March 2009 – Page 3

Obama: Change or cosmetics?

Obama lagde efter sin indsættelse ud med at erklære, at man ville lukke Guantánamo, og man har rullet en række specielle beføjelser, præsidenten havde tilranet sig efter 11. september, tilbage. Man har nu også erklæret, at man ikke længere vil tilbageholde “enemy combattants” på ubestemt tid.

Men hvor dybt stikker ændringerne? Ikke særligt dybt, skriver Glenn Greenwald på Salon.com:

Bush’s asserted power to detain as “enemy combatants” even those people who were detained outside of a traditional “battlefield” — rather than charge them with crimes — was one of the most controversial of the last eight years. Yet the Obama administration, when called upon to state their position, makes only the most cosmetic and inconsequential changes — designed to generate headlines misleadingly depicting a significant reversal (“Obama drops ‘enemy combatant’ label”) — while, in fact, retaining the crux of Bush’s extremist detention theory.

Or consider the new policies of transparency that Obama announced during his first week in office, ones that prompted lavish praise from most civil libertarians (including me). When it comes to a civil liberties restoration, few things are more important than drastically scaling back the Bush adminstration’s endless reliance on frivolous national-security-based “secrecy” claims as a weapon for hiding virtually everything the Government does. Excessive secrecy was the linchpin of most of the Bush abuses.

Last year, several privacy groups, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, became alarmed at what appeared to be an emerging, new Draconian international treaty governing intellectual property, the so-called Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. As Wired‘s Dave Kravets reported, the treaty as negotiated by the Bush administration — government summaries of which were leaked to and posted on Wikileaks — “would criminalize peer-to-peer file sharing, subject iPods to border searches and allow internet service providers to monitor their customers’ communications.”

Despite the fact that drafts of the treaty have been leaked; that the terms have nothing to do with national security; and that the agreement was being circulated among 27 different nations, the Bush administration — typically enough — rejected FOIA requests for documents pertaining to the treaty (.pdf) last January on multiple grounds, including “national security.” Based on Obama’s new pledges of transparency and new FOIA policies, EFF and others re-submitted the FOIA request last month. But in a March 10 letter (.pdf), they received a virtually identical response, this time from Obama’s Chief FOIA Officer in the Office of the Trade Representative …

Finally, consider Obama’s headline-generating announcement earlier this week that he would “limit” the use of presidential signing statements, one of Bush’s principal instruments for literally ignoring the law. That announcement generated much celebration among Obama supporters, such as this poetic pronouncement by a front-page writer at Daily Kos:

All hail the U.S. Constitution. It seems to be coming back to life through some vigorous resuscitation.

Yet two days later — literally — Obama signed a $410 billion spending bill and appended to it a signing statement claiming that he had the Constitutional authority to ignore several of its oversight provisions.

Meet the new guy, same as the old guy? Obama skal selvfølgelig have en chance, men specielt hemmelighedskræmmeriet omkring ACTA-traktaten (hvad er det, offentligheden ikke må få at vide, som de store lobbyister fra medicinal- og underholdningsindustrien gerne må få at vide?) og tvetydigheden omkring retten til at smide “terrormistænkte” ned i et sort hul og smide nøgleb væk er stærkt bekymrende.

Det er snart tid for Obamas berømte græsrødder at begynde at lægge pres på ham, hvis der skal til at ske noget.

Link: Obama’s “enemy combatant” policy: following a familiar pattern

Center for Positiv Integration

CEPI.dk er en ny hjemmeside og blog, der forsøger at give en anderledes stemme i integrationsdebatten.

Om sig selv skriver de:

CePI er en partiuafhængig forening, som ikke bekender sig til nogen politisk ideologi. Argumentet tager sit udgangspunkt i en betragtning, at vi alle deler et skæbnefællesskab som mennesker, uanset hvilken etnicitet eller nation vi tilhører; uanset hvilke oceaner og grænser, som skiller os.

