can also make members stop subsidising them, so Blair should feel quite at home. Among the many provisions of the constitution, the treaty has also retained the Charter of Fundamental Rights, a meek and mild compendium granting fewer rights than most national constitutions. However meagre, this was still too much for Blair, who demanded ? and received ? an exemption for the UK, enshrined in the lengthy and detailed Protocol 7. All one can deduce from this is that in our brave new Europe, the rules concerning market freedom and competition are compulsory, whereas anything smacking of even limited human and social rights is optional. Why should Blair?s attitude as president of Europe reflect any other view ? If Europe still seems remote to you and not worth getting excited about, you should know that 80 per cent or more of the laws that will apply to you and your country will come not from the seat of your national government but from Brussels. Let us hope that the petition against Blair?s presidency blazes its way through the 27 member states or that Tony himself may decide to be content with the putative 500,000 quid he will receive annually as a part-time advisor to the JP Morgan Chase investment bank. If he jumps out of the British frying pan into the Brussels fire, 450 million European citizens risk being severely burned. Susan George is board chair of the Transnational Institute and honorary president of Attac France. Her two new books are We the Peoples of Europe (Pluto) and Hijacking America : How the Religious and Secular Right Changed What Americans Think (Polity Press)

Gay Iranian Safe – For Now
1 Apr 2008
In the latest protest aimed at preventing the UK from deporting 19-year-old Iranian Mehdi Kazemi to his homeland where he faces probable execution, 150 demonstrators braved hail, snow, and rain in London on Saturday, March 22, to rally outside 10 Downing Street, the official residence of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Protesters demanded that Brown’s government refrain from efforts to deport any gay and lesbian Iranians. For the moment, at least, the Brown government has put its original deportation plans for Kazemi on hold, pending formal reconsideration. The Kazemi case has attracted worldwide attention ever since the UK Home Office ordered him to be deported last year after his student visa expired. While in Britain, where he had been a student since 2005, Kazemi learned that his longtime boyfriend, Parham, who was the same age as him, had been arrested, tortured, and executed by the Islamic Republic of Iran. In a lengthy e-mail to the Iranian Queer Organization describing his plight, Kazemi wrote, “If I return to Iran I will be arrested and executed like Parham.” (For background on the Kazemi case, read this reporter’s February 28-March 5, 2008 article, “ Another Iranian Tragedy”.) After losing an internal Home Office appeal against his deportation, Kazemi fled the UK, first to the Czech Republic and then to Germany, before finally arriving, after weeks of peregrinations, in the Netherlands, where he was detained as an “illegal immigrant.” A Dutch court on March 3 ordered Kazemi returned to the UK, citing the European Union’s Dublin Regulation, under which asylum applications must be processed in the first EU country in which the petitioner made an official claim for legal recognition as a refugee. A worldwide campaign to save Kazemi from deportation to Iran was spearheaded by the Italian human rights group Gruppo EveryOne, which also launched an online petition campaign on Kazemi’s behalf and mobilized other Italian human rights groups and the country’s Radical Party to lobby the European Parliament to take action. In the UK, the militant gay rights group OutRage! and a newly-formed committee called Gay Asylum led the fight on Kazemi’s behalf. None of the US gay rights groups, including the New York-based International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, made any public statement about Kazemi’s life-or-death struggle for freedom. TV networks CNN, ABC in Australia, the BBC and Sky News in the UK, and Italy’s RAI have all carried stories on Kazemi, as have major newspapers, including the Independent, the Guardian, and the Times in the UK, Corriere della Sera and La Republicca in Italy, and El Pais in Spain. On March 14, the European Parliament overwhelmingly approved a resolution on the Kazemi case that had been introduced with the support of 142 of its members and 62 members of the British House of Lords. The EuroParliament resolution pointed out that the Iranian authorities “routinely detain, torture, and execute persons, notably homosexuals” and that “Mehdi’s partner has already been executed, while his [own] father has threatened him with death.” The resolution added that “the EU and its Member States cannot apply European and national laws and procedures in a way which results in the expulsion of persons to a third country where they would risk persecution, torture, and death, as this would amount to a violation of European and international human rights obligations.” The EuroParliament stressed that the EU directive regarding criteria for refugee status “recognises persecution for sexual orientation as a ground for granting asylum.” The resolution “appeals to the Member States involved to find a common solution to ensure that Mehdi Kazemi is granted asylum or protection on EU soil and not sent back to Iran.” More broadly, it argued that “more attention should be devoted to the proper application of EU asylum law in Member States as regards sexual orientation.” The resolution invoked the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits the removal of persons to countries where there is a serious risk that they would face the death penalty, torture, or other inhuman treatment, as well as the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the Geneva Convention. Within hours of the passage of the EuroParliament’s resolution, British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith issued a brief statement granting Kazemi a temporary stay of his deportation. “Following representations made on behalf of Mehdi Kazemi, and in light of new circumstances since the original decision was made, I have decided that Mr. Kazemi’s case should be reconsidered on his return to the UK from the Netherlands,” Smith said. Openly gay British MP Simon Hughes of the Liberal Democratic Party, who had campaigned on Kazemi’s behalf, told the UK’s Pink News, “I hope Mr. Kazemi will now come back to Britain [from the Netherlands] where arrangements are already in place for an urgent meeting with him, his family, specialist lawyers, and myself to prepare a new application to the Home Office.” Hughes added, “It is becoming more and more clear that sending gay people back to Iran under the present regime is completely unacceptable.” But it is not only young Kazemi who remains at risk for deportation to Iran. Another 12 gay and lesbian Iranians living in the UK also risk being sent back into the hands of the theocratic Tehran regime. Prominent among them is 40-year-old lesbian Pegah Emambakhsh, who became a refugee in the UK in 2005 after her partner in Iran was arrested, tortured, and sentenced to death by stoning. Her request for asylum was refused, and in August 2007 she was arrested in Sheffield and imprisoned to await deportation. But after a worldwide campaign on her behalf, she was released on September 11 last year while her appeal of the deportation order remains pending. However, the Independent reported on March 7, Emambakhsh has lost her latest appeal. “Ms Emambakhsh narrowly avoided deportation in August last year but only after her local MP, Richard Caborn, and other parliamentarians persuaded the Government to allow her to stay while further legal avenues of appeal were explored,” the British newspaper reported. “She says she was already on the way to Heathrow [Airport] when she learnt of her last-minute reprieve. But last month the Court of Appeal turned down her application for permission for a full hearing. Ms Emambakhsh said yesterday that she was ‘very disappointed’ by the ruling but planned to apply for a judicial review at the High Court. The Home Office has also agreed to consider fresh legal representations on her behalf.” The UK was embarrassed when Emambakhsh was offered asylum by the center-left government of Italy’s Premier Romero Prodi, an implicit criticism of the British plan to deport her to Iran. Prodi acted after Gruppo EveryOne mobilized pressure. Emambakhsh told the Independent, “I will never, never go back. If I do I know I will die.” As the Independent noted in a March 6 article on the Kazemi case by the newspaper’s law editor, “The Home Office’s own guidance issued to immigration officers concedes that Iran executes homosexual men but, unaccountably, rejects the claim that there is a systematic repression of gay men and lesbians.” At Saturday’s Downing Street demonstration, OutRage! leader Peter Tatchell denounced Brown’s Labour government for “failing LGBT refugees.” “Asylum staff and adjudicators receive race and gender awareness training but no training at all on sexual orientation issues,” he pointed out. “As a result, they often make stereotyped assumptions – that a feminine woman can’t be a lesbian or that a masculine man cannot be gay. They sometimes rule that someone who has been married must be faking their homosexuality. Tatchell went on to say, “The government refuses to explicitly rule that homophobic and transphobic persecution are legitimate grounds for granting asylum. This signals to asylum staff and judges that claims by LGBTI people are not as worthy as those based on persecution because of a person’s ethnicity, gender, politics, or faith.” Moreover, Tatchell noted, “The Home Office country reports on homophobic and transphobic persecution are often partial, inaccurate, and misleading. They consistently downplay the severity of victimization suffered by LGBT people in violently homophobic countries like Iran, Nigeria, Iraq, Uganda, Palestine, Algeria, and Jamaica. And, he said, “Cuts in the funding of legal aid for asylum claims means that most asylum applicants – gay and straight – are unable to prepare an adequate submission at their asylum hearing. Most solicitors don’t get paid enough to procure the necessary witness statements, medical reports, and other vital corroborative evidence.” It’s clear that Kazemi, Emambakhsh, and the other Iranian LGBT refugees seeking asylum in the UK still have a difficult road ahead of them. The online petition for Mehdi Kazemi, which can be signed at the bottom, is at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/UKMADHI/. The Iranian Queer Organization’s website is www.irqo.net. OutRage! leader Peter Tatchell’s website is http://www.petertatchell.net/. The website for Italy’s Gruppo EveryOne is http://everyonegroup.com. Doug Ireland can be reached through his blog, DIRELAND, at http://direland.typepad.com/direland

From Casino to Catastrophe
31 Mar 2008
The staggering display of unrepentant cheating, exploitation and avarice revealed in Robert Peston’s BBC2 documentary, Super Rich: the Greed Game shows just how dysfunctional the British economy has become. But this gilded age of selfish individualism is destroying itself. The US treasury has unveiled its plans to regulate Wall Street. Cautious it may be, but the message is clear, the casino economy is over. The neo-liberal version of capitalism that for three turbulent decades has been restructuring the British economy and society is coming to an end. The dream is dead, says Martin Wolf in the Financial Times: “the US is showing the limits of deregulation”. In Britain, the Bank of England chairman, Mervyn King says Wolf, “strikes a chord”. The problem of the credit crunch is not down to a few bad apples. It arose, he says, “out of the heart of the financial systems in the main financial centres”. Britain will face acute problems in recovering a more equal, sustainable and fairer society. Large areas of the country have suffered social catastrophe and lost their economic base. Employment in these areas is sustained by high levels of public spending and is vulnerable to a change of government or an economic downturn. The Tories and New Labour, heavily influenced by economic liberalism, drove the process of restructuring the economy and society further and deeper than other European countries. We need education, health and welfare for social recovery, but their institutions have been damaged by market-based reforms. Staff are demoralised and their organisational cultures risk averse. Public service values such as care, trust and human relationships are marginalised by targets and measurable outcomes. The crisis in our public institutions is reproduced in the political sphere. Political parties are held in contempt and MPs are accused of being self-serving. The weakness of our political culture and economic reliance on the City, makes it much more difficult to neutralise its political influence and damaging social consequences. As a predominantly service economy we cannot shift our priorities back to production in order to create stable and more equitable forms of economic development. For the middle classes who have gained the most from the last few decades, the benefits of consumer affluence are now offset by anxieties over debt, the growing pressures and costs of education, the prospect of falling house prices, and the threat of economic recession. The fear of impoverishment in old age, and the burdens of caring for aged relatives, extend across the population. Compounding these is the threat of global warming. For the great majority of people, there are no individual, market solutions to these problems. The Labour government’s response to the excesses of the super rich and the insecurity of everyone else is to fight the next election on the themes: “on your side” and “at your service”. The first is banal and vague, begging the question, whose side is the government on? The second sounds like a dull remake of Are You Being Served, a tawdry customer focused sitcom that no one will watch. If this is all it can manage then it’s going to lose the next election. We need an alternative. It should focus on four issues: the economy, social justice, democracy and ecology. There has to be a new kind of relationship between social justice and security whose principle goal is ending poverty and reducing inequality. The principle of social insurance that was rubbished by government and markets alike now looks like simple common sense. The tax system needs reform to redistribute wealth. The way to challenge the power of the market over society is through democracy. Electoral reform, enlarging individual freedom, promoting trade unionism and devolving power back to local government would re-energise individual and collective political agency. Climate change is the major challenge of the era. Tackling climate change and the end of oil will require a new green deal, a major development of our productive economy. It will need new hypothecated green taxes. Mutuals and pension funds could be used as investment sources. Over the longer term we need a green economy in transport, consumerism and new industries in recycling, insulation and renewable technologies. The paradox of climate change is that the size of its threat is the size of the political opportunity to create a collective sense of purpose toward a common good. In a cynical age, a bit of idealism can go a long way.

