Every Child Matters As Long As It's Not An Asylum Seeker

The United Kingdom is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. All fair and nice cuddly politics. Now the UK has a general reservation against the UN Convention on Rights of the Child. That means the UK can ignore the Convention in pursuit of its border control and immigration targets. That strikes me as being wrong, unjust, unethical, immoral and just an all round bad thing.

The Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture argues

The general reservation states that: "The United Kingdom reserves the right to apply such legislation, in so far as it relates to the entry into, stay in and departure from the UK of those who do not have the right under the law of the UK to enter and remain in the UK, and to the acquisition and possession of citizenship, as it may deem necessary from time to time."

The question is timely, 2008 being the year that the Committee on the Rights of the Child will scrutinise the UK's record of compliance with its Children's Convention obligations.

So how does the reservation affect child survivors of torture? According to the Border and Immigration Agency (BIA), it "allows the UK to apply its immigration laws without having them interpreted in light of the UN Convention". In other words, it allows blanket discrimination against foreign national children in the interests of so called "effective immigration control".

So the UK government discriminates, in contravention of the Convention, against children who may be survivors, or witnesses, of torture just so that it can meet its immigration targets That is managerial target-setting entering the door and throwing ethics and morality out of the window. Such is the reign of managerialism in the UK in 2008.

As the Medical Foundation says

It is paramount to send a clear message that the UK finally recognises its full responsibilities by formally and publicly removing the reservation. An act which at least for children would be every bit as important as the coming in to force of the Human Rights Act 1998.

For Medical Foundation clients and all other children who have suffered serious harm, Article 39 of the Convention can then be demonstrably implemented to the fullest effect: "States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to promote physical and psychological recovery and social reintegration of a child victim of: any form of neglect, exploitation, or abuse; torture or any other form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; or armed conflicts. Such recovery and reintegration shall take place in an environment which fosters the health, self-respect and dignity of the child."

And, as the government keeps telling us, Every Child Matters. So, make it so.

LATE NEWS

The BBC is reporting that the UK government intends to sign the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in full. About bloody time.

Liberty, Equality and Fraternity But Don't Invite The French

With all the coverage and reminiscences of 1968 and the discussion of the revolutionary moment and the glories of spontaneity, I was surprised to find someone berating the pace and the lack of preparation of the participants.

A correspondent to Peace News, 2497, May 2008 writes

The French are known for their failed revolutions. This time in 1968, having done nothing to educate the people or communicate with the trade unions, they went through a revolutionary charade producing excellent poetry but resulting in the complete defeat of anarchist nonviolent aspiration throughtout the world.

The French activists had no right to spoil years and years of work towards a universal understanding of the tasks in front of us, to create a worldwide peaceful society without rulers."

Publisher, 77, London

As my old five-a-side captain used to say Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance and Preempts Post Revolutionary Pangs of Passion for a Glorious Failure. And the P's ran away with it.

Tax The Rich Until The Pips Squeak

I've just discovered that Denis Healey never said he would "tax the rich until the pips squeak". There's one illusion shattered. But back in the heady days of glam rock in 1973, at the Labour Party conference he did say "I warn you that there are going to be howls of anguish from those rich enough to pay over 75% on their last slice of earnings".

In Tribune, 11th July 2008, Paul Anderson wrote the government should increase personal allowances and pay for it by introducing a 60% tax rate on incomes over £200,000 and abolishing the upper earnings limit national insurance. The income figure of £200,000 was chosen so as not to frighten the middle classes, but is in danger of being useless as so few people earn that figure and pay tax.

According to HMRC, in tax year 2005-6 99% of tax payers earned less than £132,00. So there are probably less than 2 in a thousand people earning more than £200,000. Is it worth having a 60% tax rate on such a small number of tax payers? How much tax do those on such high incomes actually pay and how much do the avoid and how much do they evade?

It's either sending out a signal or it's a tax to generate income for the treasury but it's not really doing both.

After writing this post based on his Tribune piece I find this Swiftian polemic on his blog, Gauche.

