Snare Aware month - Sign the petition!

A League Against Cruel Sports Campaign






Raising public awareness of the barbarity of snaring will be the focus for the League this month as we  launch Snare Aware Month, running throughout the whole of September. 

Rebecca Taylor, Head of Campaigns at the League, said: “Snaring is one of the cruellest forms of animal abuse and yet it is something that our nation of ‘animal lovers’ knows very little about. Snare Aware Month will seek to redress this imbalance.

“Thousands of animals suffer horrendous injuries or die long and agonising deaths in snares every day, including badgers, birds, foxes and deer, and all so that the shooting industry can protect their valuable stocks for shooting.”

The month of September will include a range of activities from local street information stalls to public presentations on the cruelty of snaring. 

Using evidence sent in to the League by supporters and from our partner organisations OneKindand the Vale Wildlife Hospital and Rehabilitation Centre we are also releasing daily case studiesto highlight the horrific effects that these ‘humane’ devises have on our pets and on non-target species. 

Please support the League by signing our petition calling for a complete ban on the manufacture, sale and use of snares.  

Read more about our campaign

Sunday notes & updates

Politics

SWP: another twist in their continuing crisis

The continuing saga of "comrade delta" has taken a bizarre turn as the Socialist Workers Party have apparently "re-opened" the case and decided that he "has a case to answer" and that he had behaved "inappropriately". This decision beggars belief after all that has happened.

The SWP have virtually destroyed themselves over the past year in an effort to save Martin Smith, and it seems only now that he has buggered off out of the SWP and is no longer a member that they finally, maybe, see that the issue should never have been swept under the carpet by the Professor and his "lynch mob".

The SWP have declined to less than a thousand members, half of whom appear to be organised in some kind of open opposition to their "Central Committee", lost almost their entire student membership, seen their Marxism festival boycotted by most left wing academics and turn into an almost total washout, lost what little credibility they had even on the far-left and become a total pariah amongst women activists.

All for one quite unsavoury individual.

Whether they survive much longer with yet another national Conference on the horizon is a matter of conjecture, but as far as I can see the party is over comrades.

Time to join the other useless sects in the dustbin of history.

Racism & Fascism

Anti-Semitism & the BDS in South Africa

Last weekend I cross posted an article from Harry's Place by Sarah AB on the chanting of "death to the Jews" by some of the supporters of BDS in South Africa. Sarah has produced an update on this disturbing development at Engage in which she examines the response of Heidi-Jane Esakov one of the BDS activists at Wits University who writes:

“Of course we recognise that there are those who use the Palestinian struggle as a way to camouflage their anti-Semitism, and this needs to be dealt with unequivocally. Not because it is bad for the movement, but because, fundamentally, anti-Semitism should never be tolerated.”

So far so good, but then goes on to say:

Those of us who support the struggle for Palestinian freedom and justice constantly find ourselves up against attempts to conflate challenges against Zionism and Israeli policies with anti-Semitism. These accusations are an attempt to silence criticism, and dangerously distract from real acts and expressions of anti-Semitism.

Not so good. Having seen the nonsense produced by the British Palestine Solidarity Campaign (see post below I remain more than concerned about the motives of so-called anti-Zionists. After all their former Chairperson was expelled from the PSC for being a Holocaust denier.

EDL leader arrested...again

The BBC reports that following the EDL march in Southwark yesterday, Tommy Robinson their Fuhrer, was arrested

English Defence League (EDL) leader Tommy Robinson has been arrested as about 500 supporters of the far-right group held a march in east London.

About 3,000 officers were deployed as the group walked from Queen Elizabeth Street, over Tower Bridge, to Aldgate.

Police said 14 people, mainly from the EDL, were arrested for public order offences during the march.

An EDL tweet stated that he had been arrested for incitement.

Trade Unions

New union formed

Earlier this year I reported on the mass resignations of PCS members in the Serious Organised Crime Agency. Since then a new union has been established, The National Crime Officers Association (NCOA) which has now been recognised by the employer and is registered with the Trade Union Certification Office.