The Evil of Gross Inequality
31 Mar 2008
This is not an article about the recent Budget but about a social issue that is relevant for every Budget. It also has wider implications for economic policy. The issue is the gross inequality which exists in Britain in the distribution of wealth, income and opportunity. What makes this issue of special relevance at the present time is that the inequality has been getting worse. The cost of living is rising at a faster rate than for many years. This has a disproportionate effect on pensioners, the unemployed, the disabled and millions of workers who have low paid jobs. This recent and continuing rise in prices, accompanied by serious instability in stock exchanges, fluctuations in rates of currency exchange and in the loans market for property of all kinds, has not been caused by the British government, except that its support for the invasion of Iraq has certainly added to costs in many directions. Periodic instability in the economy is an inherent characteristic of capitalism. It is an unplanned system motivated by the drive for ever greater private profit. As part of this motivation it seeks to hold down the purchasing power of very substantial numbers of workers. Defective demand, resulting from lack of consumer purchasing power, can be offset for a limited time by demand stimulated by expectations of growth in new directions. The lack of planning, however, which is a characteristic of capitalism, leads eventually to periodic disruption. This disruption may be prompted at different times by a variety of apparently dissimilar events. Nevertheless periodic economic setbacks of varying intensity are an inevitable feature of capitalism. The pain is felt by millions of working people through unemployment or attacks on living standards or even through war caused by economic greed for markets, for areas of investment for future profit or for the control of raw materials or other supplies. There are a number of causes of the current world-wide rise in prices. There is increased demand for oil, attributable in part to the industrial expansion of China and India, but aggravated by war in the Middle East. There is a rising demand for consumer goods, including grain and other farm produce, again stimulated by the developing world. The lifting of millions of people from poverty and periodic famine is not a ?calamity?. It is a welcome development. Climate change has also already begun to affect the output of certain primary goods. Drought in some areas, excessive rainfall in others, turbulent weather and flooding have all contributed to uncertainties in the means of life for millions of the world?s population. The economy has also faltered seriously in the USA because of the scramble for private profit in the market for property loans. The financial disturbance has spread to many other capitalist countries, including Britain. It is at the very heart of the tradition of the labour movement to seek to eradicate the evils of capitalism. Gross social inequality is one such evil. There are still far too many children in Britain living in poverty. It is to the credit of the government that they have acknowledged this fact and through the payment of family tax credits have reduced the number in poverty. Nevertheless it seems likely that the target of poverty elimination will not be achieved by the target date. More action is needed. In 1997 pensioners were promised that Labour would defend the basic state pension, without means-testing, and would ensure that it remained the foundation of pensions policy. It also pointed to the ?unfair lottery of community care? and accused the Conservatives of betraying a generation of older people who were promised care from the cradle to the grave. Means-testing for supplements to the basic state pension is now a strong feature of the system and the link to earnings in annual pension increases, originally introduced by Labour, has not been restored. There are many elderly people, other than in Scotland, who still have to pay for care. Since 1997 the very rich in Britain have become even richer, whether measured before or after tax. A recent report of the Institute of Public Policy Research pointed out that over the past 10 years the average earnings of British employees have gone up by 45 per cent but for the lead executives of the top 100 companies the rise had been six times as fast. The rise had not been 45 per cent but 288 per cent. The richest one per cent have seen their share of total income double from 6.5 per cent to 13 per cent. Labour must address itself to the gross inequality that disfigures British society.

‘With Total Destruction’ – the Failure of Journalism in Iraq
31 Mar 2008
On March 22, an Economist magazine editorial described the recent violence in Tibet as a “colonial uprising”, a “revolt” against foreign occupation. This was accurate, as was the implication that China has no legitimate claims over Tibet. (?A colonial uprising – Tibet,? The Economist, March 22, 2008) By contrast, recent media coverage of the fifth anniversary of the 2003 US-UK invasion of Iraq depicted the conflict as an “insurgency?, with the US military engaged in “counter-insurgency?. American media analyst David Peterson commented: ?In other words, in Tibet, China is a colonial power and doesn’t belong there. Okay. But in Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. military forces are not a colonial power imposing their will from the outside, but do belong there, quite unlike the people who are resisting the U.S. forces, who clearly lack this right.? (Email, March 22, 2008) Instead, in covering the fifth anniversary, the media emphasis was on the success of the ?surge? in reducing violence. The invasion may have been a disaster, we were told, but the addition of 30,000 extra US troops has stabilised the situation, and so the troops should stay until ?the job is done?. The presupposition is that the US-UK presence has some kind of legitimacy. Anyone seeking the logical basis for this idea need look no further than George Bush Sr?s comment towards the end of the 1991 Gulf War: ?What we say goes.? An Independent editorial inevitably focused on ?the totality of our failure? and ?the intelligence debacle?, rather than on crimes and audacious lying. The editors commented: ?Removing a dictator was only to be the start; the objective was a benign and democratic Middle East – an environment in which Israel and the Palestinians could make peace, and energy exports were plentiful and secure.? (Leader, ?Five years after the invasion, the totality of our failure is clear,? The Independent, March 19, 2008) The Independent is happy to take these claims on trust from the same leaders who lied about everything else. Compare this to an online BBC version written by Paul Reynolds, who has consistently shown a willingness to respond to the many net-based activists who have emailed him: “[The invasion] was intended, its proponents argued, to remove a threat to world peace and to plant the flag of freedom in a Middle East democratic desert.” And: “The critics countered that the threat was an illusion, that the US was invading illegally and sought control over the region and Iraq’s oil.” (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7293689.stm) Offering the official view as argument, rather than fact, and pairing it with a dissident view of events is the least one should expect of serious journalism. The Independent commented on Iraqi violence: ?The indiscriminate killings may have slowed, but ethnic cleansing continues apace?. Iraqis have been killing Iraqis, then. As ever, the US and British armies? direct responsibility for mass death is treated as a non-issue. Jason Hurd served in central Baghdad from November 2004 until November 2005. He has told of how, after his unit took “stray rounds” from a nearby firefight, a machine gunner responded by firing over 200 heavy calibre rounds into a nearby building: “We fired indiscriminately at this building. Things like that happened every day in Iraq. We reacted out of fear for our lives, and we reacted with total destruction.” Hurd said the situation deteriorated rapidly while he was in Iraq: “Over time, as the absurdity of war set in, individuals from my unit indiscriminately opened fire at vehicles driving down the wrong side of the road. People in my unit would later brag about it. I remember thinking how appalled I was that we were laughing at this, but that was the reality.” (Dahr Jamail, ?We Reacted Out of Fear, and With Total Destruction,? Inter Press Service, March 14, 2008) Everyone who cares to check on the internet knows that this is the reality, and yet it rarely disturbs the media focus on ?sectarian violence?. The photo journalist and chronicler of the Vietnam war, Philip Jones Griffiths, who died last month, commented on one of his pictures of a wounded Vietnamese civilian: “This woman was tagged, probably by a sympathetic corpsman, with the designation ?Vietnamese civilian?. This was unusual. Wounded civilians were normally tagged ?Vietcong suspect? and all dead peasants were posthumously elevated to the rank of ?Vietcong confirmed?.? (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/08/in_pictures_philip_jone…) Who can doubt that much the same is true of the latest wars? Iraq veteran Jody Casey blew the whistle on one of the orders he had been given: “?Keep shovels on the truck and an AK[47 assault rifle], and if you see anybody out here at night on the roads, shoot them. Shoot them, and if they weren’t doing anything, throw a shovel off.’ At that time when we first got down there, you could basically kill whoever you wanted – it was that easy…? (See our Media Alert, ?You could kill whoever you wanted,? April 19, 2006; http://www.medialens.org/alerts/06/060419_you_could_kill.php) The Truth Behind ?The Surge? The success of the ?surge? is, itself, largely fictional. In Current History (December 2007), journalist Nir Rosen argued that the main factor in reducing levels of violence was probably that there were just fewer people to kill after the terrible ethnic cleansing that Iraqis blame on the invasion. A second factor was the actions of tribes, with US funding and support, to drive out Iraqi al-Qaeda. A third factor was the Mahdi army truce. A fourth factor may well have been the presence of 30,000 more US troops. Like most media, the Independent was again content to report the official view as fact: ?The controversial troop surge briefly subdued the violence but at tremendous cost in men and material.? (op. cit) The claims of reduced violence are likely much exaggerated. In a briefing to the German Parliament in Berlin last month, epidemiologist Les Roberts of Columbia University said: ?Belligerents in times of war almost always downplay the number of deaths they induce… in spite of hundreds of members of the press being present, that is exactly what has happened in Iraq.? (http://www.medialens.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2734) Over the previous two months, Roberts observed, the Iraqi Government and US military claimed that there had been 1,099 violent deaths in Iraq. This was repeated endlessly in the press as evidence that the ?surge? is working. Roberts commented: ?Virtually no one has pointed out the absurdity of these numbers. If this is true, it suggests that the murder rate in Iraq is half that seen in Detroit and Baltimore in 2006, and significantly lower than the rate in Jamaica and Venezuela.? Few journalists are aware that even in pre-war Iraq in 2002, ?only about one-third of deaths in Iraq were recorded by the government?. (Roberts, Ibid) No one would argue that a newspaper count of reported rapes in London, say, would represent more than a small fraction of all such attacks, and yet journalists assume that death rates in Iraq from newspaper reports are mostly complete. Thus, on March 11, the prestigious Reuters news agency informed readers: ?The latest tolls from the widely cited human rights group Iraq Body Count (IBC) show that up to around 89,300 civilians have been killed since 2003.” (http://www.reuters.com/article/gc05/idUSSAT14062420080311) In reality, IBC record violent deaths of civilians as reported by the media. They also include records from morgues and hospitals. The Independent answered the question, ?Who won the war??: ?Not the 90,000 Iraqi civilians or the 4,200 US and UK troops killed since 2003.? (http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/patrick-cockburn-iraq...) The 4,200 figure is accurate; the 90,000 figure is an appalling journalistic failure. Cockburn should understand by now what the IBC figures represent – even IBC does not suggest that they represent a total for civilian casualties. The BBC told the public (March 22): ?The campaign group, Iraq Body Count, says the civilian death toll since March 2003 is between 82,000 and 89,000, although it warns many deaths may have gone unreported.? (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7309292.stm) In October 2006, the Guardian?s former political editor Michael White, wrote of the 2006 Lancet study of post-invasion mortality in Iraq: ?I have two problems. Firstly, the figures offered by the study range from 392,976 to 942,636, so the 655,000 estimate splits the difference. This is both strikingly imprecise (not necessarily avoidable), and also at variance with other estimates, both governmental and more disinterested.?(White, ?A serious note of caution. I have two problems with the Lancet’s headline-grabbing estimates of Iraqi casualties,? The Guardian, October 12, 2006 http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/michael_white/2006/10/post_501.html) The idea that the 655,000 figure simply ?splits the difference? was a gross error. How can we explain the appearance of such a comment in a major UK newspaper? Last week, White wrote to journalist and film-maker Gabriele Zamparini on the same issue: ?Thanks for your email about the casualty rate in Iraq. I read it with interest, a complex subject which arouses strong emotions as well as difficult technical arguments about data and methodology which few of us (certainly not me) can claim to understand.? (http://www.thecatsdream.com/blog/2008/03/exchange-with-assistant-guardia…) It is appalling that, in 2006, White could write with such ignorance to a key national audience on such a vital matter. We might think the media just chatter away and are of no great consequence. But in fact journalists have immense power to affect the fate of human beings. George Monbiot wrote in 2004 that “the falsehoods reproduced by the media before the invasion of Iraq were massive and consequential: it is hard to see how Britain could have gone to war if the press had done its job?. (Monbiot, ‘Our lies led us into war,? The Guardian, July 20, 2004) Once again we are faced with the (selective) lack of quality control in the mainstream media – journalists can write almost any old rubbish as long as it does not pain elite interests. Although White?s honesty is admirable, his confession inevitably recalls former New Statesman editor Peter Wilby?s observation: ?I have often expressed the view that journalism needs a social class category all to itself. It is not a profession (no esoteric knowledge) nor a skill (many hacks, including me, don’t have shorthand) nor a working-class occupation (no manual labour). I would call it unskilled middle class.? (Wilby, ?The making of a tyrant,? The Guardian, December 10, 2008; http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/dec/10/comment.pressandpublishing) To its credit, the Guardian did achieve a first in mainstream journalism in five years by at last offering an excellent in depth analysis of the death toll in Iraq. (Jonathan Steele and Suzanne Goldenberg, ?What is the real death toll in Iraq?? The Guardian, March 18, 2008; http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/19/iraq) In his recently submitted dissertation for the Department of Politics at the University of Bristol, ?Medialens and Britain?s role in World Politics: An Assessment,? MSc degree student Brett Gillman, while generally supporting the work of Media Lens, commented: ?The disagreement with IBC should be viewed as a tactical mistake particularly due to the negative publicity created.? (p.53) In fact any publicity for the catastrophe afflicting the civilian population of Iraq is extremely welcome, the issue having received close to zero serious analysis (as is standard for all US-UK wars). Of course there are costs but the choice is a simple one: fall silent or speak out. Noam Chomsky makes the point with his usual lan: ?One can proceed – that is, if one is interested in truth and justice and immune to shrieks of horror and a deluge of brickbats.? (Chomsky blog, Znet, March 27, 2008) The evidence that IBC?s figures are a massive undercount is by now overwhelming – most likely by an order of magnitude (ie roughly a factor of 10). Living Dangerously – Journalism In Iraq Last month, the BBC?s Rageh Omaar gave an idea of the sheer scale of the problem when he noted that ?our ability to report… has been eroded, to the point where journalists, however large and well-funded their news organisation, can only try to provide a snapshot of the war’s impact on Iraqi society?. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/mar/17/iraqandthemedia.iraq) Omaar added that ?operating there as a journalist has never been harder?. A November 2007 survey of journalists working in Iraq by the Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEW) confirmed Omaar?s view. The journalists ? most of them ?veteran war correspondents? ? described conditions in Iraq as ?the most perilous they have ever encountered,? and that this above everything else was influencing coverage. (http://pewresearch.org/pubs/643/journalists-iraq) A majority of journalists surveyed (57%) reported that at least one of their Iraqi staff had been killed or kidnapped in the previous year alone ? and many more are continually threatened. Last month, Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF) reported that a total of 210 journalists and media assistants had been killed since March 2003, with only “an insignificant number” of investigations into the deaths by the Iraqi authorities resulting in arrests. (http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=26266) The lack of government action is unsurprising. Responding to the US military?s arrest of one his journalists in Iraq, Associated Press president Tom Curley noted last month that at least a dozen other Iraqi photographers have been detained or arrested. Curley commented: “It’s impossible not to conclude that the words and pictures these journalists produced were considered unhelpful to the war effort and that their arrests would have served a broader strategy of information control.” (David Edwards and Muriel Kane, ?US Arrests Iraq Journalists To Censor News,? Associated Press, March 20, 2008) Patrick Cockburn reported that when a bomb exploded in the Karada district of Baghdad, killing 70 people, the police beat and drove away a television cameraman trying to take pictures of the atrocity. Despite recognising government pressures and the extreme risks of reporting in Iraq, Cockburn confidently asserted: ?Civilian casualties have fallen from 65 Iraqis killed daily from November 2006 to August 2007 to 26 daily in February.? But as we have seen, these figures are not remotely reliable. (http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/patrick-cockburn-iraq-...) A majority of journalists surveyed by PEW said most of the country was too dangerous to visit. Nine out of ten said this was true of at least half of Baghdad itself. Even the basics of getting the story are remarkably difficult. Outside of the Green Zone, most American journalists are forced to rely on local staff to do face-to-face reporting. But nearly 90 per cent of journalists say local staff cannot carry any equipment ? not even a notebook ? that might identify them as working for the western media for fear of being killed. According to an earlier RSF report (September 7, 2007), 73 per cent of journalists killed had been directly targeted, a figure which was “much higher than in previous wars”. (http://electroniciraq.net/news/themedia/Media_Worker_Death_Toll_Reaches_…) And, as we have previously discussed, ample evidence supports the common sense understanding that the media?s ability to accurately monitor violent deaths decreases sharply as journalists are directly targeted. (See our alert: http://www.medialens.org/alerts/07/071003_iraq_body_count.php) The BBC reported that only 28% of Americans recently polled could correctly identify the number of US troops killed in Iraq (4,000), compared with more than half in August last year. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7308882.stm) But public awareness of the Iraqi death toll is very much lower. A poll by the University of Maryland a year ago found that most Americans believed that less than 10,000 Iraqis had died because of the invasion (Roberts, op. cit) – a figure that was likely 10 per cent of the real number. A reasonable approximation of the truth is out there – but our media just don?t want to see it.