1. An increase in personal allowances to take everyone on £10,000 a year or less out of income tax altogether.

2. Introduction of new top-rate income tax of 60 per cent for everyone earning more than £60,000, 80 per cent on £80,000-plus and 100 per cent on £100,000 or more.

3. Standardisation of national insurance rates so everyone pays the same percentage on every penny of income above £5,000.

4. An end to all non-dom privileges.

5. A council tax revaluation with abolition of bands and a straightforward proportional relationship between value and payment, so households in £10m homes pay 100 times what a household in a £100,000 home pays.

6. Abolition of inheritance tax up to £500,000 and introduction of 100 per cent inheritance tax over £1m.

That's more like it but I'd still debate the amounts.

Happiness of the People

Over the summer I have been working, relaxing at festivals and generally not writing as much as I should. It's now time to catch up.

Last weekend I was going through some old copies of Tribune and various other journals and spotted this piece by Bryan Rostron in Tribune 27 June 2008, p13,(available online at Mail and Guardian), on Stalinism and the ANC.

In his epic novel, Life and Fate, Russian author Vasily Grossman tried to explain the slavishness of "party-mindedness" and the acquiescence of once brave revolutionaries who kept quiet as Stalinism took hold. "Fear alone cannot achieve all this," he wrote. "It was the revolutionary cause itself that freed people from morality in the name of morality, that justified today's pharisees, hypocrites and writers of denunciations in the name of the future, that explained why it was right to elbow the innocent into the ditch in the name of the happiness of the people."

How else to explain that not one of Mbeki's ministers took issue with his Aids denialism? Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang even trained at a Soviet institute influenced by Stalin's lauded agronomist, Trofim Lysenko, who applied Marxist dogma to biology with disastrous results. "Perhaps," observed James Wilmot, "this is why she does not appear to understand how the genetics of retroviral co-evolution works."

Grossman, famous for his war reporting from Stalingrad, witnessed the corruption of Stalinism from within. His great, breathtaking novel was published only in 1980, after his death, yet Grossman also captured something of what is going on in South Africa today: "The hide was being flayed off the still living body of the Revolution so that a new age could slip into it; as for the red, bloody meat, the steaming innards -- they were being thrown on to the scrap-heap. The new age needed only the hide of the Revolution -- and this was being flayed off people who were still alive. Those who then slipped into it spoke the language of the revolution and mimicked its gestures, but their brains, lungs, livers and eyes were utterly different."

So goes the revolution as the baton passes to those who only hear tales of how the revolution was won from those who lived its adventures.

England Lions v South Africa

Today I went to Grace Road, Leicester, to see England Lions play South Africa at cricket.

On the train over I happened to sit in the quiet carriage on the train. I was quiet until a passenger phoned a friend and recounted all about his holiday and his windsurfing fun and games. He was on a train to London. But he wasn't stopping in London. He was off to Richmond to speak to Jamie Redknapp and Scott Parker (whoever they are).

I took a taxi from the train station and got dropped off by the Cricketers pub. But where was the entrance to the ground? Behind an unmarked black garden gate was an alley that lead to the entrance. If some other people weren't heading in that direction I would never have found the ground.

Inside the ground I met my friends and we watched England bat. Robert Key scored a creditable 51 but that apart there was a reckless abandon of wickets. England were all out for 184 inside the 50 overs.

Herschelle Gibbs played a good innings for 81 to lead South Africa to a convincing victory despite some disappointing batting by his team mates.

On Saturday I'm off to Derby to see both teams battle it out again.

For a full match report of England Lions v South Africa at Leicester, see Cricinfo.

Olympic Spirit

Here's some videos from Amnesty.

False Start.


Badminton.


Torchure.


Citius. Altius. Fortius. Indeed.

Purges and Guilt

Owen Matthews' grandfather was Boris Lvovich Bibikov, a solid member of the Soviet Communist Part throughout the 1920s and 1930s. He was murdered by the NKVD in summer 1937.

Matthews describes how

Bibikov was no innocent caught by an evil and alien force beyond his comprehension. On the contrary, he was a propagandist, a fanatic of the new morality - the morality that now demanded his life, however pointlessly, for the greater good.

