The Road To U.K.'s Hell Is Paved With The Best Of Intentions

The EU Convention on Human Rights was promulgated in post-WWII Europe in response to the horrors of Nazi Germany. Not only did the ECHR spell out the rights of individual citizens - it also established a supra-national body to have the final say over those rights. For a long time now, the decision to adopt and join the ECHR has haunted the Brits, and I have blogged frequently here on the insanity of Britain being unable to deport some of the most vile and dangerous of radical Islamists because of the ECHR. That said, a recent series of outlandish decisions from the European Court of Human Rights is finally starting to choke the Brits. This from the Daily Mail:

For the third time in a week, Strasbourg’s unelected European Court of Human Rights is under the spotlight.

First, Tory MPs made it clear they have no intention of bowing to the court’s demand to grant the vote to tens of thousands of prisoners.

Next Lord Carlile, the Government’s reviewer of anti-terror laws, said its rulings against deportation had turned Britain into a ‘safe haven’ for those who wish the country harm.

Now Damian Green, the immigration minister, has said its rulings have turned human rights into a ‘boo phrase’.

He said the court’s judgments – and our own judiciary’s liberal interpretation of them – meant the public immediately expected bad news when the phrase ‘human rights’ was uttered. ‘Clearly, something is wrong if you get to that stage’, Mr Green said.

His remarks will fuel the anger of MPs towards the European court.
In 2005, 17 judges ruled in favour of John Hirst, who argued prisoners should be able to vote. He had been in jail for killing his 69-year-old landlady with an axe, after which he calmly made a cup of coffee. Under pressure from the court, the British government announced last year that it would comply with the ruling. Hirst celebrated by drinking champagne and smoking cannabis – and put a video of it all on YouTube.

The court believes it can overrule the UK Parliament and Supreme Court.

But the astonishing truth is that its 47 ‘representatives’ need never even have served as judges in their homeland. . . .

The judges – one for every nation in the Council of Europe – have blocked the deportation from Britain of countless foreign criminals and awarded thousands in compensation to alleged Islamic terrorists.

The court gave £4,700 to Soviet spy George Blake for ‘distress and frustration’ after the Government banned him from publishing a book about how he betrayed Britain.

And £7,000 was handed to Stuart Blackstock, who shot PC Philip Olds in the 1980s, after his release from jail was delayed. . . .

The British judiciary is in no doubt that the European court is seeking to impose a federal law upon the UK.

Ex-Law Lord Hoffmann said: ‘The Strasbourg court has been unable to resist the temptation to aggrandise its jurisdiction and to impose uniform rules on member states.

‘It considers itself the equivalent of the Supreme Court of the United States.’ . . .

Britain has the Magna Carta and the 1649 English Bill of Rights, among other sundry compacts with the Crown that, in toto, establish an English Constitution. Indeed, these same compact largely inform the U.S. Bill of Rights. So why would Britain possibly need to adopt the ECHR and submit their nation to the whims of a supra-national body?

They did so because the British system is dysfunctional, to put it kindly. None of the ancient compacts with the Crown are binding in Britain today, except as subject to the whim of Parliament. At least a century ago, the British Parliament unilaterally claimed complete sovereignty - i.e., that they have the final say not subject to review - and that the ancient compacts were binding only on the monarchy, not the Parliament.

What that means is that whatever Parliament passes, whether it be restrictions on speech or the ownership of guns, for but two examples, it is not subject to any check and balance. It is a tyranny of the majority. And that is why former PM Brown was able to sign away Britain's sovereignty to the EU - thus presenting a complete break with the ancient compacts - without a referendum of the people of Britain. It is a tragedy that will not end until the people of Britain rise up against the Parliament the way they rose up against the Crown in 1642. The fact that they are just now getting rightfully upset with the ECHR suggests that may be long in coming.

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Obama Speaks On Iran: Pro Forma Or Pro Protesters?

Obama finally broke his grotesquely wrong-headed silence on Iran during his speech today:



Here is the text of his speech:

Before I leave, let me also briefly address the events that have taken place over the last few days in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The United States joins with the international community in strongly condemning the violent and unjust suppression of innocent Iranian citizens, which has apparently resulted in detentions, injuries, and even death.

For months, the Iranian people have sought nothing more than to exercise their universal rights. Each time they have done so, they have been met with the iron fist of brutality, even on solemn occasions and holy days. And each time that has happened, the world has watched with deep admiration for the courage and the conviction of the Iranian people who are part of Iran's great and enduring civilization.
What's taking place within Iran is not about the United States or any other country. It's about the Iranian people and their aspirations for justice and a better life for themselves. And the decision of Iran's leaders to govern through fear and tyranny will not succeed in making those aspirations go away.

As I said in Oslo, it's telling when governments fear the aspirations of their own people more than the power of any other nation.

Along with all free nations, the United States stands with those who seek their universal rights. We call upon the Iranian government to abide by the international obligations that it has to respect the rights of its own people.

We call for the immediate release of all who have been unjustly detained within Iran. We will continue to bear witness to the extraordinary events that are taking place there. And I'm confident that history will be on the side of those who seek justice.