Jobs are used to justify anything, but the numbers don’t add up
31 Mar 2008
There is no nonsense so gross that it cannot be justified by the creation of jobs. The Ministry of Defence has just announced that it?s spending 13bn of our money – via a fantastically complicated private finance scheme – on a fleet of refuelling planes. Do we need them? Only if we intend to attack another defenceless country. But it?s worthwhile, because the new contract will ?create up to 600 jobs at AirTanker Ltd, and will safeguard up to 3,000 jobs directly at British sites, with thousands more sustained indirectly.?(1) John Hutton claims that new nuclear power stations will generate not only the energy we need, but also 100,000 new jobs(2). When and how? Here or in France? Northumberland County Council has revealed that it is spending 3.6 million on one new roundabout, at Haltwhistle. A staggering waste of public money? No, ?it will both attract new jobs to the town and secure existing employment.?(3) It is true that investment creates employment. But jobs are used to justify anything and everything. If recession strikes, the political value of any scheme which boosts them will rise. Projects which in more prosperous times might have been rejected by planners or ministers will suddenly find favour. Anyone who stands in their way – however daft the schemes may be – will be walloped as an anti-social Luddite. But the big question is asked very rarely in the press: how reliable are these promises? Whenever a new defence contract or superstore or road or airport is announced, the papers and broadcasters repeat the employment figures without questioning them. They rarely return to the story to discover whether the claims were true. The Guardian?s research service was able to find only two stories which challenged individual claims about job creation. One, from 2003, covered a National Audit Office investigation into the government?s grants to companies in deprived areas(4). The grants cost the taxpayer 1.4bn and were meant to have created or protected 300,000 jobs. But the auditors found that only 45% of these jobs were additional: the rest would have been saved or created if the grants hadn?t existed. Of these, 11% displaced other jobs in the same region, even when the multiplier effect (jobs creating further jobs) was taken into account(5). The schemes had worked, but not as well as the government had claimed. The other story, in February this year, reported an odd but quite common phenomenom: a private equity boss attacking his own industry. Jon Moulton, the founder of Alchemy Partners, berated his own trade body for using ?very dodgy statistics?(6). The British Venture Capital Association had claimed that jobs at private equity firms have risen by 8% a year over the past five years, while in publicly-listed companies jobs have grown by only 0.4% a year(7). Speaking at the industry?s SuperReturn 2008 conference, Moulton pointed out that the association?s figures excluded the private equity firms that had gone out of business. ?If you use an adjusted figure, the number should be more like zero. We?re putting these things out as fact and we shouldn?t.? Many of the published figures have to be wrong. At the beginning of his nuclear speech, John Hutton praised the efforts of Dougie Rooney, the energy officer for the trade union Unite, for his ?unique contribution to nuclear?s renaissance in the UK?. But they can?t get their story straight. Rooney has claimed that the nuclear programme will generate 10,000 new jobs: one tenth of Hutton?s figure(8). Ten years ago, a research organisation called the National Retail Planning Forum – financed by Sainsbury, Tesco, Marks and Spencer, Boots and John Lewis – published a report on the superstores? impact on employment. It found that there is ?strong evidence that new out-of-centre superstores have a negative net impact on retail employment up to 15 km away.?(9) The 93 stores the forum studied were responsible for the net loss of 25,685 employees: every time a large supermarket opened, 276 people lost their jobs. This is hardly surprising. The New Economics Foundation has calculated that every 50,000 spent in small local shops creates one job. You must spend 250,000 in superstores for the same result(10). But the press – especially the local papers – reports Eldorado every time a new store opens. In the past few days the Telegraph and Argus claimed that Marks and Spencer will create 2,500 new jobs in Bradford(11); the Halifax Evening Courier announced that the local B&Q will hatch an extra 60 jobs by moving to bigger premises(12); the BBC published a story headlined ?Morrisons site creates 1,000 jobs?(13). Seldom is there a word about the employment these schemes will destroy. To produce a definitive account of the gap between the claims made by companies promoting new schemes and the jobs they really deliver would take years. Instead, I asked a researcher, Nicola Cutcher, to conduct a rough sampling exercise. She took the latest year for which job figures are broken down by the size of employer are available – 2006 – and selected the middle week of each quarter. She then went through all the stories that mentioned the word ?jobs? in a press database(14), selecting those which reported new openings or closures by large enterprises (over 250 staff) that were definitely taking place. She ensured that each claim was counted only once. To produce a rough average for the year, she multiplied the four weeks by 13. The government reports that the number of jobs among large enterprises rose by 189,000 between 2005 and 2006(15). Our rough sample suggests a net gain of 1.4 million, or 7.4 times the official rate. If the same exaggeration applied to the whole economy, there would be 218 million workers in the United Kingdom(16). This exercise has severe limitations. Job figures tend to be quite lumpy. Some of the posts take several years to create, so they won?t show up in the 2006 figures; though 2006, of course, harvested the jobs announced in previous years. But the gains among large employers this decade have fluctuated between 160,000 and 330,000(17): in no year has anything like 1.4 million net jobs been created. Should we be surprised by such exaggerations? Of course not. Though the papers are generally good at reporting job cuts, they rely for the good news on companies and government departments that have an interest in talking up the benefits of their schemes. There is also plenty of confusion, often cunningly sown in corporate press releases, about whether the new jobs are being created directly or indirectly. When claiming wider benefits for their schemes, employers use the most generous possible multiplier effects. The indirect employment claimed by one company is the direct employment created by another. As they all declare responsibility for work created elsewhere, new jobs in this wacky world are generated several times over. We need some reliable research into the reporting of employment claims. We need journalists to start asking questions about the figures they are fed; perhaps to refuse to print them unless they have been independently audited. And we all need to make a simple demand whenever a shiny new scheme promises to solve the community?s problems: prove it. References: 1. MoD, 27th March 2008. 13 billion deal for new Tanker Aircraft signed. Press release. http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/DefenceNews/EquipmentAndLogistics/13Bi… 2. John Hutton, 26 March 2008. New Nuclear Build: How do we make progress? http://www.berr.gov.uk/pressroom/Speeches/page45417.html 3. No author, 28th March 2008. 3m road scheme to aid jobs. The Cumberland News. http://www.cumberland-news.co.uk/news/viewarticle.aspx?id=820414 4. David Hencke, 17th June 2003. 100m jobs subsidy scheme is poor value, say auditors. The Guardian. 5. National Audit Office, 17th June 2003. The Department for Trade and Industry: Regional Grants in England. http://www.nao.org.uk/publications/nao_reports/02-03/0203702.pdf 6. Siobhan Kennedy, 27th February 2008. High-profile buyout chief turns on his peer group. The Times. 7. The British Venture Capital Association, 13th February 2008. The Economic Impact of Private Equity in the UK 2007. http://www.bvca.co.uk/pdf.php?id=842&filename=the_economic_impact_of_pri… 8. No author, 26th March 2008. ?Thousands of jobs? in nuclear design licences The Herald. http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/other/display.var.2145944.0.Thousands_of… 9. Sam Porter, Paul Raistrick, January 1998. The Impact of Out-of-Centre Food Superstores on Local Retail Employment. The National Retail Planning Forum, c/o Corporate Analysis, Boots Company PLC, Nottingham. 10. Emma Hallett, New Economics Foundation, April 1998, pers comm. 11. Jo Winrow, 27th March 2008. D-day looms for massive jobs project. The Telegraph and Argus. http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/newsindex/display.var.2149091… 12. Carmel Harrison, 28th March 2008. DIY superstore prepares to open. Evening Courier. http://www.halifaxcourier.co.uk/local-business/DIY-superstore-prepares-t… 13. No author, 19th March 2008. Morrisons site creates 1,000 jobs. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/7305548.stm 14. UK News. 15. http://stats.berr.gov.uk/ed/sme/smestats2005.xls and http://stats.berr.gov.uk/ed/sme/smestats2006.xls 16. The latest total figure is here: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/lmsuk0307.pdf 17. All the tables are here: http://stats.berr.gov.uk/ed/sme/index.htm