And

The men drawn to serve in the NKVD, in the famous phrase of its founder, Felix Dzerzhinsky, could either be saints or scoundrels. But they were not aliens, not foreigners, but men, Russian men, made of the same tissue and fed by the same blood as their victims. "Where did this wolf-tribe appear from among our own people?" asked Solzhenitsyn. "Does it really stem from our own roots? Our own blood? It is ours."

This was the true, dark genius behind the purge. Not simply to put two strangers into a room, one a victim, one an executioner, and convince one to kill the other, but to convince both that this murder served some higher purpose. This can happen only when a man becomes a political commodity, a unit in a cold calculation, his life and death to be planned and disposed of just like a ton of steel or a truckload of bricks. This, without doubt, was Bibikov's belief. He lived by it and died by it.

And so it goes. And so it goes. For the greater glory ...

Life, Art and A Priest

A priest in Lourdes has been found with a large amount of money in his bank account. He is rumoured to have gone for the "the money is just resting in my account defence".

Italian Fascism

There's an excellent post over at DSTPFW on the rise of Fascism and the disgusting treating of Roma and Gypises in Italy.



My Italian not being what it should be, Babelfish tells me the poster says "For greater emergency you offer a finger to Maroni" (Maroni is the Italian Interior Minister, and leader of the anti immigrant Northern League, responsible for a planned census of Roma and a much criticized plan to fingerprint Roma children).

Never forget. Don't let it happen anywhere.

Zimbabwe and the UK's Caring Border Agency

The Observer reports on Britain's reprehensible attack on Zimbabwean refugees and asylum seekers. "Britain is forcing as many as 11,000 Zimbabweans seeking refuge here to make a stark choice between destitution or returning home to possible torture or death". Why are refugees and asylum seekers forbidden from working? It's almost as if immigration policy and asylum is biased towards the independently wealthy. That couldn't possibly be the case under a Labour government. Tell me I'm wrong.

As the Observer reports

A UK Border Agency spokeswoman said that, although the agency was sending out letters ordering failed Zimbabwean asylum seekers to return home, it had no plans to start forced removals. 'We always seek to assist anyone who wishes to return,' she said.

So there are no plans for early morning raids and the barbarity of forced removals, just give people the option: living in the UK with no financial or social support or return to Zimbabwe. That's not putting people in shit creek without a paddle, is it? Crap choice one, or crap choice two. Isn't the Border Agency wonderful? Make life so intolerable in the UK that anywhere seems better. Wonderful.

You can read the official UK Border Agency Operational Guidance Note (OGN) on the state of Zimbabwe here Zimbabwe OGN.

It's full of descriptions of what someone has to show to remain in the UK. If they do not show what is required then they can be deported back to Zimbabwe. They may get returned from whence they came. If they're lucky they may be "internally relocated" in Zimbabwe.

Someone sitting in a comfortable office in the UK makes a decision on the condition of Zimbabwe and threats to another person's life and liberty. That hardly seems the actions of a government that believes in fairness, justice, internationalism, international law, and the rights of refugees and asylum seekers.

The OGN "provides guidance on whether or not an individual making a claim is likely to face a real risk of persecution, unlawful killing or torture or inhuman or degrading treatment/ punishment". A liberal interpretation of this notice would make almost any claimant successful - and I think that's a good thing. However the likelihood is the interpretation is anything but liberal.

Section 3.6 looks at members of the MDC and states:

3.6.6 Internal relocation. Where the ill-treatment or persecution feared is at the hands of the state itself and the threat is credible, relocation to a different part of the country to escape this threat is not feasible.

3.6.7 Where the threat is from local ZANU-PF activists or locally based war veterans so that the claimant is at risk in their home area, the question of whether internal relocation is a reasonable option must in each case be considered on its merits taking into account the fact that there is a network of information available to ZANU-PF and war veterans.

And

3.6.9 Conclusion. Each case must be decided on its individual facts to determine whether a particular applicant is at risk, and, if they are, whether internal relocation is available. MDC activists who are able to establish that their political activities will mean that they are of serious adverse interest to the present regime in Zimbabwe will have a well-founded fear of persecution. It is unlikely that they will be able to relocate internally, and therefore it is likely that a grant of asylum will be appropriate.