The President's speech comes six months after protests began in Iran, five months after the government began systematically arresting, torturing, raping and murdering protesters, a week after massive protests began during the burial of Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, and a day after the most violent protests to date that occurred on the Shia holy day of Ashura. The week of protests leading up to Ashura and the protests on Ashura yesterday took place throughout Iran, involved many different classes of Iranian society, and were far more militant than prior demonstrations. For all the reasons set forth in the post here, it seems clear that Iran's revolution has reached a new phase.

I applaud the President's speech. He has finally come out with a statement that, for all its faults and its lateness, will be interpreted as a relatively strong, if brief statement, in support of the protesters. That said, this one minute vignette comes months late, it understates what is happening in Iran, it misstates the goals of the protesters, and in it, Obama cannot bring himself to call the Iranian regime illegitimate. What is happening in Iran is not a protest for "social justice," it is a fight to the death for freedom. What the government is doing to these protesters is not mere "detentions, injuries, and even death." It is wholesale brutality, rape, torture, and murder. It is a human rights violations on steroids. It is the attempt of the theocracy to terrorize the Iranian citizenry.

Charles Krauthammer addressed the President's speech on Fox News tonight. While I am not as vociferous as Krauthammer in my critique at this point, I think the tenor of Krauthammer's criticism is valid.



Whether Krauthammer's criticisms are truly warranted will be answered in the coming days, as we learn whether Obama's speech was merely pro forma or whether it marks an actual intent to decisively support the revolution in Iran. Will Obama refund all of those programs designed to support democracy in Iran? Will he begin to use the bully pulpit to mark the Iranian regime as illegitimate? Will Obama call attention to individual cases of human rights abuses? Will Obama tell the story of Neda Soltan and how the government has threatened and supressed her family in the aftermath of her murder? Obama can make a difference in whether this revolution, no longer nascent, succeeds or fails. What will he do?

Time is running out on our options for dealing with the mad mullahs. Even laying aside the moral imperative of supporting people fighting and dying for freedom from the yoke of tyranny, the reality is that that same tyrannical government will soon attain a nuclear arsenal and threaten the world with the same terror now being waged against its citizenry. The single best thing Obama can do for Iran, America and the world is to throw his full support to the protesters in Iran. Let us hope his speech this day was not merely pro forma.

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Ringside Seat To A Revolution [Updated]

Amateur video posted to the Internet showed thousands of anti-government students chanting slogans and gathering on various campuses. Credible reports of protests emerged from campuses in the central Iranian cities of Esfahan, Shiraz and Kerman, in the eastern city of Mashhad and in the western cities of Tabriz, Kermanshah, Hamedan and Ilam as well as in Rasht and Gilan along the Caspian Sea

- Report of 7 Dec. National Student's Day Demonstratons, San Francisco Chronicle

The army is a haven for the nation and will never want to suppress the people at the request of politicians. We shall remain true to our promise not to intervene in politics. But we cannot remain silent when our fellow citizens are oppressed by tyranny.

. . . Therefore, we warn the Guards who have betrayed the martyrs (from the war between Iran and Iraq) and who decided to attack the lives, the property and the honor of the citizens. We seriously warn them that if they do not leave their chosen path, they will be confronted with our tough response. The military is a haven for the nation. And we will defend the peace-loving Iranian nation against any aggression.”

Signatories:

•Pilots and personnel of the aviation division of the regular army (Havanirooz)
•Commanders and personnel of the 31th artillery division of Isfahan of the regular army
•Pilots and airmen of the regular army
•Teachers of the Shaid Satari University of the regular air force
•Officers and staff of the logistics training unit the regular army
•Professors and lecturers of the Imam Ali University for officers of the regular army
•Officers, staff, and commanders of the chief of staff of the regular army

- Statement Released To Iranian News Outlets, 10 Dec. 2009

. . . for all the cruelty and hardship of our world, we are not mere prisoners of fate. Our actions matter, and can bend history in the direction of justice.

- President Obama, Speech To The Nobel Committee, 2009

____________________________________________________________

The fuse for a revolution in Iran was lit in June, when the final trappings of democracy in Iran were torn asunder. The latest major events were protests on 7 Dec., Iran's National Student's Day, and a statement released shortly thereafter by members of Iran's military.

The statement from Iran's military is a major event, but by no means surprising. From day one of this nascent revolution, the single most important question has been what will the military do? When I say military, I am not referring to the mad mullah's 100.000 plus praetorian guard, the IRGC, but rather to the regular military which forms the bulk of Iran's forces.

The regime has for years known that they could not count on regular military units to crush internal dissent. Likewise they are keenly aware that it was when the military came out in support of Khomeini in 1979 that the revolution entered its final phase. The Shah's regime fell three weeks afterwards. The letter above does not confirm that Iran's revolution is anywhere near its final phase - particularly given that, unlike 1979, there is also a heavily armed IRGC which, although small in comparison to Iran's regular military, is very potent. The IRGC is so deeply insinuated in the graft and corruption of Iran that the fall of the regime would mean the fall of many of the IRGC heads - literally. Thus the IRGC will fight to the death to keep the mad mullahs in power. That said, the letter does mean that the ever rising brutality of the regime is bringing things to the tipping point. The mad mullahs are stuck now in the vortex between not being able to go too far for fear of bringing out the military against the regime, yet having no other recourse but brute force to keep the regime afloat. In the words of Yeats, "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold . . ."

Well, perhaps there is one trick the regime has up their sleeve. During the Dec. 7 protests in Iran, several individuals, perhaps protesters, perhaps IRGC/basij plants, were filmed desecrating a picture of the revolution's father, the late Ayatollah Khomeini. Their faces were never clearly shown. The tape was broadcast repeatedly on state run television in an effort to raise a public backlash against the protesters. It immediately drew denials from the Green movement's leader, Mousavi, and a rebuke to the government issued by Khomeini's grandson who indicated that he thought it quite possible that this was deliberately done by the regime and blamed on protesters.

What started as a simple protest over a stolen election in June has grown to threaten the entire mullah led political system. Protests are occurring with regularity throughout Iran, but their nature has changed. As Amir Taheri noted in the WSJ:

The crowds' initial slogan was "Where Is My Vote?" and the movement's accidental leaders, including former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, tried hard to keep the protest confined to demands such as a recount of the votes and, ultimately, a runoff in accordance with the law.

The slogans of the protestors are no longer about election fraud. Today they include "Death to the Dictator," "Freedom Now," and "Iranian Republic, Not Islamic Republic!" One slogan is a direct message to President Barack Obama: "Obama, Are You With Us or With Them?"

This "radicalization" of the protesters in response to the brutal attempts at crackdown is also noted by the NYT.

Further, according to Taheri, the protesters are "deepening and growing" their movement, reaching out to other elements, such as trade unions, that have their own deep animus towards the regime. Meanwhile, clerics in Qom are fuming at the acts of Khameini and the ever-growing bellicosity and wild claims of Ahmedinejad. He has recently claimed that the return of the Hidden Imam is near, that he is a tool of the Imam, and that only the U.S. is standing in the way of his return. As one mid-level cleric in Qom told Taheri, "by backing such a man, Khamenei has doomed the regime."

Michael Ledeen for his part, covers the same topics in his latest post at PJM, adding that the Iranian economy is in serious disarray, with manufacturing running at 40% of capacity. As he calls it, this is "Code Red" for Iran.

I am convinced that the Iranian regime is, while not the font of all evil, not that far removed from it. I have detailed why many times. As Robert Gates so famously said two years ago, "[e]verywhere you turn, it is the policy of Iran to foment instability and chaos, no matter the strategic value or cost in the blood of innocents - Christians, Jews and Muslims alike." They are the primary source of funds, arms and training for Hamas and Hezbollah and they are the single greatest impediment to peace between Israel and the Palestinians. They have supported coups in Bahrain and Azerbaijan. They are currently supporting a rebellion in Yemen and threatening to destabilize Saudi Arabia. They are occupying land that belongs to the UAE and land that belongs to Iraq. As the U.S. moves out of Iraq, the mad mullahs are once again extending their deadly talons inside that country. They have been responsible for terrorist attacks world wide and are the world's "central banker of terrorism." They near daily threaten to destroy Israel. Their push towards a nuclear arsenal is causing nuclear proliferation throughout the Middle East - the penultimate nightmare scenario. Destroying the regime of the mad mullahs and seeing to the establishment of a secular democracy would, one, remove from the world a threat every bit as great as Nazi Germany was circa 1938, and two, would go a long way to stabilizing the Middle East.

What is President Obama doing to promote such a turn of events? The short answer appears to be nothing, covertly or publicly. This makes an utter mockery of Obama's West Point speech, wherein he said "we must make it clear to every man, woman and child around the world who lives under the dark cloud of tyranny that America will speak out on behalf of their human rights . . ." With the bully pulpit, Obama could be drawing attention to the horrible human rights abuses of the illegitimate government of the mullahs. Yet all we hear is deafening silence.

It seems reasonably certain that Obama thinks that if he speaks with honesty, then the mad mullahs will not cooperate with his attempts to negotiate a resolution to Iran's nuclear program. The reality is that, as the history of Iran since 1979 teaches, the regime is not going to cooperate absent a credible threat of force. Without that, Obama could kiss Khameini's bared rump 100 times on Iranian national television or he could do the morally correct thing and bring pressure upon the regime, showing support for the human rights of the Iranian rank and file. Neither standing alone will change the regime's nuclear trajectory. At least doing the latter would give moral support to the protestors and further the cause of those who are fighting and dying for freedom.

Lastly, as to a credible threat of force, Obama, who spoke so eloquently of the Just War theory in Olso, should understand that, under that theory, not only would force against the mad mullahs be moral, the theory places him under an affirmative moral duty to act against the regime to protect America. But under the current circumstance, that creates a conundrum.

Making a credible threat of force against the mad mullahs - one that could stop their nuclear trajectory in its tracks - could ignite nationalism in an Iranian populace on the brink of revolution. Under these circumstances, it is the duty of Obama to use the bully pulpit - and covert action - to assist and fan the flames of revolution until they succeed. There are a host of things that Obama could be doing in this regard. He could publicly excoriate the Iranian regime for their human rights abuses and the stolen election. He could restore funding to Radio Iran. He could "remove his opposition to various bills in Congress, sponsored by Independent Democrat Joe Lieberman and others, that sanction companies that sell gasoline to Iran." He could direct our covert operaters to counter the regime's attempts to shut down communications throughout Iran before and during demonstrations. He has, in short, a range of options to bring pressure on the regime and to support the nascent revolution. As Obama said in his acceptance speech to the Nobel Committee, "our actions matter and can bend history . . ." If those are not mere pretty words, then why is Obama sitting in a ringside seat to the revolution rather than entering the ring? Indeed, to do so would seem a moral obligation for our most moralistic of Presidents.

