Once upon a time in Bexley.....

Fellow blogger and member of the awkward squad, Olly C, has as I'm sure many of you already know, been slapped with a custodial sentence as a result of calling a Bexley councillor a "cunt" on twitter. There's a lot of history here and I've already seen some lightweights casually dismissing it because they believe the council's line that he was "harrassing" them.  For a short readable version, pop by Max's place. For a lengthier treatment, go to Spiderplant - which gives a fairly detailed and dispassionate breakdown. If you're unfamiliar with this case, Olly or Bexley council, then you really owe it to yourself to dig deep into this and as such just have a quick browse through Bexley is Bonkers for examples of mendacity from the council that are legion. The blogs just for April will give you enough of a taste. Rather than add my own summary of the situation, I'd rather highlight some particularly striking points from the 'Bexley is Bonkers' site.

First, however I would like to speculate on something. And I'd ask people to please share this speculation far and wide. Remember though, given how easily speech - especially online - is criminalised in this country, it is only a speculation.It goes as follows: Olly is due to be sentenced at Bromley magistrates court on May 9th. WOULDN'T IT BE AWFUL if Bexley council, and certain councillors in particular, were on the receiving end of a "mass cunting" on that day. That is to say - that they were inundated with emails, tweets and phone calls indicating that many of the general public considered them - well - "cunts". Spread the word about this speculation......I'd be interested to see if it comes true.

Secondly I wanted to highlight that the story is now being picked up by as diverse sources as Reddit, Stephen Fry and Sunny Hundal. That's good. These censorious attacks - especially in online media - have got to the point where they are simply beyond belief. I certainly wouldn't have believed you if you'd told me 10 years ago that this would happen. So a cross-partisan left-right shitstorm in response is exactly what we need, as we've had on (too few) occasions in the past such as when left and right blogs joined forces to support Craig Murray against Schillings.

Now - those two points I wanted to highlight, lifted verbatim from the 'Bexley is Bonkers' April 2012 blogs:

"When Eric Pickles’ department wrote to all councils in February 2011 telling them “citizen journalists” should be allowed to Tweet and film in council meetings even the most hard line of secretive Conservative councils like Barnet and Westminster caved in. Bexley however changed its Constitution to exclude all forms of recording at meetings. All their Agendas repeat the prohibition and when questioned they say it is to protect members of the public from appearing on tape. They sheepishly offer the excuse that permission may be granted on request but not a single request has been approved, not even for an audio only recording at a meeting where the public is not allowed to speak."

And as to why / how the judge on friday effectively threw the book at Olly:

"the charges were those prepared from the original false allegations that included flaming torches, pitchforks, petrol bombs and Olly writing on Bonkers. All of that was untrue; made up and distorted stories by Bexley council aimed at getting both Olly and me in trouble. The prosecution could find no evidence for any of those allegations which is what you might expect since they were all false and Olly was found not guilty last December. All the nonsense invented by Bexley council was put before the new Judge as fact. Worrying."

Did I mention that the judgement against Olly was made at a court in Bexley?

Time to consider this a war footing I think.

And my personal message to Bexley council is:

The Orwellian breakdown of civil society in the UK

It had to happen eventually.

Myself or one of my friends would have to end up on the receiving end of one of these vendettas carried out by a nightmare family that most people only think could possibly exist in fiction like Eden Lake. Only it's not fiction is it. This happens to people daily across the UK who live in terror of their fellow "citizens" and are often left to suffer right up until the point someone is permanently injured or even killed.

He's a nice, well liked lad - an ex-soldier who always tries to do the right thing. Those of you who know me from Sheffield likely know him too. He was a Corp regular. He lives with his girlfriend and together their means are quite modest, so they live in "social" housing on one of Sheffield's less desirable estates. The cheaper rent enables them a few creature comforts - a few pets and a room for him to indulge in one of his favourite hobbies - making and painting airfix models.