3.6.10 Not all MDC activists, supporters or members will be able to show that they are known to the authorities or ZANU-PF activists or war veterans. For example, taking part in mass demonstrations, or being assaulted in random violence associated with the demonstration, is unlikely to result in an ongoing interest. It is therefore unlikely that such individuals would be able to demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution, and even if they could do so in their home area, internal relocation may be available. Where this is a feasible option for the individual and would not be unreasonable, such a claim will not warrant a grant of asylum or Humanitarian Protection.

3.6.11 However, where a low level activist, supporter or member is able credibly to show that their activities have resulted in them personally coming to the serious adverse attention of the authorities, ZANU-PF etc., they may be able to demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution. Such a person would not be able to rely on the protection of the state and it is unlikely that that they would be able to relocate internally, therefore it is likely that a grant of asylum will be appropriate.

My reading of that is that all a Zimbabwean has to do is plead membership of the MDC and "demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution" and they qualify for "asylum or Humanitarian Protection". Now what is the bar set to on "demonstrating a well-founded fear of persecution". Does the Border Agency require videos of threats? Written death threats?

The UK government cannot say that the situation is intolerable in Zimbabwe but we are sending thousands of people back anyway, without coming across as total bastards.

Tesco Rhymes with Alfresco Rhymes With Fiasco

One of our local centres, Beeston, is about to see the construction of a megalith. Sorry, that should read, a great big monstrosity of a Tesco. To clear the site they have demolished several shops, a pub and a garage and devastated a corner of the town.

A protest campaign has started led by the Church of the Militant Elvis Anti-Tesco Popular Front. Their manifesto begins:

Our candidate is fed up with Tesco wrecking Beeston town centre and putting small shopkeepers out of business. If elected he will do all he can to stop the relentless expansion of this corporate monster because at this rate by 2010 there will more Tesco's in Britain than Elvis impersonators.

Will Tesco just leave us alone? Or are they really bent on total domination of every bloody high street? When will they stop? Rapacious capitalist bastards.

[Via Liam]

Testimonies of Torture

June 26th is the UN International Day in Support of Victims of Torture.

To mark the day B'selem and the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel have put together a video of "David Senesh, an Israeli soldier who was held hostage by the Egyptian army, and Amjad Abu Salhah, a Palestinian who was arrested by Israel, describe the methods of torture to which they were subjected and their long-lasting influence."

Night Wraps The Sky

There is a new book out that looks at the work of Vladimir Mayakovsky. It's called "Night Wraps the Sky: Writings by and About Mayakovsky" and it is edited by Michael Almereyda.

There was a public performance earlier this year which you can listen to.

And here's the cover:



I'll be ordering it.

Broken Records and Twilight Sad

Last night we went out to see Twilight Sad and support.

The first support was a rather competent and earnest singer song-writer playing his acoustic songs about former girlfriends. What the world does not need is another singer song-writer bewailing his former lovers.

Then onto a stage the size of a dining table came the seven piece Broken Records. Drums, bass, 2 guitars, keyboards, violin and cello. Then they started. Echoes of the Waterboys. Echoes of Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Echoes of Arcade Fire. Awesome. Inspiring.



Then came the headliners Twilight Sad. Noisy. Energetic. Moody. Inspired by Joy Division. The lead singer is very inspired by the spirit of Ian Curtis. The potential is all there to be a very good band. The singer should be himself more and drop the Ian Curtis performance style.



Here's Rullenberg's take on the proceedings (and here as well).

Make your own mind up.

Coming and Not Going

Mark Haddon visits the Migrants Resource Centre and meets some interesting people.

According to official statistics, from the Home Office, which, by the way, says it is building a safe, just and tolerant society, the UK "removed" 3,025 asylum seekers in the first three months of 2008.

For the first quarter of 2008, the number of principal asylum applicants removed was 2,805, 13 per cent lower than in the first quarter of 2007 (3,205). Including dependants, a total of 3,025 asylum seekers were removed in the first quarter of 2008, 14 per cent lower than in the first quarter of 2007 (3,515). In 2007/08, 12,125 principal applicants were removed from the UK, 19 per cent lower than in 2006/07 (15,050). Including dependants, 13,100 asylum seekers were removed in 2007/08, 22 per cent lower than in 2006/07 (16,710).