The NCOA is currently in the process of setting up its full time apparatus and is participating in multi-trade union side activities. Further information to follow at a later date.

Religion & human rights

Threats to free speech

Recently Nahla Mahmoud, a member of the Council of ex-Muslims appeared on Channel 4 criticising Sharia Law. As a result she has received threats. Anne Marie Waters took up the story on Standpoint :

Nahla is a 26 year old Sudanese student who came to Britain in 2010 to escape what she describes as the "hell" of living as an atheist woman in an Islamic state. Following an appearance on Channel 4's 4Thought programme, where she described her shock at discovering the proliferation of Islamic sharia law here in the UK, Nahla was threatened and her family abused. The response she received to her complaints would demonstrate to Nahla what I and many others have long known: if you criticise Islam, you've got to be prepared for the fall-out. 

It was in January of this year that the remarks about Nahla first began to appear online. Mr Salah Al-Bandar, director of the Sudan Civic Foundation, posted an article in Arabic on the Sudanese Online website — a site widely read both in Sudan and among its diaspora — denouncing Nahla as a "kafira" who had started a "battle against Islam and the beliefs of the people". He went on to say he would "never have any mercy on her here". Anyone who knows anything about this kind of Islamist ideology knows that this constitutes a threat; in most Islamic states, insulting Islam carries the death penalty. This did not end with words; Nahla's brother in Sudan has been physically attacked, and her mother threatened. 

This situation is dire enough, and Nahla's story is rightly receiving coverage but what is not being discussed as it should be is the response, or lack of it, from the police and the Liberal Democrats. 

Let's start with the Lib Dems. Following a complaint to the chair of Cambridge branch of the party, an investigation was undertaken. Mr Al-Bandar received a letter requesting his side of the story, which he promptly supplied. In it, he argued that he had been fighting such behaviour (i.e. threats) throughout his political life; he wrote at length about his history of support for women's rights, freedom of thought, and "empowering disadvantaged communities". On the screen-shots containing his threats to Nahla, he had nothing to say except "that it bears no relation to the truth". He did not explain how the Facebook postings came in to being. He simply repeated "I am wonderful" and this was deemed to be enough. Not only enough, but according to Hagard, Al Bandar was now even more wonderful than previously thought. Nahla was dismissed. 

With support from the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain Nahla also took her complaint to the police. The investigation has since been closed; it is unclear why. They did offer to speak to Mr Al-Bandar but with a warned Nahla that "you may just make him angrier". Would the police give the same response to a woman complaining of Islamophobic threats? I very much doubt it. On the question of whether threats to an ex-Muslim constitute a hate crime, the police told Nahla that this was a "grey area" and thus best left alone. 

As someone who has also received threats for my criticisms of Islam, and had my complaints dismissed — "what did you expect?" — I am fully aware of the prevalence of such responses. A friend recently suggested to me that the police are in effect enforcing sharia law by stealth. This is no as ridiculous as it sounds. In Islamic societies, insults to Islam can result in death. One way or another, one is highly likely to be severely punished. The police in this case gave a strong message to Nahla, and to anyone else who might be tempted to commit the heinous offence of criticising or dismissing the religion of Islam: you'll be punished, we won't help, and you probably deserve it anyway.

An update can be found here.

Socialist Action: hidden in plain sight

One of the most secretive organisations on the far left of British politics is the tiny, yet ever present Socialist Action group lead by John Ross, a former member of the International Marxist Group (IMG). Earlier this year the Progress website reported on the appointment of a former SA member to Ed Milibands office:

Simon Fletcher, lately of Trotskyite groupuscule Socialist Action and chief of staff to Ken Livingstone, can today be found managing Miliband’s relations with the trade unions, an appointment which has caused a few eyebrows to be raised in Westminster.

The hire partly reflects Labour’s need to manage a more political, assertive and united union leadership. Unite general secretary Len McCluskey recently declared that a return to ‘Blairism’ would mean ‘Labour will be over for me.’ You probably do not respond to this by appointing a rightwinger.

Fletcher is also regarded, even by critics, as much the brightest and best of the old Socialist Action crowd, being more politically flexible than older ideologues, and much more discreet than some famous names.

This event did not go unnoticed in the mainstream press as the London Evening Standard commented on his appointment:

Mr Fletcher was the most senior member of Mr Livingstone’s inner circle of advisers and a hugely powerful figure at City Hall from 2000 to 2008. He built closer relations with Mr Miliband’s team, including campaigns manager Tom Watson, while working on the former Mayor’s attempted come-back in last year’s election against Boris Johnson.

He began his career working for Tony Benn and was involved with Socialist Action, a faction that sprang from a split in the International Marxist Group, whose members boasted of trying to turn London into a “socialist city state”.

After he met Mr Livingstone in 1992, the two became close partners and Mr Fletcher masterminded his boss’s first mayoral victory in 2000.

So just who are these people?

Back in the 1980s the long established IMG decided to try and emulate the comparative success of the then Militant Tendency by practising what trotskyists call "entryism" into the Labour Party. The group, then several hundred strong changed the name of its newspaper from Socialist Challenge to Socialist Action. However this "turn" also came at a time of increasing factional intrigue, not just in the IMG itself but across the United Secretariat of the Fourth International of which the group was the British franchise holder.

The American "section" (officially barred from USFI membership through the Voorhis Act) was taking its own turn towards the various South and Central American revolutions particularly concentrating on Cuba, Nicaragua and so on. They began to actually "reject" orthodox trotskyist theory for a slogan of "Workers & Farmers Governments". This "line" had no relevance to the British political situation but a faction around Brian Grogan would eventually split with the USFI to join the SWP (US) and form the still existent Communist League.

The faction fighting didn't end there, Three other factions were formed around the same time which eventually led to the final demise of the IMG or Socialist League as it had become known when the groups that now form Socialist Resistance and Socialist Action were formed. The SR group also incorporated a small group of ex Workers Revolutionary Party members around Alan Thornett which continues (via a brief entry into Respect) to this day.

John Ross, the late Redmond O'Neil and others continued the publication of Socialist Action for a while and engaged in deep entrism inside the Labour Party before re-emerging as employees and bag carriers for Ken Livingstone securing rather large salaries for themselves during Kens tenure as Mayor of London.

The group maintain a website but no longer publish a newspaper or magazine of any description, just the occasional leaflet. The SA group are also heavily involved in the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and the National Union of Students. Rumour has it that "they are colonising the Unite union" which would tie in with their stated desire to "combat the Labour right". Whether the tactics used by Unite in Falkirk (regardless of the outcome) were originated by SA is unknown, as is the reason Fletcher was expelled from the group but such manoeuvrings are typical of trotskyist thinking.

Although they are considered by most, even on the far-left to be a dying group, there appears to be some mileage in them yet. I am sure Mr Ross and his followers will continue burrowing away inside the trade union and labour movement for some time to come.

Palestine Solidarity Campaign denies Jewish history

Last weekend the well respected historian Simon Schama launched his new TV series, The story of the Jews on BBC 2. It began with a general look at Jewish people and then examined some of the Biblical pre-history of the connections of Jews in ancient Israel. An interesting programme, not much that people might not have known but a good introduction.

There are four more parts to go and in particular I am interested in the period l from the Roman "expulsion" of the Jews through the travails of the Diaspora to the the Holocaust and its' subsequent effects on the modern day. This of course would explain why many Jews felt a need to return to their ancient homeland.

Of course this has upset some of the modern day political activists who have a vested interest in all sorts of denials. There are those in neo-Nazi circles who still try to deny the fact the Holocaust took place and have seemingly influenced anti-Semitic elements in the world of Islamist politics.

Then there are those who claim to act on behalf of others and ignore to the point of denial the very existence of the Jewish people and their connections to their ancient homeland. One of these is the so-called Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Their latest wheeze is to complain to the BBC about the programme, particularly the final and as yet unseen final edition about the holocaust.