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Should The Right To Keep & Bear Arms Be An International Human Right

Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any colour or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.

Sir George Tucker, Blackstone’s Commentaries, 1803

One can hardly argue with the centuries old observation of Sir George Tucker set down in the first American edition of Blackstone's Commentaries on the law. An unarmed populace is subject to brutality and repression from a tyrannical government. The picture of an unarmed youth shot by basij in Iran speaks a thousand words on the topic.

Iran required gun owners to register their weapons in the late 1970's and then banned gun ownership, as opposition to the Shah coallesced. Iran's theocracy has kept that ban in place. As we watch the people in Iran, disarmed, fall to the predations of armed thugs and riot police of the theocracy, I wonder if we should not be arguing that the right to keep and bear arms should pursued as an international human right.

It is the most repressive regimes that seek to ban private ownership of weapons - and the UN. This from Janet Ellen Levy writing in the American Thinker two years ago:

In the international arena, the United Nations is at the forefront of a global movement to limit worldwide gun production and eliminate private firearms ownership. Total disarmament of civilian populations is the U.N. goal. For the past five years, the United Nations has convened an annual, international gun control summit to discuss strategies to forestall the "proliferation of small arms and light weapons." Participating countries have included Iran, China, Algeria, Nigeria and Bangladesh, among others, as well as anti-firearms, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) which have pressured governments worldwide to eliminate civilian gun ownership.

The images of today from Iran should hammer home why the more repressive the government, the more the push on their part to disarm their populace. And it should equally hammer home the stark need for people to have an absolute right to own weapons. As James Madison famously said "People should not be afraid of their government. Government should be afraid of their people." It seems to me that "human rights" begins and ends with that observation.

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Legal Happenings - The OLC Attorneys, Looking For A New SCT Activist, & Outsourcing Criminalization Of Policy Differences

Lot's of things are happening in the legal realm. Judge Jay Bybee, author of the OLC memo on the legality of waterboarding, speaks out. Activist Supreme Court Justice Souter announces his retirement while Obama again shows his radical agenda in discussing a replacement. Lastly, and perhaps most ominously, the Obama regime is cooperating with the radical left in Europe who wish to start criminal trials using "universal jurisdiction" of their laws.

I.

Judge Bybee, now of the 9th Circuit Court, signed the memo in 2002 that found waterboarding legal. I have yet to see an argument by an opponent of waterboarding that addresses the legal interpretation of Bybee. The bomb throwers on the left say waterboarding is illegal torture based on their own bald assertions. Thus, it was nice to see Judge Bybee go public on the subject of his prior legal analysis. This from the Washington Post:

Bybee defended his conclusions. "The central question for lawyers was a narrow one; locate, under the statutory definition, the thin line between harsh treatment of a high-ranking Al Qaeda terrorist that is not torture and harsh treatment that is. I believed at the time, and continue to believe today, that the conclusions were legally correct."

"The legal question was and is difficult," he said. "And the stakes for the country were significant no matter what our opinion. In that context, we gave our best, honest advice, based on our good-faith analysis of the law."

For an analysis that I did of the memos, see here.


II.

Supreme Court Justice Souter has announced his retirement from the Court. Though nominated to the Court by Bush I, Souter morphed once on the bench to become a hard core activist. Obama's nomination of an attorney with similar legal views will not tip the balance of the Court. None the less, what is noteworthy is Obama's explicit call for an activist judge who puts outcomes over legal interpretations. That most decidedly is not the job of a judge. This from Obama, quoted in RCP:

. . . the process of selecting someone to replace Justice Souter is among my most serious responsibilities as President. So I will seek somebody with a sharp and independent mind and a record of excellence and integrity. I will seek someone who understands that justice isn't about some abstract legal theory or footnote in a case book. It is also about how our laws affect the daily realities of people's lives -- whether they can make a living and care for their families; whether they feel safe in their homes and welcome in their own nation.

I view that quality of empathy, of understanding and identifying with people's hopes and struggles as an essential ingredient for arriving as just decisions and outcomes. I will seek somebody who is dedicated to the rule of law, who honors our constitutional traditions, who respects the integrity of the judicial process and the appropriate limits of the judicial role. I will seek somebody who shares my respect for constitutional values on which this nation was founded, and who brings a thoughtful understanding of how to apply them in our time.

I won't speculate on who Obama might nominate under these criteria at this point. Regardless, if you understand the implications of judicial activism and the danger it poses to our nation, then Obama's words ought to take your breath away. For a review of those implications, please see the post The Supreme Court: Orginialism, Activism & America's Future.


III.

The Euro left and our own far left share many things in common, including a desire to destroy Bush and all that Bush and company stand for. Under this rubric, one of Spain's criminal courts, exercising "universal jurisdiction" to try war crimes and international human rights violations, has opened a criminal investigation into the alleged mistreatment of terrorist detainees by the U.S. Fair enough. The single appropriate response to this from our government should be to translate F*** Off into Espanol. Instead, amazingly, Obama's government has decided to cooperate with their criminal process. Big Lizards discusses this and the horrendous implications:

At the end of an AP story . . . I stumbled across this arresting exchange:

In speaking to reporters Wednesday, [Attorney General Eric] Holder also said it is possible the United States could cooperate with a foreign court's investigation of Bush administration officials.