As Basra Burns, Iraq Inquiry Call Supported by just 12 Labour MPs
30 Mar 2008
As Iraq?s puppet army launched its bloody assault on Basra on March 25, Britain?s parliament once again rejected an inquiry into the Iraq war. The motion, tabled by the Conservative Party, was supported by the Liberal Democrats. But the Brown government won the day comfortably. The motion?for an entirely circumscribed inquiry to be conducted in secret by the Privy Council?was defeated by 299 to 271 votes. Demonstrating once more the absence of any significant or principled opposition to militarism within the government, just 12 Labour MPs broke ranks to support the inquiry call. A government amendment, acknowledging the need for an inquiry but only after ?important operations? in Iraq end, was then passed by 299 to 259 votes. Little was said during the debate regarding the offensive just then being launched by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki?s government in the southern city of Basra. With US support, tens of thousands of Iraqi troops were initiating Saulat al-Fursan (Charge of the Knights)?a major military campaign against militias loyal to Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr. Despite this silence, the mounting concern over the Iraq quagmire within ruling circles was evident. In 2003, William Hague?now Conservative foreign secretary?had accused those opposed to war of ?appeasement? and endorsed then-Prime Minister Tony Blair?s decision to back the US, despite massive popular opposition, describing it as ?absolutely in the interests of this country and the wider world.? In parliament last week, Hague defended his support for the war but argued it was now ?vital? to learn all ?possible lessons? from the invasion and its aftermath. Clearly motivated by the failure of British and US forces to establish a swift and successful occupation over the country and its oil resources, Hague said that it was time to convene an immediate inquiry into the origins and conduct of the war. Hague made clear that the purpose of the inquiry would not be to hold anyone to account for the human catastrophe created in Iraq, nor the flagrant abuse of democratic accountability that accompanied it. He warned rather that the credibility of future military actions had been jeopardised by events in Iraq. ?The passage of time, the urgent need to learn for the future, the need to reinforce the credibility of future decision-taking and the diminished role in Iraq of British forces? all pointed to the need for an inquiry, he said. Writing in the Guardian prior to the vote, Hague cited the ?poor co-ordination and lack of expertise? that had surrounded the invasion and warned that this had implications beyond Iraq. ?At this very moment in Afghanistan, we and our allies are struggling with somewhat different but nonetheless parallel problems of the co-ordination of both military and economic efforts in a vast and sometimes hostile land,? he wrote. ?The need to learn the lessons of Iraq in terms of how government should function and countries should be rebuilt is transparently urgent. So too is the need to have studied, to the satisfaction of the British people, the actual origins of the war. For until that is done, any British government setting out to explain to parliament and people that military action is necessary to deal with a threat it believes to be serious will face a wall of scepticism and disbelief.? Former Conservative Foreign Secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind reiterated the need for Privy Council inquiry, pointing to the ?inadequacy of the Government?s preparation for one of the worst conflicts that any British Government has been responsible for in the last 100 years.? Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Ed Davey said, ?Frankly one would have thought that an inquiry ought to be automatic when a decision of the magnitude of going to war goes so catastrophically wrong. To put such an inquiry off, even five years afterwards, is nothing short of a scandal.? Again and again, the word?s ?Iraq? and ?catastrophe? appeared together. Referring to the current military campaign, the Independent complained, ?When British troops handed over power in the province of Basra to the Iraqi government in December, we were told that the withdrawal was confirmation of the growing stability in the south of the country. Now we see just what nonsense that was. ?Our own government might have managed to see off last night?s attempt in the House of Commons to force an immediate public inquiry into the 2003 invasion of Iraq. But, as Basra burns and yet another fanciful claim of progress in the country disintegrates, the charge sheet against those who embroiled us in this catastrophe grows still longer.? In an attempt to assuage public hostility over the Iraq war, on his succession to Labour leadership, Brown pledged to reduce the number of British troops in Iraq from 4,100 to 2,500 by May of this year. Even before the latest offensive in Basra and Baghdad, that proposal was being quietly shelved. In February, the Observer had forecast that a ?final all-out battle for Basra? was ?inevitable.? It cited Colonel Richard Iron, military adviser to Iraqi Commander General Mohan, stating that plans for further troop withdrawals were ?optimistic? given that the Iraqi Security Force was preparing for ?confrontation? in Basra. The military ?confrontation? now underway in Basra, its surrounding areas and parts of Baghdad, was thus in preparation for some time with Britain?s full knowledge. Yet, for the last week, the government and the media have claimed that no British forces are involved in the ?Charge of the Knights.? And, unlike President George W. Bush, Brown did not rush to give his support to Maliki?s actions, so as to maintain the fiction that Britain is no longer seriously ?engaged? in the occupation. Given that Britain took responsibility for policing southern Iraq?the main oil-producing centre?at the time of the invasion, this is not credible. Moreover, the claim that British troops remained in their barracks near to Basra airport while US and Iraqi troops battled with Sadr?s supporters led some political commentators to question the point of maintaining any forces in the country. In the last days, the story began to shift. British assistance was limited to providing ?logistical help and air support? to the Iraqi forces, it was said. On Saturday, the Telegraph admitted that British forces were ?directly involved for the first time in the battle to stamp out militias from the Iraqi city of Basra, engaging suspected Mehdi Army positions with artillery.? The newspaper continued, ?Military analysts estimate that three British battlegroups?each of about 650 men armed with Challenger 2 tanks and Warrior armoured vehicles?are on hand to re-enter the city,? citing one unnamed British official complaining, ?It?s ridiculous for Britain?s position in Iraq that we?ve got this firepower down there and we?re not willing to help the Iraqis out.? The government is caught in a bind?wanting to relegate Iraq to the political sidelines, while acutely aware that the interests of British capital depend on eradicating and containing all opposition to the imposition of foreign dictates. Prior to the parliamentary vote, Brown had pledged that an inquiry would be convened but argued that it would be inappropriate to hold one now, as the situation in Iraq remained ?fragile.? Foreign Secretary David Miliband, in an oblique reference to the Maliki offensive, argued that the dispute between the Conservative and Labour parties ?does not concern substance but timing,? warning that ?the mission has not yet been accomplished.? In holding this line, Brown could count on the overwhelming support of his own party. The Conservatives had sought to court a rebellion amongst Labour MPs, calculating that the limited character of their proposed inquiry, and a desire to retain some public credibility, would convince a sufficient number of backbenchers to back their demand. In the end, even fewer Labour MPs were prepared to defy the government over Iraq than the 19 who voted against its plan to close Post Offices.

The Issue is Torture
30 Mar 2008
Anyone who has spent, as I have, long hours over two years listening to Iranian tales of torture would know just how the controversy over Mehdi Kazemi’s asylum claim misses the point. George Galloway says gays are not executed in Iran, just rapists. Peter Tatchell says Galloway spouts “Iranian propaganda“. Neither gets at the gist of Mehdi’s case, or of Britain’s broken obligations with regard to torture under international law. Let’s start with the facts. Homosexual conduct in Iran can get you the death penalty. Penetrative sex acts between men can bring death on the first conviction; non-penetrative activity, up to 100 lashes. Women earn floggings on the first three convictions; four strikes and you die. Iran’s penal code requires four reiterated confessions, or the eyewitness testimony of four “righteous men”, to prove lavat, or sodomy. Yet judges are allowed to guess and infer. Moreover, police helpfully provide the witnesses: raiding a party in Isfahan in May 2007, they brought along four men, presumably righteous, to watch. Torturing and killing gays is legal in Iran: you don’t need to view the bodies to prove it. International law bars Britain from returning people to the risk of torture. Britain must give gay Iranians asylum. Yet despite this clarity, confusion hangs over the situation in Iran. Some activists, trying sincerely to help Mehdi, are helping the British government off the hook. Peter Tatchell is wrong to assert, without real evidence, that gay men are routinely hanged in public; that mass “pogroms” have led to mass executions in recent years; or that fake rape charges are regularly tacked on to charges of consensual homosexual acts. Nor should anyone’s asylum case hinge on such claims. The last documented death sentences for consensual homosexual conduct in Iran were handed down in March 2005. It is not known whether they were carried out. Ramping up the allegations means accepting the government’s exaggerated standards of proof. And it can backfire – against people in Iran. Europe and the US have seen a public campaign in recent years to identify executions – often random ones – in Iran as killings of gay men. Pictures of the horrific public hanging in Mashhad in 2005 of Ayaz Marhoni and Mahmoud Asgari – convicted, in all likelihood, of the rape of a 13-year-old boy while both were minors – spread virally round the world like a postmodern Pieta. Monstrous, yes: but there is no conclusive evidence that they were gay or that consensual homosexual acts had anything to do with their judicial killing. In the months after that, campaigners in the US and Europe repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that hangings for rape in Iran were actually a “pogrom” against gay men. One US paper claimed four men were hanged for “being gay”. They turned out to have been convicted of the rape of a woman and three girls – 10, 7, and 8 years old. Such mistakes can have dire consequences. In November 2007 in Kermanshah, Makwan Mouloudzadeh, 20, faced the death penalty on false charges of raping several boys seven years before. His accusers retracted their claims. No evidence suggested he had committed any crime under Iranian law. However, European activists wildly seized on him as another “gay” victim. They organised a mass petition to Ahmadinejad for mercy for “the young Iranian gay”. Their pleas sent an inadvertent message: Makwan was innocent of one capital crime, but Europe believed him guilty of another. On December 5, Makwan Mouloudzadeh, probably neither gay nor a rapist, went to the gallows. Why so much confusion? Why the need to find “gay” victims, even when it endangers a man already on death row? Emotion makes discussion difficult. People asking what the evidence really is are likely to be called “apologists for Iran”. Britain’s slammed asylum door indeed breeds desperation. It’s crucial to remember, though, that the reason asylum authorities seek pretexts to reject gay Muslims isn’t “Iranian propaganda”: it’s home-grown propaganda stoking fears of Muslim immigration. Activists must combat racism in Britain, not just repression in Iran. The most cogent answer, though, shows the failure at the heart of Britain’s policies on asylum – and torture. Home Office minister Lord West said of Mehdi: “We are not aware of any individual who has been executed in Iran in recent years solely on the grounds of homosexuality. And we don’t consider there was systematic persecution of gay men in Iran.” In other words: no execution, no persecution. If you aren’t dead, you’re OK. This is a disastrous evasion of the UK’s responsibilities under international law. Human Rights Watch has shown how Britain tries to redefine its obligations on torture, so it can send people back to states where they face grave risk. Usually it happens in the context of counterterrorism. But with gay Iranians, too, the government aims to change the rules, denying that legal torture is “persecution”. The UK should recognise – as the Netherlands has done – that with a law prescribing death or torture for gay Iranians, they need not demonstrate the details of past persecution. Lift the burden of proof from Mehdi and his gay compatriots. End the threat of deportation. Activists, though, must avoid playing the government’s torturous game. Don’t let the Home Office define torture down till a corpse on a gallows is the only proof that counts. Hold Britain to its real obligations. Otherwise, it will remain complicit in persecution.