Fra dette perspektiv kan det ikke forsvares at frasige sig en del af ansvaret for vores fælles skæbne ved at hermetisk forsegle Danmark fra omverdenen. Det kan ikke forsvares at afvise medmennesker som flygter fra sult og krig. Det kan ikke forsvares at lukke grænserne for medmennesker, som ønsker at blive forenet og leve med deres familie. Og det kan ikke forsvares at berøve udviklingslandene deres vigtigste ressource ved alene at åbne en luge i hegnet for de veluddannede.

Således gælder for CePI to centrale begreber: Rettighed og pligt. Det er et menneskes ret, at modtage hjælp, hvis det behøves. Det er et velstående samfunds pligt at møde mennesker i nød med en udstrakt hånd i stedet for at vende dem ryggen. Nogle mennesker er ramt af så stor nød og fare, at de må forlade deres hjem og familie for at opretholde deres eksistens. Disse mennesker har ofte mistet alt og er således absolut fattige.

I CePI vil vi fokusere på menneskerettigheder. Vi vil fokusere på de rettigheder, som danskere er lovsikrede og som bør være ukrænkelige for enhver. Men vi vil samtidig stille spørgsmålstegn ved den måde, hvorpå vi behandler flygtninge og indvandrere, så det dermed ikke kun drejer sig om menneskerettighed men i lige så høj grad om menneskeværdighed. Og vigtigst af alt – vi vil artikulere en modstand mod og et alternativ til den nuværende udlændingepolitik i Danmark.

Det er faktisk en usædvanligt ambitiøs og præcis formålsparagraf. Herfra skal de ønskes rigtig meget vind i sejlene.

Link: Center for Positiv Integration

Musikere: Fildeling er ikke en forbrydelse

En række kendte britiske musikere med folk som Billy Bragg, Annie Lennox og Peter Gabriel i spidsen erklærer nu, at fildeling ikke bør kriminaliseres, skriver The Independent:

Musicians including Robbie Williams, Annie Lennox, Billy Bragg, Blur’s David Rowntree and Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien said last night that the public should not be prosecuted for downloading illegal music from the internet.

Bragg told The Independent that most of the artists had voted against supporting any move towards criminally prosecuting ordinary members of the public for illegally downloaded music.

The musicians will express their views to Lord Carter, who suggested that individuals downloading music illegally should be brought to justice.

While Lennox was not able to attend the meeting, she sent a message of support, as did Peter Gabriel, while David Gray, Fran Healy from Travis, Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason and Mick Jones from The Clash turned up in support.

Bragg was speaking as a key member of the coalition, which was set up to give a collective voice to artists who want to fight for their rights in the digital world. It is pushing for a fairer deal for musicians at a time when they can use the internet to forge direct links with their fans. “What I said at the meeting was that the record industry in Britain is still going down the road of criminalising our audience for downloading illegal MP3s,” he said.

“If we follow the music industry down that road, we will be doing nothing more than being part of a protectionist effort. It’s like trying to put toothpaste back in the tube.”

Ak, en sådan indsigt er ikke på vej i Danmark, hvor IFPIs Jesper Bay støtter sig til villavejs-rapperne Jokeren og Niarn og lover at fortsætte den gamle recept, som bl.a. har budt på retssager mod skoleelever – på sin blog skriver han:

Det er ikke rimeligt at kalde Enhedslistens spidskandidat, for “kælling”. Men Niarns udmelding fortjener alligevel opmærksomhed. Ligesom Jokerens blot en uge tidligere i et interview i Jyllands-Posten (1.3.). Her tog også han i befriende utvetydige vendinger afstand fra dem blandt publikum, der henter musikken ulovligt.

Ak ja, i det store udland er de ved at se lyset, men herhjemme bakser de stadig ihærdigt med at få tandpastaen tilbage i tuben. Hvilket naturligvis er ganske omsonst. Jokeren og Niarn er tåber, hvis de ikke selv kan se det. Kopiering er billigt i den elektroniske alder, kopibeskyttelse eller DRM er kørt ud på et sidespor, og befolkningens retbevidsthed siger allerede, at hvad der er meget let, kan eller bør der ikke være noget galt i.

Hvilket alt sammen slet ikke behøver at komme kunstnerne eller musikken til skade. Musikere har brug for nye forretningsmodeller, ikke for at retsforfølge deres eget publikum.

Link: It’s not a crime to download, say musicians

Brown, Blair – for retten, medskyldige i tortur?

Ja, hvor meget skal der egentlig til, før man kan betragtes som rigtig medskyldig?

Timoty Garton Ash skriver i The Guardian, at tiden må være kommet for at give sagen om tortur af briter eller med de britiske myndigheders stiltiende accept videre til anklagemyndigheden:

You do not need to believe that he was harmless to find the treatment of Mohamed over these seven years shocking and shameful. Yes, he seems to have been just a pretty mixed-up young guy, led astray by some version of Islamism. So were the London bombers. If we are to take the high court’s judgment as our gold standard then we must also note its view that Mohamed was “a serious potential threat to the national security of the United Kingdom”. But that, in the British government’s own repeatedly stated view, does not justify torture. Centuries of common law and more recently embraced international obligations unite on this: torture is never justified. Never.

The strong impression that Britain became complicit in Mohamed’s torture derives particularly from the testimony of an MI5 officer identified only as Witness B, who interviewed Mohamed – in what Witness B surreally describes as “very cordial circumstances” – in Pakistan some five weeks after his arrest in spring 2002. The high court finds that he and others in M15, “including persons more senior to Witness B”, must have read reports (still kept secret) about the circumstances of Mohamed’s illegal detention and treatment in Pakistan. Whether or not it was Witness B who produced the truly Pinteresque threatening remark that Mohamed would need more sugar in his tea “where you’re going” (Witness B denies it), the high court finds that MI5 continued to “facilitate” interviews by and on behalf of the US, knowing full well that Mohamed was being interrogated in a third country…

Then there was the British government’s withholding of information that could have enabled Mohamed to argue in his defence, before the American military commission, that the confessions he did make were exacted under duress. The high court is eloquent on this, quoting an English common-law judgment from 1783 that “a confession forced from the mind by the flattery of hope or by the torture of fear comes in so questionable a shape when it is to be considered as the evidence of guilt, that no credit ought to be given to it; and therefore it is rejected”. As we know, the foreign secretary argued that Mohamed could not be offered the only available means to this ancient redress because it would threaten national security. Subsequently, he argued that some of this information could not be made public because the US government had said that to do so would endanger British-American intelligence sharing – that sacred heart of our alleged special relationship with Washington. Then it turned out the Foreign Office had asked the US government to say that.

Den normalt meget borgerlige og moderate Timothy Garton Ash lægger ikke fingrene imellem i sin konklusion: Hvis den britiske regering nogensinde vil gøre sig forhåbninger om at kunne tage ordet “menneskerettigheder” i sin mund igen uden at folk griner eller ryster på hovedet, er man nødt til at komme til bunds i det her – eller, som han selv udtrykker det:

“Until we have got to the bottom of this dark well, using the unrestricted searchlight of the law, any lectures the British government tries to deliver to others on respect for human rights will be dismissed as rank hypocrisy.”

Link: If Britain became complicit in torture, we must discover who is to blame

Dagens citat: Heinrich Heine

“Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen” – fra stykket Almansor fra 1821.

I konteksten handlede det om afbrænding af Koranen under den spanske inkvisition.

I 1933 havde Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) den utvivlsomme ære at være blandt dem, der gik op i røg ved nazisternes store bogafbrænding på Opernplatz i Berlin. Han havde faktisk foruroligende nok forudsagt, at noget lignende kunne blive resultatet af den farlige kombination af romantikkens mere mystiske og dunkle tankegange med den nationalisme, den også var ophav til:

„Das Christenthum – und das ist sein schönstes Verdienst – hat jene brutale germanische Kampflust einigermaßen besänftigt, konnte sie jedoch nicht zerstören, und wenn einst der zähmende Talisman, das Kreuz, zerbricht, dann rasselt wieder empor die Wildheit der alten Kämpfer, die unsinnige Berserkerwuth […] Der Gedanke geht der That voraus, wie der Blitz dem Donner. Der deutsche Donner ist freylich auch ein Deutscher und ist nicht sehr gelenkig und kommt etwas langsam herangerollt; aber kommen wird er, und wenn Ihr es einst krachen hört, wie es noch niemals in der Weltgeschichte gekracht hat, so wißt: der deutsche Donner hat endlich sein Ziel erreicht. Bey diesem Geräusche werden die Adler aus der Luft todt niederfallen, und die Löwen in der fernsten Wüste Afrikas werden die Schwänze einkneifen und sich in ihre königlichen Höhlen verkriechen. Es wird ein Stück aufgeführt werden in Deutschland, wogegen die französische Revoluzion nur wie eine harmlose Idylle erscheinen möchte.“

– fra hans bog Zur Geschichte der Religion und Philosophie in Deutschland (1835).

På engelsk Wikipedia oversættes citatet således:

“Christianity – and that is its greatest merit – has somewhat mitigated that brutal German love of war, but it could not destroy it. Should that subduing talisman, the cross, be shattered, the frenzied madness of the ancient warriors, that insane Berserk rage of which Nordic bards have spoken and sung so often, will once more burst into flame. This talisman is fragile, and the day will come when it will collapse miserably. Then the ancient stony gods will rise from the forgotten debris and rub the dust of a thousand years from their eyes, and finally Thor with his giant hammer will jump up and smash the Gothic cathedrals. (…)

Do not smile at my advice — the advice of a dreamer who warns you against Kantians, Fichteans, and philosophers of nature. Do not smile at the visionary who anticipates the same revolution in the realm of the visible as has taken place in the spiritual. Thought precedes action as lightning precedes thunder. German thunder is of true Germanic character; it is not very nimble, but rumbles along ponderously. Yet, it will come and when you hear a crashing such as never before has been heard in the world’s history, then you know that the German thunderbolt has fallen at last. At that uproar the eagles of the air will drop dead, and lions in the remotest deserts of Africa will hide in their royal dens. A play will be performed in Germany which will make the French Revolution look like an innocent idyll.”

Det er faktisk tættere på, hvad der endte med at ske, end man lige har lyst til at tænke på.

Fogh og co er skyld i den kraftigt stigende arbejdsløshed

Det er ganske vist.

»Den økonomiske nedtur i Danmark startede længe før finanskrisen, og udsigterne for dansk økonomi ser faktisk mere bekymrende ud end i mange andre lande. Oven i flere års økonomisk letsindighed og andre selskabte problemer kommer nu store problemer med konkurrenceevnen og eksporten«
(..)man har forbrudt sig mod mange grundregler for ansvarlig økonomisk politik.

»Det var ikke klogt at introducere de afdragsfrie lån på et tidspunkt, hvor boligboblen i forvejen var pustet kraftigt op. Og det var ikke klogt at føre ekspansiv finanspolitik, der kom yderligere benzin på bålet på en i forvejen overophedet økonomi«,
(..)regeringen lod boligboblen med dens enorme gældssætning puste sig op indtil den sprang.

Så når du bliver fyret, så skyld ikke skylden på den luftige “finanskrise”. For det er Fogh og Co. der lagde tørt brænde under kakkelovnene så ilden kunne eksplodere.

link til Foghs fejlslagne politik

Afviste asylsøgere vil ud af offerrollen

Interessant artikel i information om et projekt drevet af afviste asylsøgere, kunstnere og studerende, der handler om at få asylsøgerne ud af lejrenes fattigdom og isolation og ud i samfundet og verden.