Holder spoke before the announcement that a Spanish magistrate had opened an investigation of Bush officials on harsh interrogation methods. Holder didn't rule out cooperating in such a probe.

"Obviously, we would look at any request that would come from a court in any country and see how and whether we should comply with it," Holder said. [Any country? Any country at all can open a "probe" of American officials, and Holder will seriously consider cooperating with it?]

"This is an administration that is determined to conduct itself by the rule of law and to the extent that we receive lawful requests from an appropriately created court, we would obviously respond to it," he said.

. . . The juxtaposition of Holder's offer of "cooperation" (complicity) and the hoped-for acceptance of Gitmo detainees strongly suggests that a grand bargain may be in the works: European countries may accept releasees in exchange for American recognition of the "universal jurisdiction" of individual courts of "human rights."

Does our looming cooperation imply that we might even look favorably upon a demand that we arrest and extradite named defendants to stand in the dock of such courts? Perhaps suspecting that he had given a bit too obvious a "tell," Holder seemed to retreat slightly (but only slightly):

Pressed on whether that meant the United States would cooperate with a foreign court prosecuting Bush administration officials, Holder said he was talking about evidentiary requests and would review any such request to see if the U.S. would comply.

But this is manifestly absurd: If the Attorney General of the United States once accepts the absurdity that a Spanish court and Spanish judge, Baltasar Garzón, sitting in Spain and operating under Spanish law, actually have jurisdiction over American officials making official policy decisions inside the United States about how American military and intelligence agents can interrogate detainees at an American Marine Corps base inside Cuba... then how can Holder later limit such jurisdiction to "evidentiary requests?"

If Garzón has legal authority to demand we hand over evidence, he also has legal authority to demand we hand over "war criminals," from American military personnel, to John Yoo, to Jay Bybee, to William Haynes, to Douglas Feith, to Alberto Gonzales, to Richard Myers, to Dick Cheney -- even to former President George W. Bush himself.

Do read this entire, and most troubling, post.

The implications of this are almost too horific to contemplate. If we recognize and cooperate with such investigations, implicitly or explicitly honoring their jurisdiction, then we in essence hand a veto over our foreign - and perhaps even domestic policy - to the Euro left. This is every bit as outrageous, if not more so, than Obama's decision to criminalize policy differences by initiating a criminal investigation into the torture memos. It may be a way of outsourcing the criminalization of policy differences.

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Lesbians, Lesbos and Human Rights

The Isle of Lesbos. Its very name conjures up images of the lovely female descendents of the isle's most famous daughter, the poet Sappho, walking about under a Mediterranean sky in sparse cotton dress and, in the cool evening breezes, making love to their female paramours. At least that’s the way I always imagined it. I am sure the reality is a bit less ideal.

Sappho is known to history as the world’s first famous lesbian. Sappho’s prose, discussing her passion and desires for the fairer sex, is a treasure of history. So famous was she that the very name for women who desire sex with other women derives its name from Sappho’s abode, the isle of Lesbos. But today, in an insane act of political correctness, a case has been brought by a resident of the isle charging a Greek organization who use the term lesbian to refer to gay women as being guilty of a human rights violation.

___________________________________________________________

Art: The Women of Amphissa, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, 1887

This from the BBC:

Campaigners on the Greek island of Lesbos are to go to court in an attempt to stop a gay rights organization from using the term "lesbian".

The islanders say that if they are successful they may then start to fight the word lesbian internationally.

The issue boils down to who has the right to call themselves Lesbians.

Is it gay women, or the 100,000 people living on Greece's third biggest island - plus another 250,000 expatriates who originate from Lesbos?

The man spearheading the case, publisher Dimitris Lambrou, claims that international dominance of the word in its sexual context violates the human rights of the islanders, and disgraces them around the world.

He says it causes daily problems to the social life of Lesbos's inhabitants.

In court papers, the plaintiffs allege that the Greek government is so embarrassed by the term Lesbian that it has been forced to rename the island after its capital, Mytilini.

An early court date has now been set for judges to decide whether to grant an injunction against the Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece and to order it to change its name.

A spokeswoman for the group has described the case as a groundless violation of freedom of expression, and has pledged to fight it. . . .

Read the entire article. This is a bit of insanity, really. The fact that Lesbos is so famous for being the home to Sappho ought to be an incredible draw to the gay and bisexual crowd. I don’t see why the islanders don't mine the economic potential by making the island a second home for the wealthy among them – sort of the feminine version of the Castro section.

And here is a bit of Sappho’s poetry from the poem, Please:

Come back to me, Gongyla, here tonight,
You, my rose, with your Lydian lyre.
There hovers forever around you delight:
A beauty desired.

Even your garment plunders my eyes.
I am enchanted: I who once
Complained to the Cyprus-born goddess,
Whom I now beseech

Never to let this lose me grace
But rather bring you back to me:
Amongst all mortal women the one
I most wish to see.

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Woman's Rights Activist Jailed in Iran

Womens rights activist Jelveh Javaheri was arrested Sunday in Tehran. Ms. Javaheri is a sociology student and has long been active in women rights’ groups, including the ongoing One Million Signature Campaign, a campaign for women's rights whose website (translated to English) is here.