Basra Siege Endangers Trade Unionists
29 Mar 2008
Statement from Naftana Basra Assault Confirms Presence of British forces a Threat to Political and Trade Union Rights in Iraq In a series of telephone calls from Basra over the past 48 hours, Iraqi trade union activists appeal for solidarity and describe how the so-called ?Security Plan? started midnight 24 March with intense shelling and fire from all kind of weapons. The attacking forces now besieging Basra stretched all the way to the city from Dhi Qar province. Two armoured divisions are deployed, in addition to thousands of policemen, backed by US and British planning and air cover. They have cut off electricity supplies, food and water on the city of 1.5 million people. Hundreds have been killed or injured in a savage, premeditated and unprovoked attack, now spreading to much of Iraq as the people protest and show solidarity with Basra?s beleaguered people. They describe the attack as far worse than the invasion of 2003 and begun in the same barbaric manner that the criminal Saddam employed against Basra to crush the March 1991 people?s uprising. They remind us that the present puppet Iraqi government sentenced Saddam?s Defence Minister to death few months ago for similar crimes of waging war on civilians. The assault is backed by the US and British occupation forces, particularly in providing air cover. US planes are also bombarding areas in the Basra, several southern cities and Baghdad, where tens of thousands marched yesterday denouncing the ?puppet regime?. It is now, along with many other cities, under a strict curfew enforced by regime and occupation forces. Trade union leaders have asked us to inform the public in Britain that the government?s attack on Basra serves the occupation. The city is ?steadfast? and the onslaught will end in ?utter failure.? The city streets were free of the occupying forces before the assault and the regime?s attacks will make it even more dependent on the occupation forces, they stressed. Naftana, the UK support committee for the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions in the struggle for democratic trade unionism in Iraq, condemns British collusion in the preparation of the assault on Basra city and British participation in air strikes. Naftana urges all to join in calling for an immediate withdrawal of British forces from Iraq, ending the US-led occupation, and the payment of reparations to Iraq. In the absence of adequate media coverage of the nature and context of this savage onslaught, Naftana wants to set the record straight on UK involvement. In December 2007, the Basra Development Commission (BDC) was formally announced after discussions between Gordon Browne and Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih. (1) Browne appointed a British businessman, Michael Wareing, Chief Executive of KPMG International as ?Commissioner?, apparently heading the BDC. (2) Wareing visited Basra in February and made outrageous comments, confirming his real interests to be those of predatory business rather than the security, development and well-being of Basra and its people. Wareing told The Observer: ?If you look at many other economies in the world, particularly the oil-rich economies, many of these places are quite challenging countries in which to do business. ? Frankly, if you can successfully operate in the Niger Delta, that is a very different benchmark from imagining that Basra needs to be like London or Paris.? (3) Wareing?s appointment was welcomed by Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, a major advocate of the 2003 invasion and of privatisation. On March 13 the British Defence Minister Des Browne met with Salih in Basra Airport. Browne promised to show new action on ?security? in Basra province and to bring Umm Qasr port up to ?the highest international standards?. (4) What this meant was made clear by Salih who threatened the Governor, people of Basra and port workers? union of Umm Qasr saying ?there must be a very strong military presence in Basra to eradicate these militias?. (5) What Salih, himself a former militia leader, was concerned about were organised port workers who had earlier confronted the American SSA Marine corporation in Umm Qasr and the Danish Maersk corporation in Khor az-Zubair in the two years after these companies were imposed by the occupying forces in 2003. (6) The new plans involve privatisation measures opposed by the port workers, who are supported by other trade unions and port management. It is likely that the planned corporate takeover of the port is required in order to facilitate the activities of international oil companies. Nevertheless, the scale of what was afoot was not apparent, but the link between military action and breaking trade unionism was. On March 17-18 the US Vice-President Dick Cheney was in Baghdad meeting with the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki who presently heads the attack on Basra city. (7) Top of the agenda was the oil law (8) and how to insure its passage. The oil law means that international oil majors will control Iraqi oil for many decades. Various reports reveal that the present carnage was coordinated and agreed with British and American leaders. Naftana believes they commanded it. Why? The tide of national public opinion has turned against long-term troop deployment in both the UK and the USA. If the war was fought for oil and total domination of Iraq, then those most closely associated to those interests must speed up their plans. The present onslaught aims to break popular resistance, especially from the Sadrist movement, to the passage of the oil law and to the occupation itself. Beyond that, with local elections looming next autumn, it aims to destroy morally and physically the popular base which would otherwise be set to drive, first from local power, and subsequently from national power, the US/UK allies, Nouri al-Maliki (al-Dawa party), his main allies in the Supreme Islamic Council, led by Abdulaziz al-Hakim, and the Kurdish leaders, Talbani and Barzani. Naftana calls on all who support democratic trade unionism to stand by the people of Iraq, with the port workers of Umm Qasr and the oil workers of Southern Iraq, with workers in Baghdad and many other cities who are in danger of physical elimination. For further information on Naftana and IFOU: Sabah Jawad ? 07985 336886 sabah.jawad@googlemail.com Kamil Mahdi ? k.a.mahdi@exeter.ac.uk Sami Ramadani ? 07863 138748 sami.ramadani@londonmet.ac.uk Notes Naftana (?Our Oil? in Arabic) is an independent UK-based committee supporting democratic trade unionism in Iraq. It works in solidarity with the IFOU. It strives to publicise the union?s struggle for Iraqi social and economic rights and its stand against the privatisation of Iraqi oil demanded by the occupying powers. For more information see the IFOU?s website http://www.basraoilunion.org (1) www.basraoilunion.org (2) http://www.eeegr.com/events/info.php?refnum=562&startnum=A0 (3) http://www.kpmg.com/Press/KPMGLeaderappointed.htm (4) http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/24/iraq.oil (5) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7294144.stm (6) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/13/world/middleeast/13basra.html?_r=1&scp… (7) Since 2003 the first shortened its name to SSA Marine. See on UmmQasr:http://www.allbusiness.com/transportation/marine-transportation-ferries/5665051-1.html and http://www.publici.net/wow/bio.aspx?act=pro&ddlC=56and on Khor az-Zubair http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=13196 and http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12490 (8) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120593326652748375.htmlhttp://www.breitb…

Terminal Disaster for the Environment
29 Mar 2008
Yesterday was the start of another inglorious chapter in the story of air travel as Heathrow Terminal 5 (T5) officially opened for business. After the whopping 4.3 billion quid spent on essentially a better-lit new cattle shed, it should have been a red letter day for triumphant British Airways management. But the only red on show was that of hundreds of ‘Flashmob’ protesters who – having previously milling around the check-in areas looking innocuous – simultaneously ripped offvtheir over-garments to reveal matching red t-shirts emblazoned with the simple message, “STOP AIRPORT EXPANSION”. They made a peaceful protest, chaperoned by plenty of police and a fair number of machine guns – and took full advantage of the presence of national corporate media there to cover all the opening day razzmatazz. The day then went from bad to worse for BA as all the many millions they have spent on preparation and full public dummy run trials of the new set up proved largely wasted. Staff couldn’t log on to new computer systems, baggage handlers struggled to park near planes or get through security before new ‘fasttrack’ check-in machines malfunctioned and T5 ground to a complete halt. Tens of planes had to be cancelled, costing BA a fair few quid no doubt, and thousands of passengers got the kind of airport experience that might lead them to give up all air travel for good. Or, failing that, the misery that they deserve. Either way, it was another shambolic big project implementation by corporate Britain – not that we’re complaining. (Why oh why can’t our corporate overlords do everything with ruthless efficiency and eliminate all those stupid mistakes… not!) But beyond a few headlines and some disgruntled customers, it was all just a temporary blip and they will no doubt sort out the teething troubles. After all it’s only a question of money – and BA accumulates plenty of that. They made over a half billion pound profit in just six months last year, even despite a 270 million fine dished out for their part in colluding with ‘competitors’ over passenger fuel surcharges. And mentioning competitors in inverted commas is particularly relevant to T5. The new terminal opening is seeing the biggest ever UK reshuffle of airline kit and personnel. The airport is being organised to reflect the way the US-EU so called ‘Open Skies’ Agreement is panning out. In fact, that deal, spun under the inevitable ‘Free Trade’ tag, is a great demonstration of the tendency of unregulated markets to contract into cartels and monopolies. Over recent years, major airlines have been flirting rather than fighting, and all the big players have signed up with each other to form three main ‘strategic alliances’ with their erstwhile competitors. Sharing resources, they sell each other’s tickets, advertise seamless coverage of more routes and reap the additional profits to be had. Working together gives them more global reach and the power of collective muscle flexing when it comes to keeping the airport operators, politicians and regulators acting in their favour. And now they are gradually realising those alliances in physical space at airports around the world. It’ll all help in their plans to continue massive growth of air travel – and leave them better placed to lobby against all those annoying climate change doomsayers. Which they appear to be doing extremely well – T5 is estimated to be enabling up to 80,000 new flights, even before the planned new third runway the government seems so keen on is built – to be followed by T6 and T7 we presume… For more see http://www.planestupid.com and http://www.notrag.org

A Bloody Disgrace
28 Mar 2008
Cradling my niece in my arms, she was white as a sheet and lying lifeless with the sedative effects of the medication ? and only 3 weeks into this world. Heartache, uncertainty and concern. A week later, two blood transfusions done and dusted, she lay in her incubator with a smile on her face and a glint in her eye. It was at that point I decided to sign the register and give the gift of life ? perhaps replace some of the blood she had so kindly been given and maybe save a few other lives along the way. It was nothing, a thirty-minute appointment, chocolate biscuits and a drink of orange juice ? simple? So you would think. I cannot give blood. My disease? I?m gay. Gay and bisexual men in Britain cannot give blood as we are seen as a high risk of blood-borne infection and disease. The blood transfusion service claim ?it?s not about being gay and bisexual, its about the act of having sex with another man and the risk involved?. Hmmmm, that sounds gay to me. Since the 1980s, the British government has tried to brush AIDS and HIV under the carpet and affix this disease firmly to the gay community. A scary shadow of homosexuality that dare not show its face in modern day blood transfusions. Britain has seen a massive increase of cases of AIDS and HIV since the 1980s and surprisingly (for the government) this has been in the heterosexual community. The British transfusion services have for years denied the gay community the option to give the gift of life, and instead have put the lives of British citizens at risk, should there be a major disaster and thousands of people needing blood. Being gay means that you will bed hop, have multiple sexual partners and take risks no more than heterosexual people will. The government must change this outdated, homophobic and offensive law and allow gay and bisexual people to give the gift of life. I ask for support in the campaign to overturn this discriminatory situation. Please sign an online petition at . You can also join the bebo group at . [Robert McDowell is a member of Scottish Socialist Youth, and can be contacted at .]

Blood on the Ice
28 Mar 2008
It seems that Canada isn’t too keen on telling the world about its annual culling of seal pups. NGO representatives and members of the British media have reported that the department of fisheries and oceans (DFO) is refusing to issue permits for visitors on the main day of the hunt, thereby preventing observers from documenting it. Photographs of blood-stained ice and seal corpses resulting from the cull are not great for its image. The European Community passed legislation 25 years ago banning the import of fur from whitecoat harp seal pups and hooded seal pups. The ban resulted from widespread revulsion of the clubbing to death of seal pups for a product nobody needs: fur. However, the cruelty of commercial seal hunting persists, with substantial numbers of seals being killed in Russia and Namibia, as well as Canada, where hunters have turned their attention to slightly older pups. The DFO has just announced that 275,000 pups will be killed over the next few weeks during this year’s slaughter – nearly 100,000 more than the annual toll prior to the EC ban. Despite the 1983 ban, Europe still plays a crucial role in supporting the killing. The sealers now wait just a few days until the harp seal pups have shed their white fur. These youngsters are still unable to swim and have not yet had a solid meal. They are clubbed or shot for their fur, which can be and is imported into the EU. It is the money from this trade that convinces sealers to continue the hunt. Yet sealing is not a full-time job. Far from it – it is carried out for only a few days each year by off-season fishermen. On average, they make less than 5% of their income from sealing. We are talking here about a dangerous and de-humanising occupation. Many sealers have been injured or killed and many boats lost. A rich country like Canada could buy back the licenses of the sealers, giving them fair compensation to re-invest in more dignified, sustainable work. Bludgeoning baby seals to death is not a great career choice in the 21st century. And it would be wrong to think that sealing is carried out to protect the fish stocks – even the DFO does not argue this anymore. The ecosystem in the north-west Atlantic is complex and, for much of their lives, harp seals eat a range of species, including those that prey on Atlantic cod. The DFO does, however, try to say that the harp seal population is huge (more than 5.5 million), but bases its estimates on questionable methodology. The population could be significantly lower than this but, because the seals do not breed until they are five to six years old, we will not see the true impact of the hunt for many years to come. The other alarming factor in recent years has been the lack of ice forming due to climate change. Harp seals rely on sea ice to breed. For millions of years they have migrated south to give birth on ice floes, free from predators. Last year, there was hardly any ice in the southern Gulf of St Lawrence and pup mortality approached 100%. Far from calling off the hunt, the DFO issued a quota of 270,000 and the northern Gulf saw a mopping-up exercise, where every pup that could be found was killed. Evidence of the consequent suffering has been shown to the world by groups such as the Humane Society International that, each year and under difficult circumstances, observes and films the Canadian seal hunt. It is this evidence that prompted the European parliament to adopt my written declaration (pdf) in 2006 that called for the European commission to ban the import, export and sale of seal products. This would ensure the protection of all seals including the 80,000 cape fur seals, which are annually clubbed to death in Namibia, and the seal pups butchered in the Archangel region of northern Russia. The commission response has been to examine the whole issue of seal killing. A European food safety authority report concludes that “there is strong evidence that … effective killing does not always occur.” How could it? The report also recommended that “attempts should not be made to kill seals … that do not pose a stable target or where the sealer may be unbalanced (eg in adverse weather conditions, moving substrates) as it can cause avoidable pain, distress, fear and other forms of suffering.” Yet this describes the bulk of the seal hunt and also underlines why we should be taking urgent action. My Green party colleague Carl Schlyter tried to witness the seal hunt in 2006, but was prevented from doing so by angry mobs, which prevented helicopters from taking off and wrecked one of the observation team’s vehicles. The subsequent video taken of the seal killing showed what they were keen for the world not to see: seals, shot and badly injured, gaffed and dragged onto boats, mandatory checks to ensure seals were dead rarely being carried out, and seals brutally clubbed multiple times because the first strike was ineffective. It is clear, from countless opinion polls (and from my own constituents’ correspondence) that a total import ban is very widely supported. Belgium and the Netherlands have already banned seal imports and the US banned them way back in 1972. Until we fully ban the import of all seal products into Europe, we will have blood on our hands.

Labour makes Massive Cuts in Higher Education
28 Mar 2008
The Labour government of Prime Minster Gordon Brown is implementing significant cuts in higher education. Last September the government announced that it planned to remove 100 million of funding from students studying for a second degree. These students are known as Equivalent or Lower level Qualification students (ELQs). The measure was announced in a letter from the Universities Secretary, John Denham, to the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), instructing it to remove 100 million a year from the funding of ELQ students. It is estimated that the policy will affect an initial 170,000 mostly part-time students. The changes will be introduced in the next academic term of 2008-09. Since the measures were announced, more than 18,000 people have signed an online petition to the prime minister. The petition supports a call from the Open University for the decision to be delayed. The government has attempted to justify the cuts on the basis that the lost funding would instead be redirected to students taking their first degrees. The reality is that the proposals are a vital part of the government?s strategy to deregulate and privatise higher education, in order to make it the preserve of more affluent layers. The 100 million represents a tiny fraction (0.1 percent) of the government?s higher education budget, but its removal sets a precedent. The government intends to incorporate the private sector directly into the provision and funding of higher education. As part of its proposals, the government is calling on private sector corporations to pay towards the costs of ELQ students. The letter stated, ?In many cases, it may be appropriate for the employer to pay at least a proportion of the costs of such re-training.? The hardest hit higher education institutions will be the Open University and Birkbeck College, London. The Open University is the largest academic institution in the UK by student number, with more than 180,000 students enrolled, including more than 25,000 students studying overseas. According to research carried out by the Universities College Union (UCU), the withdrawal of its ELQ funding will leave 29,000 OU students without funding and will cost it 31.6 million in teaching funding by 2014. David Vincent, the Pro Vice Chancellor of the University said, ?The Open University is threatened with a loss of more than 30 million of its teaching income. It will have a real impact on those who have a degree but want to continue with their education, to develop their skills, to improve their employment chances or further their careers. For the OU and other institutions in the part-time sector, this is the biggest cut in funded numbers the English higher education system has witnessed for a generation.? Nine out of ten of the higher education institutions facing the largest ELQ cuts in percentage terms are located in London. An estimated 54 percent of students affected by the loss of funding study in the capital. At Birkbeck College, a third of its students have ELQ status. The university is set to lose 7.8 million in teaching funding by 2014. Birkbeck issued a statement opposing the cuts and revealed the devastating impact they will cause: ?Many Birkbeck students embark on the major step of studying for a second qualification later in life in order to become more employable or to change career direction. Across the sector, ELQ students are mostly part-time and clustered at institutions like Birkbeck and the Open University, so these highly targeted cuts will have a disproportionate effect on the part-time sector. ?If urgent action is not taken to support Birkbeck and other part-time institutions, these cuts will have an immediate and detrimental effect on all part-time students and the government?s skills agenda. Classes will be vulnerable to closure, choice will be reduced and the student experience will be impoverished.? A further 24 institutions will lose over 2 million each in teacher funding. The financial cost to students themselves as a result is set to immediately escalate. Universities have warned that the cuts will mean that fees for such students will be forced up above 7,000 per year. Many of the OU?s students are part-time, on low incomes or benefits and rely entirely on government funding in order to study. Some 13 percent of OU ELQ students live in areas of severe multiple deprivations (within the bottom 25 percent of areas scored against the Index of Multiple Deprivation). OU statistics show that 3,500 ELQ students have special needs and 600 are unable to work owing to illness. OU Vice Chancellor Professor Brenda Gourley said the university was already seriously looking at charging higher fees: ?Our core mission is to bring in more students at the lower end of the scale, and we will continue with this aim. But we?ll have to carry out market surveys to see what people will pay. While the government thinks employers are willing to fund their staff?s education, that hasn?t been our experience.? Despite almost universal opposition, a January 9 vote in Parliament supported the cuts by a majority of 53 votes. As part of a phony ?consultation? exercise, the government asked for submissions from individuals and organisations prior to a House of Commons? select committee which took evidence on the ELQ issue in mid January. The government had no intention of changing its course even though the vast majority of the 478 submissions?470?stated they opposed the policy. On January 17, in an attempt to deflect the widespread criticism to its plans, Higher Education Minister Bill Rammell announced that an extra 10 million would be directed towards funding part-time degrees. This would increase funding for students on part-time courses from 20 million to 30 million. The move was described in various quarters including by the opposition Conservative Party as a ?retreat.? It was nothing of the sort. The 100 million cut remains in place. The University and College Union, which represents 117,000 members in higher education, stated that the cuts were part of an overall slashing of the budget of the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS). The government previously announced that it plans to implement ?efficiency savings? rising to 1.5 billion a year by 2010-11. However, the UCU also made clear that it is not opposed to cuts in principle but wanted to be consulted. Businesses being primed to run higher education On February 25, in an article entitled, ?Blueprint for bosses to shape degrees,? the Financial Times reported that ?Employers would gain significant new powers to shape higher education degrees under a confidential blueprint circulating inside Whitehall.? The article cited a document, produced by the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, under the title ?Higher Level Skills Strategy.? According to the FT, it ?sets out the case for devoting the bulk of extra university funding over the next three years to degrees jointly designed and funded by employers? and states that universities should offer a range of reforms ?that an employer and employee will want.? The document continues, ?We expect the great majority of this growth to be in provision that is developed with employer input?either foundation degrees [two-year vocational degrees co-designed by employers] or employer co-funded places.? The report warns that such growth will be ?initially concentrated in those institutions which have shown they are able and willing to commit to working closely with employers.? On March 6 an article in the Guardian on the governments annual higher education budget revealed that cuts were being made to the number of students allowed access to leading universities such as Oxford, Cambridge, Bristol, University College London and the University of Manchester. From next term the government?s budget for ?widening participation? will increase by 15 million to 364 million but according to the Guardian?s research 50 out of the 90 English universities are facing cuts in their ?widening participation? budgets. Cambridge will lose 44 percent of its funding and Oxford will lose nearly 37 percent. University College London, Bristol and Manchester University will have budget cuts of between 6 and 22 percent. Universities students face massive debt crisis The cuts to higher education are being carried out at a time when universities have borrowed millions of pounds in order to finance construction of much needed new buildings and the upgrading of existing buildings. Steve Egan, deputy chief executive of Hefce, told the Guardian, ?The level of borrowings, as compared to the level of total income, is the highest since 1997. In actual terms (that is, the amount rather than a percentage), the level of borrowings in 2005-06 was higher than ever before.? Many universities already rely on the income from international undergraduate students, who currently account for eight percent of total university income. The debt crisis has resulted in significant job losses. Britain?s largest university, the University of Manchester, has an operating deficit of 12.4 million. It is planning to shed 650 mostly administrative jobs through ?natural wastage.? Up to 20 percent of these will be academic staff. At Sunderland University?s the deficit has increased from 1 million in 2005/06 to 4.2 million in 2006-07. As a critical part of managing the debt, universities have been forced to sell of large parts of the estate they own. The University of Manchester recently sold off the 3,600 acre Tabley House Estate in Knutsford, Cheshire, for 35 million, without which its debt levels would be far, far higher. At the University of Sussex, management has published restructuring plans that will mean cuts in established areas of study in favour of more lucrative areas such as business and management and international security. Increasingly universities are seeking direct contracts with big business in order to finance their operations. Last September the University of Manchester announced that it was establishing a 50 million venture capital fund with a commercial partner to invest in ?intellectual property? in order to facilitate bringing academic research to sell in the market place. Tuition fees introduced by Labour are currently 3,145 for this academic year, but it is expected that a government review will recommend a further increase in the fees for 2008/09. But this is only a part of the prohibitive financial scenario facing students. Research by the Student Union found that when living costs such as rent, textbooks, utility bills and travel are added, the average cost of a three-year university degree comes to more than 45,000 in London and 39,000 outside the capital. Students are forced to take out ?Student Loans,? which are to be paid back after graduation when they enter employment, leaving them saddled with tens of thousands of pounds of debt. In addition, the credit reference agency Equifax found that 83 percent of parents are footing their children?s education bill.