The PSC have written the following letter to the BBC:

Open letter to Janice Hadlow

3 September 2013

Open letter

Dear Ms Hadlow

In June, we wrote to the BBC to express our concern at the removal of the documentaryJerusalem: An Archaeological Mystery Story from the BBC Four schedule with no credible explanation.

We note that an edited version of the documentary is now due to be shown in November, with an accompanying discussion programme. The discussion programme, according to the BBC, is intended to provide balance and context to the documentary.

We also note the new BBC Two series The Story of the Jews, presented by Simon Schama. In an interview in the Radio Times (31 August-6 September), Schama describes himself as an ‘historian-Zionist’ and says he will be making ‘the moral case for Israel’ in the final episode of this five part series.

We find it alarming that the BBC is giving a platform to an openly pro-Israeli commentator to make the ‘moral case’ for Israel. Schama’s views will go unopposed, unchallenged and unanalysed. This is a far cry from the balanced and impartial broadcasting that the BBC claims to champion.

The difference in the BBC’s treatment of Jerusalem: An Archaeological Mystery Story and The Story of the Jews is a further indicator of the organisation’s lack of impartiality in its treatment of Palestinian and Israeli issues.

Why can the one documentary only be screened with an accompanying discussion programme, while the other will be broadcast with neither balance nor context?

We await your clarification on this matter.

Disgusting, censorial rubbish.

The Trade Unions Linking Israel and Palestine (TULIP) campaign responds thus:

Critics have long suspected that the London-based “Palestine Solidarity Campaign” opposes a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians and considers the very existence of the Jewish state to be illegitimate.  (Their logo is a map of an undivided Palestine.)

Union supporters of the PSC sometimes deny that, saying that the organisation does support two states, though there is little evidence of this.

This week, the PSC once again seemed to be openly challenging not this or that Israeli policy, but the actual existence of the Jewish state.

In a letter the campaigners sent to the BBC, they criticize the television station for showing a new series on the history of the Jews.  The PSC press release about this letter includes a link to an article in the Jewish Chronicle in which the series’ presenter, Simon Schama, says that the last programme in the five part series “takes the viewer up to the present day, focusing on the impact that the Holocaust has had on the modern state of Israel.”

The PSC says “Here we have the BBC giving a platform to a Zionist to make a ‘moral case for Israel’, unopposed, unchallenged and unanalysed.”

In other words, what concerns the PSC, which is supported by many of Britain’s largest trade unions, is not so much Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, but its very existence — which needs to be “opposed, challenged and analysed”, as they put it.

The time has come to challenge and fight back against these peddlers of hate. 

Trade Unions should now disaffiliate from the PSC and rethink their policies in order to fight for a real just and peaceful solution to the Israel Palestine conflict. That is a two-state solution. Israel and Palestine side by side.

Any other demand will lead to genocide.

Never Again!

Part 2 of Simon Schama's History of the Jews is on BBC 2 at 9pm on Sunday 8th September. Part one can still be accessed on line.

A date for your diary

For further information and registration: http://www.searchlightmagazine.com/events-menu/moving-forward-16-november

Act Now! Protest against detention of Canadian academics in Egypt

An Education International and LabourStart Appeal

EI is urging its member organisations to press the Egyptian authorities to immediately release two Canadian professors who have been detained without charges by the Egyptian police since 17 August.

At the request of its affiliate, the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT), EI is supporting a LabourStart petition calling for the unconditional release of Dr. Tarek Loubani and Professor John Greyson. EI’s affiliate in Egypt, ISTT, is also following the case in cooperation with EI’s regional office.

Working in collaboration

Dr. Loubani is an emergency room medical doctor at the University of Western Ontario (UWO), Canada, and one of the architects of the Canada-Gaza academic collaboration, a project that has brought doctors from the university to Gaza to train physicians.

Professor Greyson is a professor at the Department of Film at York University and an award-winning film-maker.