Ms. Javaheri was charged with inciting of public opinion, propaganda against the state, and publication of false information, through reporting of false news on the site of the One Million Signatures Campaign, Change for Equality. You can find a sample of Ms. Javaheri's work here. Jelveh Javaheri has since been transferred to Evin Prison’s Public Ward 3.

Jelveh Javaheri was one of 33 women arrested on March 4, 2007, during a peaceful protest outside the Revolutionary Courts objecting to pressures placed on women’s rights activists and the trial of 5 colleagues. Ms. Javaheri is due in court on the 18th of December in relation to her arrest in March.

Maryam Hosseinkhah another member of the One Million Signatures Campaign was imprisoned 13 days ago on similar charges and is currently being held in Evin Prison.

Read the article.

(Hattip: Emperical What You See Is What You Get)

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The Travesty Continues In Saudi Arabia

This is an update to the case of the young Saudi woman brutally gang-raped who was originally sentenced to 90 lashes by the Saudi Courts but who, on appeal, was sentenced to 200 lashes and six months imprisonment. The Saudi Court also removed her attorney from the case and has begun proceedings to suspend his license.

The woman was originally sentenced to 90 lashes for being outside of her house in the company of a man to whom she was not related. Under Sharia law, that situation creates an irrebuttable presumption that the woman is a prostitute or, if married, has committed adultery. Her attackers were given light sentences of just a few years. On appeal of her punishment and the light punishments given to her attackers, the Court changed her sentence to 200 lashes and six months imprisonment. The Court drastically increased her sentence because of their anger with the international attention her attorney had initiated by publicizing the utter barbarity of sentencing a victim of gang rape to 60 lashes.

Fox News is reporting that the Saudi Justice Ministry has refused to reconsider the sentence and is now contending that the young woman has affirmatively "confessed to cheating on her husband." That marks a major change to the narrative. According to the woman and her attorney, the then recently married woman:

. . . met a high school friend in his car to retrieve a picture of herself from him. While in a car with him, two men got into the vehicle and drove them to a secluded area where others waited, and then she and her companion were both raped.

But the Justice Ministry’s account now being given for the first time and for international consumption, disagrees in all particulars. According to the Justice Ministry,

[the woman planned] to meet her lover for tryst in his car "in a dark place where they stayed for a while. Then they where spotted by the other defendants as the woman was in an indecent condition as she had tossed away her clothes, then the assault occurred on her and the man.

Moreover, the Ministry now claims that the woman and her husband are "convinced on the verdict and agreed to it." Somehow I suspect we will never be hearing the woman's "confession" nor her "agreement" to this sentence from her lips. Regardless, . . .

[t]he Saudi justice minister expressed his regret about the media reports over the role of the women in this case which put out false information and wrongly defend her.

And we are not going to be getting any independant verification of that. Read the story here. The one thing Salafi and Wahhabi Islamists hate above all other is to have a bright light shown on their religion and their actions taken in accordance therewith. It's not in just this incredibly heavy handed and brutal case. Rather, it is a reoccurring theme that you can see repeated all the way up to the UN. The Justice Ministry’s attempt to whitewash this case and deflect attention with highly dubious assertions would be laughable were it not so incredibly barbaric.

If you would like to let the Saudi Arabia and their related organizations in America know what you think of this verdict, you can e-mail the Saudi embassy at info@saudiembassy.net. And you can send an e-mail to CAIR asking them their position on this given that they claim to be the primary Islamic human rights organization in America. They can be reached by contact form here.

Update: CNN's article on this is the most complete I have seen. Find it here.

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Interesting News From Around the Web

Cheat Seeking Missles is posting that the court case filed in France against former Sec. of Defense Don Rumsfeld, brought by the French-based International Federation of Human Rights Leagues (FIDH) and the U.S. Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), has been dismissed by the Paris prosecutor’s office on the grounds of official immunity. The suit claimed that Rumsfeld had authorized interrogation techniques that amounted to torture.

Interestingly, the FIDH that brought suit against Rumsfeld has received a significant portion of its funding from that grand experiment in socialism, the EU. The EU regularly uses NGO’s to further their own far left social agenda. The EU have also funded, among countless others, the American Bar Association to campaign against the death penalty in America.

This is just another instance that shows that the EU and a vocal portion of Europe living in their own “irrational” world, as discussed in this piece from The Van Der Galiën Gazette. Actually, I wonder how much of that irrationality flows down to the “street” now days as opposed to the chattering classes. Everything that I read in UK suggests that there is a growing disconnect between the governed and the governing class who own the media and are making skillful use of it not so much as to stifle free speech as to drown it.

Big Lizards has an exceptional post on the Second Amendment issues and how it will impact in the political realm. It’s a very thoughtful post, though I do not share his confidence that the Court will find an individual right to bear arms. My concern is that there are too many activist judges on the Court. It was only two years ago that the activist wing of the Court rewrote the 5th Amendment in Kelo to enhance the power of government. If they can do that, they can certainly find some penumbra somewhere that will allow them to find that the Second Amendment only creates a collective right that can be wholly regulated by the states.

The Glittering Eye considers it a sure sign of the coming apocalypse that he finds himself in complete agreement with Maureen Dowd on Hillary Clinton. The Eye and Ms. Dowd both think Hillary's experience qualifies her to be President about as much as I think Obama’s foreign affairs experience qualifies him for the job. Scott Ott has documented that President Bush, in fact, has the correct slant on Hillary’s qualifications to be the Democratic nominee for President.

The Education Wonks suspects that the Bohemian San Fran’s leftist political leaders – they can be found permanently perched high atop the moral highground – might be secretly motivated by nihilism and a desire to exert ever more restrictive control over the city’s inhabitants. That might be a little bit of stating the obvious, though I am not complaining. When it comes to our neo-liberal, post modernist left, the obvious bears repeating, often and loudly.

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More Gang Rape Fallout In The Medieval Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Saudi lawyer Abdul-Rahman al-Lahem, now faces suspension of his license to practice law for his efforts to defend the Saudi gang rape victim now sentenced to a judicial flogging of 200 lashes and 6 months imprisonment. You can read her story here.

Saudi Arabia’s official legal code is Sharia law based on the extremist Wahhabi interpretation of the Koran. Most laws followed by the court are unwritten and invoke extreme punishments for an incredible range of offenses, from possible execution for witchcraft and sorcery to judicial flogging for any female caught outside of her home in the company of a man who is not a close relative. That was the original basis for ordering 60 lashes of the victim of the gang rape. And the Saudi judicial system has numerous other nuances of note, such as the fact that courts only credit the testimony of women as half that of a man. (That certainly solves the problem of determining veracity in “he said – she said” scenarios.)

Al-Lahem is apparently a brave lawyer who has defended numerous cases challenging the medieval orthodoxy of Saudi Arabia and its legal system. He has challenged this orthodoxy, representing, among others, “a school administrator suspended for criticizing the religious establishment, a man convicted of promoting homosexuality for saying it was genetic, three political reformists seeking a constitutional monarchy, and the first Saudis suing the country's powerful religious police."

But by pointing the international spotlight on the outrageous conduct of the Saudi judiciary that originally gave light sentences to men who committed the brutal gang rape while sentencing the 19 year old victim to 60 lashes, both al Lahem and his client have incurred the judiciary's heavy handed wrath. The Washington Post tells us today:

Saudi officials have revoked the license of human rights lawyer Abdul-Rahman al-Lahem, who has handled the country's most controversial cases and defended a gang-rape victim sentenced to jail time and lashes.

Lahem, 36, faces a disciplinary hearing Dec. 5 to determine the length of his suspension

Lahem is accused by the prosecutor general of "belligerent behavior, talking to the media for the purpose of perturbing the judiciary, and hurting the country's image," according to an official letter he received Monday.

. . . Lahem said he was banned from the courtroom for his refusal in September to allow his client to attend a hearing in which she would have come face to face with her rapists. "She tried to take her life several times after the rape, and I did not want her traumatized all over again," he said. The woman's name has not been published.

The Justice Ministry on Tuesday stood by its decision, saying Lahem was banned from the court for insulting the judiciary, opposing instructions and violating provisions of the law. It did not give details.

. . . The order revoking Lahem's license also criticized his statements to reporters during one of his cases, in which the court forced a couple to divorce after the wife's half brothers complained that the husband was of a lower social status.

. . . After Lahem appealed, seeking harsher sentences for the rapists and calling the ruling against his client unjust, a superior court increased the sentences of both victims to six months and 200 lashes. The rapists' sentences were nearly doubled.

According to the English-language daily Arab News, the court told the woman her punishment was increased because of "her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media."

Though he was disappointed with the verdict, Lahem said, he realized as he was driving from Qatif back to Riyadh, where he is based, that its excess was actually a sign of hope.

"That verdict signals the death throes of the judiciary's old guard. They can see the end is near," he said. "As black as it looked for me . . . I saw that the overkill in that verdict was a sign of desperation." . . .

Read the story here. I hope that he is correct in his assessment, for his client's sake if none other. If you would like to let the Saudi Arabian embassy know what you think of this, you can e-mail them at info@saudiembassy.net. And while you're at it, why don't you also send an e-mail to CAIR asking them their position on this given that they claim to be the primary Islamic human rights organization in America. They can be reached by contact form here.

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The EU, Italy and the Problem of Immigration

It has taken the horrible rape and murder of Giovanna Reggiani, the wife of an Italian Naval officer, and the reaction of the average Italian to bring to the fore the problems of immigration in Italy and, by association, throughout the EU. EU law, dating back to the 1957 treaty of Rome, provides for freedom of movement for the citizens from each member country. Further, both freedom of movement and freedom from mass deportation are rights written into the European Convention on Human Rights.

The accession of Romania to the EU a few months ago opened the flood gates for Romanians to relocate throughout the EU. While the bulk of the new immigrants were merely seeking a better life for themselves, a significant portion of the criminal class in Romania apparently tagged along. The influx of Romanians has resulted in a crime wave in both Britain and Italy. For example, more than 75 per cent of offences in Italy's captial have been carried out by Romanians since they arrived in the country.

Up to this point, it was thought that EU law would essentially tie the hands of the EU members to deal effectively with the immigrants. That will all be challenged by what is occurring in Italy today. The Daily Mail has an exceptional article on matter:

. . . For months, local people had been complaining that the city was being over-run by Romanian criminal gangs. The politicians did not respond.