Police want Children Routinely put on DNA Database
28 Mar 2008
Britain?s police want to routinely put children as young as five on the National DNA Database (NDNAD), even when no crime has been committed. Gary Pugh, the DNA spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) and director of forensic sciences at Scotland Yard, recently told the press, ?The number of unsolved crimes says we are not sampling enough of the right people.? According to Pugh, who was interviewed by the Observer, ?If we have a primary means of identifying people before they offend, then in the long-term the benefits of targeting younger people are extremely large.? Pugh?s words are a sinister echo of the film Minority Report, in which a specialist ?pre-crime? police department routinely arrests people who have not committed any offence. Describing it as a ?step towards a police state,? National Primary Headteachers? Association representative Chris Davis said it was tantamount to condemning children ?at a very young age for something they have not yet done. They may have the potential to do something, but we all have the potential to do things. To label children at that stage and put them on a register is going too far.? Action on Rights for Children and GeneWatch, a not-for-profit group that monitors developments in genetic technologies, have produced evidence to show that by March 2009, some 1.5 million children aged 10-17 will be recorded on the National DNA Database, a figure they say is far higher than admitted by government. The organisations estimate that at least 1.1 million children have already had their DNA recorded between 1995 (when the NDNAD was established) and April 2007, with more than half a million being aged between 10 and 16. Helen Wallace from GeneWatch said, ?Unless there are exceptional circumstances, the police should not keep records of people, including 100,000 under 18s, who have been found not guilty or have had the charges dropped.? Terri Dowty from Action on Rights for Children said, ?These children will be on the database for the rest of their lives. We are turning thousands of innocent children into lifelong suspects. No other country in Europe criminalises children at such a young age. ?The Home Office has shown repeated reluctance to release figures for children on the DNA database, presumably realising how shocked the public would be,? Dowty said. Mass genetic surveillance Pugh?s call for the routine sampling of DNA from children as young as five is only the latest in a number of statements by senior police officers and judges advocating the extension of powers to take and keep DNA samples from wholly innocent individuals, setting up a system of mass genetic surveillance. Following two recent high-profile murder convictions where the culprits had been implicated by DNA found at the scene, calls were again made to establish a national DNA register containing samples from everyone in the UK. Last year, one of Britain?s most senior judges, Lord Justice Sedley, also called for DNA records to be kept on all UK residents. The government has not ruled out such a move, merely saying that it would raise ?significant practical and ethical issues.? Last year, the Home Office launched a consultation to examine the possible expansion of the DNA database to cover all those arrested, even for such minor offences as begging or speeding. According to the Observer, a Home Office document initiating the consultation had promoted the merits of massively expanding the database. Home Office Minister Meg Hiller told the home affairs select committee in February that information on the identity register, which will underpin new biometric passports and the ID cards soon to be routinely issued, would be shared with authorities in the European Union and United States ?in specific cases.? And at a recent pan-European conference on serious organised crime, London?s Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, said DNA records should be extended throughout the EU. Roger Smith, director of human rights organisation Justice, said granting police the power to compel samples without having to show reasonable suspicion was ?a substantial and unwarranted intrusion on the rights of personal privacy.? He called for a return to the position prior to 1995, when police were only allowed to keep the samples of those convicted. Under legislation introduced in 2001 and 2004, the Labour government has considerably extended police powers to take and keep DNA samples from anyone arrested on suspicion of having committed a ?recordable offence.? This includes any offence punishable by imprisonment, but also extends to relatively minor offences such as tampering with a motor vehicle, poaching and drunkenness. Under the 2004 legislation, police can take a DNA sample from any person arrested aged 10 or more, in the case of a child, without the parent?s consent. This legislation currently only applies to those arrested in England and Wales. In Scotland, which has a different judicial system, most samples are destroyed if the person is not charged or is later acquitted. However, senior Scottish police officers are lobbying hard for similar powers to their English and Welsh counterparts. The UK now has the world?s largest DNA database, containing information on at least 4.5 million individuals, equivalent to some 7 percent of the population. According to the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, only 1.13 percent of the population in the EU have their DNA documented, with records being held on just 0.5 percent in the US. In what constitutes a major breech of civil liberties?overturning the fundamental legal norm of the presumption of innocence?records can be kept indefinitely on NDNAD even if a person is never formally charged, or is later acquitted of the offence for which he or she was arrested. The call for DNA samples to be routinely taken from those below the age of 18 continues a major escalation in the process of criminalising children ongoing since Labour came to power in 1997. Labour?s 1998 Crime and Disorder Act reduced the age of criminal responsibility from 14 to 10. The act also introduced so-called ASBOs?Anti Social Behaviour Orders?a measure that has been largely aimed against young people. It means that once an ASBO has been granted, which can be for relatively minor misdemeanours or behaviour that is causing a nuisance, breaching the ASBO can result in a criminal record. There is also strong evidence to show that such routine recording of DNA samples unfairly discriminates against individuals from ethnic minorities. According to Black Mental Health UK, black people are three time more likely to have their DNA recorded than white people. The organisation says government figures show that 77 percent of young black men will soon have their details held on NDNAD, ?despite evidence that black people are no more likely to have committed a crime than white people.? Shami Chakrabarti, director of civil liberties group Liberty said establishing a DNA database for everyone in the UK ?ignores the extremely intimate nature of DNA and the massive scope for error and abuse? ? one report has revealed that serious flaws have been found in the data, with up to 14 percent of the entries being duplicates, stored under different names. Such concerns are well founded in light of recent scandals in which government computer disks have been lost containing millions of sensitive personal records?in one case affecting 25 million people, covering 7.25 million families overall?including names, dates of birth, and bank and address details. Legal Challenge The European Court of Human Rights heard a case at the end of February in which two innocent people are seeking to have their records removed from the National DNA Database. Legal representatives for the two?40-year-old Michael Marper and a youth named only as ?S??argue that retention of such records for innocent people is a breach of Articles 8 (respect for the privacy of the individual) and 14 (prohibiting discrimination) of the European Convention on Human Rights. In both cases, the police have refused to destroy fingerprints and DNA records taken when the two individuals, one only a teenager, were originally arrested. The police subsequently dropped the case against Marper, while the youth ?S? was acquitted. It is thought that NDNAD could hold the records of up to 1 million innocent people, with GeneWatch estimating that up to 10 percent of these could be from children?records that would have to be destroyed should the legal challenge succeed. In February, the Economist magazine reported a Home Office spokesperson saying that innocent people ?have nothing to fear from providing a sample,? since retaining such evidence was ?no different from recording other forms of information such as photographs and witness statements.? However, DNA provides a wide range of other information about an individual, such as their parentage, or a susceptibility to particular diseases or disabilities. Some insurance companies have already raised the possibility of introducing ?genetic screening? as a means of lowering premium charges since the information could be used to deny cover for individuals with certain genetic markers. The body operating the NDNAD, the Forensic Science Service, a government-owned company, is a prime candidate for privatisation, which could open up the use of the database for purely commercial purposes. It also allows an almost unlimited possibility of police frame-ups. The thread-bare argument that if people have ?nothing to hide, they have nothing to fear? is clearly not borne out by the record of Labour. The governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have trampled on long-standing democratic and legal norms, constantly eroding the rights of the individual in favour of the right of the state to monitor and control its citizens.

Galloway’s Iranian propaganda?
27 Mar 2008
George Galloway, the Leftwing Respect MP, has been accused of making allegations that border on paedophile smears and play to homophobic prejudice. He claims that the boyfriend of gay Iranian asylum seeker Mehdi Kazemi was executed for “committing sex crimes against young men”. The insinuation of such a claim is that Mehdi’s boyfriend was a rapist or a child sex abuser. It also stigmatises Mehdi with the shame that he was the partner of someone who committed sexual assaults on male youths. He will suffer with this stigma when he is returned to the UK and could face considerable personal hostility from people who have heard and believe these allegations against his boyfriend. Mr Galloway made his astonishing allegation on Channel Five’s The Wright Stuff. You can watch his interview here. He has been asked to explain the source of his claim, but has so far failed to do so. I am not aware of any paedophile-style sex abuse claims against Mehdi’s partner. Moreover, no human rights group has mentioned any evidence that Mehdi’s boyfriend was a rapist or a child molester. Although the regime in Tehran frequently defames political, religious, ethnic and sexual dissidents with false claims of kidnapping, rape, alcoholism, sodomy, adultery, drug-taking and hooliganism, even the most extreme ayatollahs have not made allegations that Mehdi Kazemi’s boyfriend was involved in sex abuse. Nevertheless, Galloway has broadcast this very serious, potentially defamatory, allegation to the British public, and has then failed to back it up with evidence. To some people, Galloway’s claims look like propaganda in defence of the totalitarian, homophobic Islamic Republic of Iran. His passionate opposition to a war against Iran, which I share, seems to have clouded his judgement; leading him to downplay the regime’s persecution of lesbians and gays, which includes state-sanctioned executions. In the same interview for The Wright Stuff, Galloway went on to state: “All the [British] papers seem to imply that you get executed in Iran for being gay. That’s not true.” His claim that lesbian and gay people are not at risk of execution in Iran is refuted by every reputable human rights organisation, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission and the International Lesbian and Gay Association. None of these esteemed bodies are anti-Iran warmongers, as Galloway has subsequently seemed to imply. The leftwing US journalist, Doug Ireland, has documented cases of the flogging and execution of men who have sex with men in Iran. These are just the cases we know about. It is likely that some similar executions never get media coverage in Iran and are therefore unknown to the outside world. The Iranian Queer Rights Organisation also confirms that homosexuality is a capital offence and that gay Iranians are subjected to brutal punishments, including torture and hanging. The government of Iran admits that it has the death penalty for homosexuality. Gay people are sometimes tortured to make confessions – even false confessions. Iranian law makes no distinction between consensual and non-consensual same-sex relations. Both are punishable by execution. If Iran doesn’t execute queers, why does it need to retain the death penalty for same-sex relations? Why doesn’t it repeal a law it supposedly never enforces? Why doesn’t it announce a moratorium on hangings for homosexuality? As with other dissidents, gay men are usually hanged in public by the barbaric slow strangulation method which is deliberately designed to maximise and prolong the suffering of the victim. These gruesome public barbarisms are also designed to terrorise the gay population. To discredit the gay people it hangs, and to stir up public homophobia in support of its medieval religious-inspired punishments, the regime sometimes frames gay people with false charges of rape and child sex abuse. It wants to create the impression that homosexuals are monsters, in order to deter men from seeking same-sex relations. This is what happened in the case of 21-year-old Makwan Moloudzadeh, who was executed in Iran last December. He was hanged for alleged sex offences against male teenagers, when he himself was a mere 13 years old. Amnesty International condemned his trial as “grossly flawed” and a “mockery of justice.” Human Rights Watch reports that Moloudzadeh was coerced and tortured into making a confession. According to Amnesty International, his accusers retracted their sex assault allegations and admitted that they had been pressured into making false claims against him. Even if Moloudzadeh had been guilty as charged, he should never have been hanged because the alleged offence was committed while he was a minor. Strong evidence for Moloudzadeh’s innocence is the fact that hundreds of villagers turned out for his funeral; which would not have happened if the official Iranian account that he was a child sex abuser was true. In a second interview on The Wright Stuff, Galloway launched into a scurrilous attack on Medhi’s friends and supporters, and the defenders of lesbian, gay and bisexual human rights in Iran, including myself: “This (Mehdi Kazemi’s case) is a useful story for the war propaganda machine, the khaki machine now taking on a tinge of pink….what I will not accept is people being used, as Tatchell is, as the pink end of the war machine. That’s what Peter Tatchell has become by attacking Iran in the way that he does.” At the antiwar protest in London on March 15, which I supported and attended, Galloway repeated these claims in his keynote speech. He said the “khaki war machine now has its pink contingent”. He went on to imply that people who support gay rights in Iran are “useful idiots” and said their aim is to “bamboozle the public to go along with mass murder in Iran”. It is untrue and deeply offensive to suggest that those of us who oppose homophobic persecution in Iran are backing the bombing and invasion of Iran. We are not. I am on record in my writings and speeches as opposing an attack on Iran. When, for example, I exposed Tehran’s racist and neocolonial persecution of its Ahwazi Arab ethnic minority, I stated categorically: “I am part of a new campaign group, Hands Off the People of Iran (HOPI). HOPI opposes both a US war on Iran and the tyranny of the Iranian regime. My motto is: Neither Washington nor Tehran! A war against Iran would be another disastrous neo-imperial adventure, which would strengthen the Tehran dictatorship. President Ahmadinejad would play the patriot and manipulate nationalism to rally the population behind him. He would use a US military attack as an excuse to further crack down on dissent in the name of safeguarding national security. The overthrow of the theocratic police state by the Iranian people – not by US military intervention – is the best way to resolve the nuclear crisis and prevent a needless, unjustified war. With no dictatorship in Tehran, President Bush and the neo cons would lose the rationale for a military strike against Iran.” Galloway’s insinuation that I am banging the war drum and siding with imperialism is both laughable and dishonourable. For nearly 40 years I have supported the Iranian people’s struggle against dictatorship, first against the western-backed Shah and, since 1979, against the clerical tyranny of the ayatollahs. I have been totally consistent. I am not suddenly focusing on Iran’s human rights abuses and doing the dirty work of the Washington neocons, as Galloway seems to suggest. Undeterred by criticisms that his outbursts collude with homophobia and with a viciously anti-gay regime in Tehran, Mr Galloway boasts: “I have an unblemished record of support for lesbian and gay equality.” Well, not quite. The Public Whip website (which monitors MPs votes) notes that Galloway did not vote on 8 out of 10 of the major parliamentary votes on gay law reform in recent years. His repeat absence is a strange way to express support for gay rights. Most other MPs turned up to vote. Why not George? Galloway is, of course, a Respect MP. A commitment to gay rights was entirely absent from Respect’s 2005 general election manifesto. Some insiders claim gay equality was originally included but was removed to appease Muslim fundamentalist voters (this apparent assumption by Respect that all Muslims are homophobic fundamentalists is just plain wrong – they are not). The policy section of the Respect website has included a one-line opposition to discrimination based on sexual orientation but it is hidden away under “other policies”. Not exactly upfront. One of Respect’s major funders is Dr Mohammed Naseem. He is a one-time member of their executive and was a Respect parliamentary candidate. He is also a leading member of the Islamic Party of Britain (IPB) which appears to advocate the death penalty for consenting adult homosexuality in certain circumstances. The IPB is viciously homophobic in other respects too, as it’s website explains, and as my OutRage! colleague, Brett Lock, has revealed. Naseem is a strange bedfellow for a supposedly pro-gay rights MP. George Galloway was magnificent before the US Senate, exposing the Iraq debacle. Sadly, he now sometimes seems to be exonerating a cruel, unjust regime in Tehran that is responsible for some of the worst state-sanctioned homophobia in the world. This regime is also responsible for the equally heinous persecution of trade unionists, women’s rights campaigners, student leaders, human rights advocates, investigative journalists and activists who defend Iran’s subjugated minority nationalities, such as the Kurds, Arabs and Baluchis. Misguided, untruthful attacks on Iranian gay people, the queer rights movement and the pink community do not strengthen the antiwar movement and the struggle against US imperialism. On the contrary, they play straight into the hands of the tyrants in Tehran and their mirror opposites in Washington. They betray all Iranians who are yearning and striving for democracy, human rights, social justice and the self-rule of Iran’s oppressed minority nations.

Iraq: When Will we Ever Learn?
26 Mar 2008
Five years after the American and British governments launched the most ill-conceived and fundamentally flawed war of the modern era; the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has finally promised a full-scale inquiry into the war. Although the Labour government has held four political “Inquiries” before, this is the first time that a British Prime Minister has acknowledged that a full public inquiry is necessary to unpick the disastrous lessons of the conflict. His admission is in direct contrast to Tony Blair who said in 2005: “We have had inquiry after inquiry we do not need to go back over this again and again.” So what would a public inquiry find? It would have to hear evidence as to whether the war was legal, and would most likely conclude it was not. One key witness would be Elizabeth Wilmshurst, who was deputy legal adviser to the British Foreign Office before the war. Wilmshurst resigned the day the war started. She argued that without a second resolution at the UN Security Council authorizing force, the war was illegal. Her resignation letter said she could not “in conscience go along with advice” of then Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, as he changed his view to try and fudge the facts to say war was justified. Any inquiry would also have to hear from Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair’s former chief of staff, who just last weekend week-end admitted the British and US governments had seriously underestimated the scale of any post-invasion task. Powell said: “The trouble with Iraq is we were kind of preparing for the wrong sort of aftermath. We made lots of preparations for humanitarian disaster, for the lack of water, of all that kind of thing, and what we hadn’t in my view thought through was the long-term nature of this. I don’t think any of us had thought through this much bigger question of what we are dealing with.” The truth is that the Blair and Bush governments were too preoccupied to try and spin the case for war to understand its full consequences. The falsehoods of Britain and America’s “dirty dossiers” purporting to show weapons of mass destruction have been long exposed. But in a retreat of another justification for war, the Pentagon finally acknowledged last week that a review of more than 600,000 captured Iraqi documents showed "no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'ida terrorist network". The reality is one we have known all along. Al Qaeda never had a presence in Iraq, until the chaos created by the war allowed it to have one. Moreover, as the US has got bogged down in Iraq, it has allowed Al Qaeda to re-establish itself in the tribal lands of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Even the feeble justification for removing Saddam on humanitarian grounds, now, five years later, looks like a complete disaster. Let’s quickly look at the lethal legacy of the war five years on. Figures on the numbers killed vary depending on who you talk to, ranging from an estimated 90,000 by the Iraqi Body Count to 1.2 million by the British polling company Opinion Research Business. Over 2.2 million Iraqis have fled the country, with an estimated two million internally displaced. Some 50,000 are said to be homeless in Baghdad alone. It is impossible to describe the scale of human suffering that hides behind each statistic. A generation of Iraqi children is growing up terrorized and traumatized, having witnessed or been subject to violence. Each story is a human tragedy. “My children and I left my home in Anbar almost two years ago” thirty-eight year old Ruba told the Red Cross. “My husband had been killed right in front of us. I had to protect my children, so we fled the same night with nothing but some money. For me, there is no past and no future, only a horrible present.” The Red Cross recently concluded that “five years after the outbreak of the war in Iraq, the humanitarian situation in most of the country remains among the most critical in the world. Because of the conflict, millions of Iraqis have insufficient access to clean water, sanitation and health care.” For those providing services such as health care it can be perilous: Over 2,200 doctors and nurses have been killed, with over 250 kidnapped. For many it is too much: Some 20,000 of the 34,000 registered doctors in the country have left. The average wage in Iraq – that is, if you can get a job, is now around $150 per month, yet many families are having to spend at least $50 just to get clean water.  Baghdad still struggles to get one hour of electricity per day. To coincide with the fifth anniversary of the conflict, many media have undertaken different surveys of what life is like in Iraq. Given the appalling state of the country, an overtly optimistic picture was painted by a BBC poll that found that over 50% of Iraqis think their lives are “good.” Whilst this is a national figure, it masks the deep ethnic divisions with only 33% of Sunnis being “happy”, compared with 62% of Shias and 73% of Kurds. This seems far too optimistic and is contradicted by other surveys and reports. For example, of the ten people interviewed for the Observer earlier this month, 3 people or 30 per cent, said they wished Saddam was still in power, another argued that the war had set Iraq back 50 years. What the BBC and other surveys have shown is that Iraqis still rate security as the biggest problem for the country overall. Thabit is a Sunni who lives near Kirkuk. He says “before 2003 we only had to worry about not saying anything against the government. Now we can say all we want, but life is in continuous threat”. Another Iraqi, Amaal, a mother of six and teacher of biochemistry in Baghdad says: “It is true that some people are very poor in society, but I know many people who would prefer to live in poverty if they were given security.” The US claims that the “surge” in American troops has had a dramatic effect on reducing the violence in Baghdad. They spout statistics to back this up. The number of sectarian attacks in Baghdad dropped from 2200 in December 2006 to 200 in November 2007. This, like most American military propaganda, has missed the point. The reason that violence is fallen is that the city has now been effectively ethnically cleansed. Instisar is a Sunni accountant who lives in Baghdad. She says that in her street there are only three families left who lived there before the war. The rest have “emigrated or fled”. Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, an Iraqi photo-journalist has just returned from the city. Able to go to districts no western journalist can go, he says that Baghdad has been transformed into a city of walls. Some 20 miles of 12 foot concrete barriers now dissect this city keeping Sunni and Shia apart. Each neighborhood or district is controlled by different militia. “The people are more desperate than ever”, reports Ghaith Abdul-Ahad. This post-apocalyptic hell is surely not what President Bush had in mind when he said in 2003: "Iraqi democracy will succeed – and that success will send forth the news, from Damascus to Teheran – that freedom can be the future of every nation." For the Americans there is no end is sight, either: In 2008, there were more American troops in Iraq than during the invasion. Nearly 4000 American soldiers have been killed and 30,000 wounded. Over 16,000 American troops have deserted. The figure may well be higher, with many of the runaways quietly discharged. Britain may have lost far fewer soldiers – just 175 – but it has been forced to retreat out of the city of Basra and still cannot pull its soldiers out of the country. The cost is not just in lives either. In 2003, US Defence Secretary said the cost of the war would be $60bn. To date, the US government has spent at least $500 billion on the war, with some estimates it is as high as $4 trillion. In the UK, an influential Commons Committee recently warned of a “surprising” 52 per cent increase in the cost of military action in Iraq to nearly £1.45bn, despite recent reductions in troop levels. Gordon Brown has said of the public inquiry: "There is a need to learn all possible lessons from the military action in Iraq and its aftermath." The main lesson, according to Hans Blix the UN’s former weapons chief, is “that there are limitations to what you can achieve by military means.” But the British and Americans should have realized this before they invaded. As Robert Fisk, the award winning journalist wrote last week: “The only lesson we ever learn is that we never learn”. And we don’t need a public inquiry to tell us that.