Vi læser:

“Hvor mange penge bruger du på en uge?,” spørger Nabil Darwish og retter kameraet mod sine nye danske venner.

800 kr., 2.000 kr., 1.000 kr., lyder svarene.

“Hvor mange penge bruger du selv?” lyder modspørgsmålet.

“Ingen,” svarer Nabil Darwish og smiler.

Filmen om penge er projiceret op på væggen og kører i sløjfe, mens lyshårede, mørkhårede, tørklædeklædte og rastafari-flettede mennesker snor sig rundt i de små tætbefolkede lokaler. Klagende arabisk sang lyder fra scenen, og duften af specialbrygget eritreansk kaffe spreder sig fra cafeen.

Det er åbningsaften for det nye kulturcenter Trampolinhuset i centrum af København, og på alle poster arbejder asylansøgere aktivt, for Trampolinhuset er deres sted, og deres mulighed for at fortælle om sig selv og mødes med det samfund, de så gerne vil være en del af.

Midt i lokalet står Nabil Darwish og ser på sin egen film. Han er 34 år og afvist irakisk asylansøger. Han lever i Danmark på sjette år, og for at skulle fremme hans motivation for at rejse tilbage får han ikke længere penge at leve for, men til gengæld kost og logi i asylcenter Sandholm.

Darwish forklarer også, at selvom han ikke ser eller ønsker at se sig selv som offer for Danmarks fejlslagne og overdrevent stramme asylpolitik, går gode mennesker til spilde og til grunde i lejrenes isolation: “Jeg ser mange intelligente mennesker her i lejrene, som kan gøre nytte i samfundet. Men de her mennesker og deres ressourcer bliver spildt, og i stedet drukner lejrene dag for dag i sygdom, både mentalt og fysisk hos asylansøgeren, men det bliver også en sygdom i det danske samfund som helhed. De fleste i lejrene kan ikke lide det, men hvad skal de gøre? Ingen lytter til dem. Folk bliver som børn, der skal holdes i hånden hele tiden. De er nødt til at lade andre sørge for alt til dem.”

Trampolinhuset og lignende projekter er historien, ikke om denne ubehagelige situation, men om hvad de afviste asylsøgere gør for at komme ud af den og ud i samfundet.

Link: Asylansøgere træder ud af offerrollen

‘Forskningsfrihed’ på britisk

Hicham Yezza, der blev fængslet for at have downloadet et dokument fra CIAs hjemmeside til brug for en kollegas speciale, er blevet fængslet i ni måneder for sin “forbrydelse”.

Lenin’s Tomb skriver om episoden og dens baggrund:

The incident provoking this farce was the appearance of an ‘Al Qaeda’ training manual downloaded from the US government’s website on Hicham’s computer. It was in fact material for Sabir’s MA dissertation, and the only reason a fuss had been made was because some snitch, instead of asking Yezza about it, reported it to the university authorities who assumed the worst and called the cops. As neither the detention nor the raids on the pair’s homes resulted in disclosures about terrorist plots, no charge could be made and the pair were released. But having made fools of themselves, the police were not prepared to let the matter lie.

The next best step for them was to hold Yezza at Colnbrook detention centre. Police said that Yezza, as an Algerian national, had neglected to have his visa stamped since 2003, and he would have to be deported. Although Hicham was ready to fight the matter in court, the police and government sought to fast-track the deportation in this case. They failed, largely due to protests and legal challenge, and instead decided to charge him under the Immigration Act. The court found him guilty earlier this month of “securing avoidance of enforcement action by deceptive means”. In mitigation, his lawyer pointed out that he would undoubtedly have had his stay prolonged had he applied. The judge gave him nine months in jail anyway.