But what happened during the 30 minutes after Giovanna Reggiani stepped down from her train at Tor di Quinto finally forced Italy's politicians to listen - and could prompt one of biggest shake-ups in the history of recent European immigration.

As Signora Reggiani started walking alone up the unlit, pot-holed road, a man emerged from near the bonfires at the camp in front of her.

He was Romulus Mailat, an immigrant who four months earlier, following Romania's entry into the European Union, had legally crossed the border into Italy.

He launched a coldblooded, sustained attack on the immaculately dressed housewife.
He smashed a rock into her face again and again, then carried her over his shoulder to some wasteland where she was brutally sexually assaulted and had 20 Euros (£13) taken from her purse.

. . . Barely alive, she was placed on a life support machine at Saint Andrea hospital where she remained in a coma for two days until the machine was switched off last weekend.

. . . The people of Italy are no longer prepared to wait for answers. Amid fury over the soaring number of murders, rapes and robberies by Romanians, the sole topic of conversation among many Italians throughout the city last week was the growing threat posed by stranieri (immigrants) and dark talk of vengeance.

It did not remain talk for long. By last night, a week of violence showed no sign of abating after a spate of bombings and attacks by armed gangs, many of them joined by older, middle-class people, who roamed the streets of Italy looking for Eastern European immigrants.

Leaping from their scooters, one group rounded on four Romanians begging outside a supermarket in the centre of Rome, beating them with sticks and stabbing them. The Romanians were left unconscious; and they are still in hospital.

As other Italians doused immigrant shacks with petrol and set them ablaze, scores of Romanians were knifed in scenes repeated from Milan to Naples.

In one incident, a 14-yearold Romanian boy was attacked by other youths, who hit him over the head with rocks in the same way that Giovanna Reggiani had been killed.

. . . The authorities were quick to respond. Premier Romano Prodi's government declared that new legislation would be introduced to expel anyone suspected of being a "threat to public safety".

There would be no need for proof of a criminal record or a trial, and there would be no appeal.

Most observers believed that the EU would step in to block the laws and defend the principle that EU residents can travel freely among member states.

But amazingly, earlier this week, the European Commission said the Italian government was within its rights, so long as each case was treated individually and not used to discriminate against any particular nationality or group.

The decision will put new pressure on the British governnment, which has failed to act on its promise to introduce laws to "automatically deport" foreign nationals who commit major crimes.

The Italians, on the other hand, have wasted no time. This week squads of armed police, backed by helicopters, moved into hundreds of illegal camps set up by an estimated half a million people who have poured into the country this year.

. . . The charming piazzas and winding streets are now home to gangs of Roma, selling drugs, women and stolen goods to anyone strolling past in the weak winter sunshine.

Once a quiet residential area near the Vatican City, Campo Dei Fiori was beloved by Romans for its tranquillity and lively fruit and vegetable market.

Ten months after Romania was admitted to the EU, the piazza is now a hellish place at night.

During a five-minute stroll through the square, I was offered drugs ranging from crack cocaine to heroin. Drunken immigrants stagger through the streets, challenging locals to fight.

It was here that a cyclist was attacked and killed by a 15-year-old Romanian boy. And not far away, 22-year-old Vanessa Russo was killed by two Romanian women at Termini underground station in front of scores of tourists.

"There is a total lack of control," said Flaminia Borghese, president of the Roman residents' association.

A former communist and editor of a Left-wing newspaper, Walter Veltroni, the dapper, jazz-loving mayor of Rome, is cutting the amount of the city's budget spent on caring for beggars, the deprived and immigrants.

Mr Veltroni said that before Romania's EU accession Rome had been one of the safest cities in Europe. "These are not immigrants who came here to live, but criminal types," he said.

Tapping into popular sentiment after polls showed 83 per cent of Italians backed forced deportations of immigrants, Veltroni pointed out the crucial facts.
More than 75 per cent of all crime in the capital is now carried out by Romanians since they were allowed to travel freely at the start of this year.

They have been responsible for 76 murders, more than 300 rapes and 2,000 robberies, according to police statistics.

Nearly 400 Romanians have been charged with kidnappings, mostly involving prostitution, and 6,000 with receiving stolen goods.

Tellingly, even the Romanians do not want their own people back: crime has dropped by 26 per cent since they started leaving in their hundreds and thousands.

In echoes of attacks on critics of immigration throughout Europe, groups supporting the Roma have accused the media of stirring up racial hatred, claiming this will only add to the problems.

But Italian editors say they cannot turn a blind eye to the facts. The Rome daily Il Messaggero, referring to the Reggiani case, said: "Our anger, frustration, fear and grief cannot be underestimated. This is the direct consequence of excessive tolerance. We have blindly accepted anyone who wanted to come to Italy. We should have reacted much earlier."

. . . However, Italy's response will put the focus on countries such as Britain, where politicians have lost control of immigration and persistently claim that the EU prevents the deportation of lawbreakers.

Now they no longer have that defense - but will they have the strength to act as decisively as the Italians?

You can read the entire article here.

While the EU is not stepping in at this time, I think that this matter is far from closed. While I fully support the Italian response, I think the final word on this in light of the highly liberal laws of the EU is far from written. The EU's warning not to conduct mass deportations would seem to be at odds with precisely what Italy is doing at this point. I would not be surprised for this to end up before the European Court of Human Rights.

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