They were en route to the Al-Shifa hospital in the Gaza strip, where they are working on an academic and medical collaboration between the Canadian University and the main hospital in Gaza.

The Egyptian border was closed, and roadblocks prevented their passage to a hotel. They stopped at a police station to ask for assistance. They took pictures of the Yazbakiya police station which was being attacked and were arrested and thrown in prison

Islamic TV channels fined for hatemongering

Cross-post from the National Secular Society

The media regulator Ofcom has imposed fines on two Islamic satellite TV channels for hatemongering.

Noor TV, which broadcasts from Birmingham and is aimed at young Muslims, was fined £85,000 after a presenter launched a rant saying that it was every Muslim's duty to murder anyone who insults the prophet Mohammad. A large masthead on its website proclaims that it is "Spreading love, peace and harmony across the globe".

Noor TV says its mission is to "present a balanced, moderate and true face of Islam to both Muslims and non-Muslim communities across the globe".

On a programme called Message from Mustafa, the presenter Allama Muhammad Farooq Nizami was asked by a caller what punishment was due to anyone insulting Islam. Nizami replied:

"One has to choose one's own method. Our way is the peaceful way but when someone crosses the limits, faith-based emotions are instigated. The mission of our life is to protect the sanctity of our beloved Lord. May Allah accept us wherever there is a need to kill a blasphemer. We are ready, and should be ready at all times, to kill a blasphemer."

Several viewers immediately contacted Ofcom to complain, fearing that young people might be radicalised by the broadcast.

Indeed, as well as imposing a fine, Ofcom said the comments were "likely to encourage or incite the commission of crime or to lead to disorder."

It added that it was concerned that young people watching the show could become "radicalised" or take "violent and criminal action as a result of watching videos of Muslims with extreme views."

The remarks were deemed to be so inflammatory that they could have inspired a repeat of the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gough, who was killed after Islamic clerics condemned his film criticising the treatment of Muslim women.

Ofcom also ordered the TV station not to repeat the segment and to broadcast a statement of its findings. Mr Nizami has subsequently been fired by the station.

In its statement Ofcom said Al Ehya Digital – which owns the licence for Noor TV - has not yet broadcast an apology or condemnation of Nizami's remarks and appears not to have recognised the gravity of the comments.

Three years ago, Al Ehya was fined £75,000 for appealing for viewers to donate money in return for 'prayers or the receipt of a "special gift" of earth from the tomb of Prophet Mohammed.'

Meanwhile Takbeer TV – a station aimed at Sunni Muslims and also based in Birmingham – was fined £25,000 for broadcasting programmes about the minority Ahmadi Muslim community and "using words that amounted to abusive treatment of the Ahmadiyya religion and the Ahmadi community more generally."

In its report, Ofcon said:

"For example, they [the Ahmadis] were described as having "monstrous" intentions and being both "lying monsters" and worthy of elimination by Allah, "by using worms and vermin.

"One of the panellists and a caller made statements that were highly abusive to members of the Ahmadi community and their beliefs, by, for example, equating such beliefs to having "piles" and agreeing that Ahmadis require "operating on ... without ... anaesthesia"; and two callers made sustained, repeated and derogatory references to Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Qadiani, founder of the Ahmadiyya religion, stating, for example, that "the whole world knows... Mirza died in a shit cubicle."

Ofcom considered that breaches of its rules forbidding "abusive treatment of the religious views and beliefs of those belonging to a particular religion or religious denomination" were particularly serious "when the abusive treatment related to a long standing and inflammatory dispute between religious groups."

Ofcom understood this to be the case in this instance, with the Ahmadi minority being considered by some to be heretics and non-Muslim, especially in countries with Sunni majorities. Ofcom understood that there had been historical tensions between the two communities, which had in some instances resulted in acts of violence against Ahmadis.

"Under such circumstances, broadcasters must take great care when broadcasting views that may be abusive towards such a minority religion and its followers." Ofcom said. "Takbeer TV would have been reasonably expected to take such care especially given that it is aimed at members of the Sunni Muslim community in the UK and internationally."