Hvis han alligevel ikke var terrorist, skal vi nok få den “fikset” alligevel. Farvel, frihed. It is hardly unlike the police to try and dig dirt on an innocent man whom they have unfairly harrassed (or shot to death), som Lenin skriver. Hvad terrorlovene end skulle bruges til, er det åbenbart ikke nogen god idé at komme på tværs af dem – heller ikke, selv om man er uskyldig.

It is hardly unlike the police to try and dig dirt on an innocent man whom they have unfairly harrassed (or shot to death), som Lenin skriver.

The Guardian havde også et stykke om sagen for nogle uger siden: Abusing Anti-terror laws.

Link: Hicham Yezza sent down for nine months

Terroristen Lars Løkke Rasmussen

Forestil jer at der kom en flygtning til Danmark og søgte om asyl. I de indledende undersøgelser kommer det PET for øre at flygtningen har været arresteret og mistænkt for mord i Pakistan. I denne forbindelse var han desuden i selskab med broderen til en kendt imam som den danske regering definerer som ‘islamist’. Man finder desuden et billede på nettet af flytningen i selskab med terrorister og bevæbnet til tænderne.

Mon flygtningen ville få tildelt asyl? Eller ville han blive ført bort midt om natten af PET og afhørt? Og ville hans historie om at det var en skolerejse blive anerkendt? Eller ville han uden retsag blive smidt ud af landet til en ukendt skæbne? Eller måske udsat for “tålt ophold” – et skridt under de jødelejre tyskerne oprettede i 1930erne – jøderne fik for det meste lov til at være sammen med deres familie?

Det er heldigt at Lars Løkke Rasmussen ikke skal underlægges de terrorlove han selv har stemt for.

link til terror-løkke

‘Kids for cash’

Dette er et af de mest absurde eksempler på konsekvenserne af den omsiggribende fængselskultur i uSA, det land i verden, som indespærrer den største procentdel af sin befolkning:

Ejeren af et ungdomsfængsel i Pennsylvania har i årevis bestukket dommere til at idømme flere og længere fængselsstraffe i sager mod børn og unge, end de ellers ville have gjort – den ene af dommerne har nu tilstået at have modtaget 2,6 millioner dollars over de sidste mange år.

The Guardian skriver:

Hillary Transue was 14 when she carried out her prank. She built a hoax MySpace page in which she posed as the vice-principal of her school, poking fun at her strictness. At the bottom of the page she added a disclaimer just to make sure everyone knew it was a joke. “When you find this I hope you have a sense of humour,” she wrote.

Humour is not in abundance, it seems, in Luzerne County, northern Pennsylvania. In January 2007 Transue was charged with harassment. She was called before the juvenile court in Wilkes-Barre, an old coal town about 20 miles from her home.

Less than a minute into the hearing the gavel came down. “Adjudicated delinquent!” the judge proclaimed, and sentenced her to three months in a juvenile detention centre. Hillary, who hadn’t even presented her side of the story, was handcuffed and led away. But her mother, Laurene, protested to the local law centre, setting in train a process that would uncover one of the most egregious violations of children’s rights in US legal history.

Last month the judge involved, Mark Ciavarella, and the presiding judge of the juvenile court, Michael Conahan, pleaded guilty to having accepted $2.6m (£1.8m) from the co-owner and builder of a private detention centre where children aged from 10 to 17 were locked up.

Skandalen kaldes “kids for cash” og har betydet, at man nu genoptager sagerne mod mere end 2000 børn og unge, som Ciavarella har sendt i fængsel.

Et usædvanligt giftigt eksempel på, hvad der sker, når man blander private økonomiske interesser ind i retshåndhævelsen – og på, hvad der sker, når man insisterer på, at “stramninger” og indespærring er løsningen på alle vore kriminalitetsproblemer.

Link: Juvenille court judges accepted $2.6m for sending children to detention centre