Yet he has suffered a continual tirade of abuse, threats, assaults and damage to his property for over two years now from a family of neighbors who are - apparently -  above the law. He's done nothing to provoke it. He's just a big, distinctive looking lad trying to get by and mind his own business. As is usual in these kind of affairs, the council and police take less interest than they would in cleaning dogshit off the street. And - as always - this intimidation just continues to escalate.

He's gone out of his way to do the right thing over the last year - recording as many of these incidents as possible, whether with audio devices, videos, photos or keeping a diary of events. He has submitted this regularly to Sheffield City Council and the police, to be met with indifference at best and - unbelievably - outright hostility at worst. He's shown more patience and restraint than anything I think I could have endured without snapping.

About a week ago it started to come to a head. His girlfriend was badly beaten when on the way back from the local shop. She didn't even see her attackers and they didn't steal anything.

Then the night before last they put through the windows of their house and camper van.

Due to the escalating threats and violence, he installed a CCTV system and filmed them in the act. He has shared the images with a few of us and I post a sample up here with his permission:

They did this while they were in the house. The bricks apparently just missed the cats and dogs.

The only time they have received any direct assistance from the police is when they happened to be outside the house on one of the occasions when he was being abused by one of the neighbors. They gave her an £80 on the spot fine and she said - with police present - that she would "do something about it" and "didn't care about the cameras".

In some parts of the U.S. he could have rightfully shot these people. After the windows were smashed they of course phoned the police only to be told there was no one available to look for the perpetrators as they only had one car in the area. He has recorded evidence of them stating "we're going to firebomb you both".

Yet only now has the council moved, after she has been beaten and their windows have been put through and even then all they are offering to do is find them emergency housing with a month's wait. And apparently the cats and dogs can't come. PCSOs visited them last week and told them (also recorded) that they would not arrest the neighbors as "It would only make things worse". His girlfriend got a phone call from the police last night telling them to remove any gas bottles from the van or fuel cans, "they have had info its going to be firebombed". No police came to their assistance of course. As regular readers will know, South Yorkshire Police Farce will apparently only work fast when doormen are involved (an easy target, being licensed by the state), or a university technician who provides free anonymous web hosting. Everyone else can just go rot apparently.

And on that note, I wanted to briefly highlight two other recent occurences by contrast. Richard O'Dwyer is to be extradited to the U.S. to probably face 10 years in prison for "copyright infringement", only the basis of that accusation is extremely tenuous anyway. As many have noted previously, he set up a site that provided links to such content but did not host it itself. It's a dangerous precedent to have been set. And the extradition link is even more tenuous - the U.S. has laid claim to him because the domain name he used was registered with a U.S. based registrar. Meanwhile, a pub which has been trading under the name of 'The Hobbit' for two decades is now facing legal trouble because of - you guessed it - a copyright infringement claim.

Why do I mention these? It's to give consequence to the 'Orwellian' part of the blog title above. Our society has reached an unbearably kafkaesque stage where minor infractions of vagaries such as "copyright infringement" are vigorously pursued whilst people on the receiving end of threats, violence and outright property destruction are left to fend for themselves. That's when they're not being victimised under the guise of the European Arrest Warrant that is.

The situation I've outlined above simply cannot end well. It should never have reached this stage anyway, though there is almost certainly more to come. He has a few handy mates. Something will snap at some point and this will be dealt with the old fashioned way. At which point the victims and whoever comes to their defence will be blamed as per usual in this fucked up society that I no longer recognise.

Much of this scenario leaves me too speechless to comment further except to say one thing with certainty:

I do not want to grow old in this country.

A CALL TO ARMS: London Atheist & Secularist student societies under attack

I know on occasions in the past I've asked you, dear readers and fellow bloggers to share something widely that needed wider exposure. Well this situation desperately requires that wider exposure and all the help we can provide, especially as the mass media are notably silent on the issue - very likely because of a self-censoring trend itself inspired by fear of what has befallen others.