Those statistics were brought you by the Home Office, which, by the way, is saying it is building a safe, just and tolerant society.

The Home Office, which is saying it is building a safe, just and tolerant society, is still forcibly deporting about a thousand people a month.

A "safe", "just" and "tolerant" society for who, exactly?

Here's a video report on local communities making a "safe", "just" and "tolerant" society by supporting the right of asyum seekers to stay in this country. Here's the associated article on communities campaigning for the right to remain.

Just remember "no one is illegal".

Asylum in Sunderland

Just finished reading Bryan Talbot's magisterial Alice in Sunderland. It makes the case that Lewis Carroll's work was largely inspired by the scenery and history of Wearside and Sunderland. It also discusses the history of comics and the history of Sunderland - a city that gave the world the electric light-bulb and the stars and stripes.

Some bits work wonderfully - actually all bits are brilliantly done - the exception being the overlong discursive meander with a community crime writer and artist. But, hey, the book tries so much and everything can't work. Talbot is willing to wander and connect various themes. A final documentary section, graphics on lined paper, uses English, and Sunderland, history to support asylum seekers against prejudice (both the whipped up and innate sorts).

It's a massively inspired and wondrous work. They don't mackem like this anymore.

Principia Mathematica and Stupidity Rampant

The petulant Simon Jenkins regurgitates a hobby horse and writes that the study of mathematics is unneccessary for most people and "finance, marketing and design, on service activities" have fed Britain's booming economy which has led to more students studying finance, economics, psychology and other "soft" subjects instead of mathematics, science and engineering. Note that Jenkins picks "soft subjects" that all require an understanding and use of higher level mathematics.

What stimulates today's students is the realm of the creative imagination and the working of the marketplace. This spectrum, from English and drama to business and finance, seems benign both to individuals and to the economy. Students are not stupid. They know where money is to be made, which is why they flock to medicine among the sciences.

And there was me thinking the money was to be made as a quantitative analyst in a hedge fund. The piece is just so wrong I don't know where to begin and Jenkins gets a new one torn in the comments.

In the comments Professor Ross Anderson makes the equally egregiously wrong point that

I teach computer science at Cambridge, and we've found that students can't cope with our course unless they got an A in A level maths. Pretty much the same holds in engineering, economics, physics and chemistry - indeed across the schools of technology and physical science.

Stop and think through the statement "students can't cope with our course unless they got an A in A level maths". One would think that computer science students at Cambridge fit into one of two camps: those with A level maths at grade A (as with any other grade would you be at Cambridge?); and those who haven't studied A level maths. So the evidence comes out as "students can't cope with our course unless they [have] A level maths". So unless Cambridge is accepting students with Bs, Cs, Ds and Es in A level maths Anderson's point about an A grade being necessary lacks evidence and becomes "our course requires A level maths".

Education, education and no right to leave the country

Societies thrive when all members are healthy, vibrant, active and reflective. Similarly my life is improved by the wellbeing of my neighbours. But that may just be me. Others may delight in the misfortunes of their neighbours. But not me.

Israel's future depends on a thriving Palestinian state. And a thriving state needs intelligent educated people. Students in Gaza have been given scholarships to study overseas. Some have been given Fulbright scholarships to study in the USA and others have places waiting at other institutions elsewhere.

I would have thought that it was in Israel's interest to let out all students with offers of places to study overseas. Well, after much protesting from the US State Department some of the Fulbright scholars have been allowed to proceed with their Israeli entry visa applications. Other students are not so fortunate.

At least two students have places in the UK. Wissam Abuajwa has a scholarship and a UK visa to study at Nottingham University; and Abir Abu Warda has a Ford Foundation-funded place at London Metropolitan University. Both of these students are appealing to the British government to support their applications for entry visas to Israel so they can leave the country.

In the Israeli High Court of Justice, Justice Elyakim Rubinstein is reported by the Jpost as saying that the ban is no less harmful to the Israeli interest because we have to live with the Palestinians in the future, too."

He warned that preventing students from accessing education "harms chances for some kind of coexistence."
The court case was run by Gisha: Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, an Israeli non-profit organization.

Gisha say that Israel has refused to grant hundreds of requests by Gaza students for entry permits to Israel so that they can travel abroad to continue their studies. And Gisha further says
"the ban "is part of a policy of closure and collective punishment that is trapping 1.5 million civilians."

Gisha's briefing on Israel's ban on students, and others, leaving Gaza, is an informative document, that argues

according to the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Hague Conventions of 1907, which were designed to protect the rights of civilians in times of war and occupation, the State of Israel is obligated to protect the residents of Gaza, to allow them to live normal lives and to safeguard their rights. Also according to the Geneva Convention and the Hague Conventions, Israel must provide for the regular functioning of civil institutions in Gaza, including the school system and institutions of higher education.
The Fourth Geneva Convention and its First Additional Protocol prohibit the use of collective punishment.
Among the rights which the State of Israel is obligated to uphold for the residents of Gaza is the right to leave and reenter the Gaza Strip. The right of any person to leave a given territory, including the territory in which he or she lives, is protected by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Israel's policy of stopping students take up courses either in Israel or overseas is morally and legally wrong and is politically stupid.

By its actions Israel is building up a generation of disaffected intelligent young people with a rage against Israel for stopping them studying overseas *and* is also delaying the much needed economic growth of Gaza and Palestine.

That's a double whammy of bad consequences that comes from being politically inept and stupid.

Save the Nottingham One from Deportation

As someone said, when you are known by a number and the name of a place then you are in deep shit. Let me introduce you to Hicham Yezza. He was the "administrative officer" arrested at Nottingham University last week over the downloading of a freely available document.

As this Hicham Yezza campaign site puts it

Hicham has lived in Nottingham for 13 years while he studied for undergraduate and postgraduate degrees and worked at the university, where he has built up a large network of close friends. The huge campaign to prevent his deportation is a testament to this. He served as a member of the University Senate for two terms (2004-5) and on the Student’s Union Executive Committee, was President of the Arabic Society, was the editor of the influential Voice magazine for international students, and is the long-time editor of Ceasefire magazine, a political journal. He was a prominent member of the artistic group ‘Al-Zaytouna’, and weeks before his arrest performed the leading role in a feature play at Nottingham Arts Theatre. Numerous references have been collected from reputable professors and prominent members of the local and national community that testify to his integrity and strong roots in the city. He lives and works in Nottingham and has shown every intention of fighting his case, as he thinks he has excellent grounds to remain in the U.K.

Let's not forget that no-one is illegal. The UK immigration service is a racist organisation that deliberately seeks out to deport people who's only crime is to overstay a visa. Often these are solid members of communities doing all the things that governments admire: relocating for education and employment; becoming active citizens.

Deportation on the grounds of involvement in a download of "legitimate research material" is just morally wrong, irrespective of Hicham Yezza's "status".

Hicham Yezza must stay and the Immigration Service needs a solid reform if not total abolition.

Ban Cluster Bombs

There's a petition from Cluster Bombs org uk that seeks to ban cluster bombs. As they say

Cluster munitions, weapons that release several hundred smaller ‘bomblets’ when fired, pose an unacceptable danger to civilians both during and long after a conflict. Civilians constitute 98 % of cluster munitions casualties.

The UK currently stockpiles and exports cluster bombs.

Here are some basic facts:
* 98% of recorded casualties are civilians.
* 27% of casualties are children.
* 67% casualties are killed or injured in course of earning their livelihood.
* 24 countries and regions are affected by cluster munitions worldwide.
* 5% to 30% of cluster bombs fail to explode on impact.
* 34 countries produce at least 210 different types of cluster bombs and 73 countries stockpile cluster bombs.
* The UK currently stockpiles and exports cluster bombs and used them during the war in Iraq.

Handicap International calls for
* A ban on the production, use and transfer of cluster bombs
* A commitment from the UK government in favour of an international agreement on this ban
* The destruction of any existing stocks

Can you really support the use of a munition that goes on killing and maiming when the region is no longer at war?