As far as I'm concerned, a Rubicon has been passed here in British civil society. Our rule of law and civility has been tested on the litmus of Islamists getting their way through threats and censorship backed by threats and has been found wanting. And it has been found wanting where one of our supposedly safe and hallowed institutions is concerned - the free-thinking (or so we are told) university campuses of Higher Education. This has to be nipped in the bud, now.

You could be forgiven entirely for not having a clue what I'm talking about. So far the most prominent coverage has been in two Sunday comment pieces here and here.

Three separate University Atheist / Secularist student societies have come under attack from islamists. The two milder cases are those at UCL and the LSE.

Alex Gabriel summarises events well so far:

"What’s happened since the Jesus and Mo business started? Well: I’ve been told I’ll be beheaded. Rhys Morgan’s been told in more detail that he’ll be killed. Atheists at UCL have worried their parents will be attacked. Atheists at Queen Mary were told they’d be hunted down if they insulted Mohammad, including their president Jen Hardy who’s feared for her life in the last few days. Maryam Namazie made it sound like this wasn’t unusual in her line of work. All this, and LSESU have the cojones to say it’s Muslims they’re concerned about? If anybody currently requires a safe space, it’s us."

That's right. The worst event so far as been at Queen Mary two weeks ago - students had organised a talk on 'Sharia Law and Human Rights'. An Islamist thug turned up (with help apparently), filmed members of the audience and threatened violence against them if he heard of any "insult to the prophet".

Having now spent some time with the Queen Mary students to find out first hand what happened I can tell you that these kids are feeling not only scared, but also very isolated. Not only do the various students unions involved in these debacles appear to be uncritcially taking the Islamist side against all reason, demanding that the Atheist, Secularist and Humanist societies censor themselves or - in the case of LSE - face expulsion from the Union, but I've heard a number of them asking 'where is the left'?

The police have apparently told them that the worst that will happen is that the individual in question (never mind his mates waiting outside, or those who opened the fire doors in the hall so their pals could get in, or the two who were shouting, demanding to know "who drew the cartoons") is that he'll get an £80 fine. Apparently they can't take it any more seriously because the threat was prefaced with an "if" - i.e. 'if I hear the prophet has been insulted'. What complete and utter arseclownery from our Police Farce. No wonder things are continuing to race downhill at rapid speed in Tower Hamlets. I mean - why on earth would the students be scared, it's not as if there are recent precedents eh? (And with regard to Tower Hamlets itself - let's not forget this litany of shit)

Worse, one of the students discovered a forum where the "brothers" were discussing this intimidation. Whilst there are some calls for restraint, there are plenty of posts on there to send a chill up your spine - "who gave these kuffar the right to speak?" - anyone? To preserve people's anonymity and to also preserve this fuckwittery for posterity and hopefully future police investigation with a police force worth the name not compromised by politically correct Fabianism I have created a resource page with archived pages so there is no need to visit the forum itself (please avoid clicking on the links within the archived pages themselves as you'll end up at the Muppets' forum).

Well - it will come as absolutely no surprise to many readers of this blog  - it seems "the left" is either taking its default position of head in the sand, or worse - in several cases, siding with the Islamists against the students. One of the few noble exceptions to this is Harry's Place - who have kept a careful and critical eye on the ever worsening Islamist problem in the UK and in London (Tower Hamlets) in particular. What's more they attack this issue from the left and represent to me all the good things I thought the left were supposed to represent when I first took an interest in politics at the tender age of 18 many years ago - the same age a lot of these students are who are on the receiving end of this bullshit.

So - I want to appeal to my fellow bloggers - please spread the word on these incidents as these kids are being let down by ALL of the institutions that are supposed to protect them and help them - the police, the media, even their own student unions. And also, PLEASE help to publicise the rally next week in support of these students and anyone else who wants to maintain the right to free expression and NOT be violently threatened as a result.

Gaddafi Duck

I make no apologies for the language. It had to be done: