Peter Tatchell | ukwatch.net

Homeland Insecurity

tim — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 11:33:51 +0000

In another bizarre twist to Washington’s often illegal, irrational ‘war on terror,’ peaceful, lawful human rights campaigners are now apparently being refused entry to the US — without any right of appeal.

Noordin Mengal, a British citizen and Baluch human rights defender, was detained and deported by US immigration when he arrived at Newark Liberty International Airport from Dubai last week.

Mengal is the grandson of the veteran Baluch national leaders Sardar Attaullah Mengal and Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri. He is a representative to the United Nations Human Rights Council on behalf of Interfaith International and is a member of the lawful, non-violent Baluchistan National Party (BNP).

Baluchistan was invaded and annexed by Pakistan in 1948. It has been under military occupation ever since.

Washington’s ally in the so-called war on terror, the Pakistani President and long-time dictator Pervez Musharraf, has been waging a savage war against the people of Baluchistan,

This has included indiscriminately bombing civilian areas using US-supplied fighter aircraft and attack helicopters.

Unlike Musharraf, some of whose army and intelligence services are protecting the Taliban and Osama bin Laden, the BNP is peaceful, democratic and secular. Its members ought to be supported, not harassed, by the US.

But the ignorant, simple-minded Bush regime doesn’t like human rights defenders who challenge its foreign allies and stooges. In particular, it is fearful of campaigners who expose US complicity with dictators and with the perpetration of crimes against humanity. Presumably, this is why Mengal was stopped and sent back? There is no other explanation, since all his papers were in order and all his humanitarian campaigning is non-violent and constitutional.

Mengal has never been arrested in the past and has never been convicted or charged by any government. He has never been accused of any offence and has no charges pending against him. Does the US government care? Apparently not. It seems to ignore the US constitution when it suits it to do so.

After being held in custody in appalling conditions for over 26 hours by the Department of Homeland Security, Mengal was refused entry to the US and deported. No reasons given. No right of appeal. This is Bush-style democracy (sic) in action.

Apart from humiliating and inconveniencing Mengal, does this matter to the rest of us? Yes. It is further evidence of the corrosion of the rule of law and human rights by a US administration that is making major blunders in its bid to protect the country from terrorist attack.

Mengal’s mistreatment by the US authorities is worth telling in some detail because it highlights the lawless abuses and shamelful ignorance that often characterises President Bush’s foreign and domestic policies.

On his arrival at Newark at 6.30pm on 23 June, Mengal was detained and interrogated by officers of the Customs and Border Protection Enforcement section of the Department of Homeland Security. Mengal was questioned about the situation in Baluchistan and his human rights activities. Although he cooperated fully and gave a truthful account, he was subsequently told that he would not be granted entry to the United States and was, in effect, deported.

Under the US visa waiver programme, however, law-abiding British nationals are exempted from formal visa procedures and can freely visit the US for a maximum stay of up to three months on each entry.

Mengal asked an officer if he could call an official at the British embassy. The official confirmed his right to do so, but told him it would only be possible just prior to his departure. In the end, this assurance was voided. Moreover, Mengal was denied access to a telephone to contact his family and no one from the US government informed Mengal’s family of what was happening to him.

According to Mengal, at the wholly unreasonable hour of 2am the next morning he was re-interrogated. At one point he was asked if he would like to phone someone within the US, as he was not allowed to call internationally. But then he was told it was too late in the night and he would have to wait until later in the morning. But this offer to later phone a US contact never materialised.

A transcript of his interrogation was supposed to be given to him but wasn’t. It was eventually sent to him after he left the US, but it was doctored to falsely allege that he had declined offers to contact a lawyer and the British embassy.

A little later Mengal was informed that he would be given a place to rest, but was made to sit on a chair for nearly 10 hours, during which time he was repeatedly told that he would soon be taken to another facility.

At approximately 6am on 24 June he was belatedly given a thermoplastic blanket (disposable emergency sheet made of yellow polythene with a cellulose matting insulation) to keep warm.

At around 11 am, officers moved Mengal to another facility. The authorities shackled him like a common criminal, locking his handcuffs to a heavy chain looped around his waist, and led him through the airport lounge to an armoured detention vehicle.

Mengal was driven to the Elizabeth detention facility in New Jersey, where he was placed in a cell with a solid steel door. He estimates he was there for over five hours.

On questioning the detention officer regarding his status, Mengal was told that he was not a criminal, nor an offender. Mengal asked the officer if a British citizen had ever been detained at this facility. The officer replied: “Never.”

In the evening of 24 June, Mengal was once again restrained with fetters and manacles and transported back to the airport. He asked officers of the Department of the Homeland Security if he had the right to call a lawyer. He was told he was not now entitled to one and could only have done so on the day of his arrival. On the day of his arrival, however, he was not informed of any of his rights, nor was he allowed to contact anyone.

At 8pm, Mengal was interrogated again by officials from US Immigration and Customs enforcement. They disparaged and dismissed his human rights work. He was made to feel like an enemy of the US.

Shortly before he was put on a Qatar Airways flight at about 9pm, Mengal was told he was being sent back to Dubai and that if he returned to the US, even having attained a visa, there was still a possibility he would be denied entry.

With typical US government double-speak, Mengal was informed that he was not being deported, but rather was regarded as “inadmissible.” At no point was he ever told why he was refused admission to the US. Even now, he doesn’t know why.

Throughout his detention, Mengal was denied the right to contact an official from the British embassy. Isn’t this a violation of the Vienna Convention? Are not detained foreign nationals supposed to have the right to contact their diplomatic representatives?

It seems like the Department of Homeland Security can’t tell the difference between a terrorist and an anti-terrorist, democratic, secular, peaceful Baluch human rights defender. In which case, the war on terror is bound to fail. The US government’s clumsy, ignorant victimisation of another innocent person — Mengal isn’t the first and he won’t be the last — helps explain why so many people hate America. This is a nation that professes a love of liberty yet often acts like a tin-pot tyranny.

Baluchistan Leader on Terror Charges in London

Ellie Keen — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

An ex-MP and government minister from Pakistan, Hyrbyair Marri, has been released on bail after spending four months in London’s high security anti-terrorist Belmarsh Prison.

Bail was granted by High Court judge, David Calvert-Smith QC, and Mr Marri was able to return to his west London home on Wednesday night, 16 April.

Mr Marri is due for trial in London at the Central Criminal Court in October, on charges under the Firearms Act and the Terrorism Act 2000. He is pleading not guilty and is currently under-going a series of pre-trial hearings.

Mr Marri is a former MP (from 1997 to 2002) and was the Minster for Construction and Works in the provincial assembly of the Pakistan region of Baluchistan from 1997 to 1998. He fled to Britain, fearing arrest, torture and possible assassination by the pro-western Pakistani dictator, Pervez Musharraf.

Mr Marri comes from a very distinguished Baluch family. He is a rather unlikely terrorist.

His father, Nawab Khair Baksh Marri, was invited to London by the British government for Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953, and attended as a guest of honour with other world leaders.

His uncle is Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, the UN Special Representative to Sudan and the former Pakistan Ambassador to the United States, and his wife is the great grand daughter of the first Prime Minister of Iraq, Naqib Al Ashraaf Syed Abd ar-Rahman al-Qadri al Gillani, who governed from 1920-1922.

Mr Marri’s brother, Balach Marri, was murdered on 21 November 2007 by the Pakistan army.

His other brother, Mehran Baluch, who lives in London and is the Baluch Representative to the UN Human Rights Council, was the subject of an extradition attempt by Pakistan last year on trumped up charges.

[See this Guardian newspaper report on the case, 28 March 2007.]

The actions against these three brothers look like a systematic attempt to target this family and crush three major voices of Baluch dissent.

I am supporting Mr Marri and his co-accused, another Baluch human rights activist, Faiz Baluch, who remains in Belmarsh Prison pending the finalisation of his bail conditions.

Everyone knows that last year President Musharraf was demanding the arrest and extradition of Baluch exiles in London.

That is what he is now in the process of getting. When he was in London to meet Gordon Brown in January 2008 Musharraf held a press conference for Pakistani journalists where he denounced Mr Marri as a “terrorist” and indicated that he was seeking and expecting the extradition of Mr Marri to Pakistan. He praised the British government and police for cooperating with his dictatorship.

If these men are extradited they will never get a fair trial and they could face a death sentence.

Britain and Pakistan have been in secret negotiations for a terrorist prisoner swap. The UK police want to extradite Rashid Rauf from Pakistan. They are keen to question him in connection with the 2006 plot to blow-up transatlantic airliners. Mr Rauf mysteriously escaped from police custody in Pakistan in December last year. He whereabouts are now unknown. Some people believe he is being protected by Islamist agents who have heavily infiltrated the Pakistani security services.

In return for the extradition of Mr Rauf, the Pakistani government has been demanding the extradition from Britain of several Baluch nationalists. When the UK failed to extradite to Pakistan Mr Marri’s brother, Mehran, last year, the prisoner swap negotiations broke down and, it appears, Mr Rauf was allowed to escape.

I doubt the prosecution was initiated by the Metropolitan Police. It is very unlikely that officers, off their own bat, stumbled on an alleged terror plot by Mr Marri and Mr Baluch. More likely, the police in London were pressured and fed false information by Musharraf’s military and intelligence services, which have long wanted to silence Mr Marri, Mr Baluch and other London-based Baluch exiles.

I know both the arrested men. They are Baluchistan nationalists and human rights activists. We worked together to expose Pakistan’s persecution of the Baluch people. The defendants have never expressed to me any support or sympathy for terrorism. All our campaigns have been lawful and peaceful. I would be very surprised if either man was involved in any terror plot.

Both Mr Marri and Mr Baluch are well-known campaigners for the self-government of Baluchistan. A former British Protectorate, it was granted its independence in 1947 but was then invaded and forcibly annexed by Pakistan a few months later, in 1948. The Baluch people did not vote for incorporation. They were never given a choice. Ever since, Baluchistan has been under military occupation by Islamabad.

[See my Guardian newspaper website report about the last 60 years of Pakistani occupation.]

This occupation includes detention without trial, torture, extra-judicial executions and the bombing of civilian villages suspected of being sympathetic to the Baluch independence movement, often using US-supplied Cobra attack helicopters and F-16 fighter planes.

[See my reports for The Guardian newspaper website in London in December last year, and again in February this year.]

The flawed prosecution case against Mr Marri and Mr Baluch

I have been in court during the pre-trial hearings, respectively at Westminster Magistrate’s Court and the Central Criminal Court. I heard first-hand the prosecution’s outline evidence against the two men. I find it flimsy, circumstantial and flawed. Indeed, it is one of the most shoddy prosecutions I have ever witnessed in over 40 years of human rights campaigning.

When first setting out the case against Mr Marri the prosecution portrayed him in a less than flattering light. It made no mention of Mr Marri’s esteemed family background and connections. Nor was there any mention of his public service as an MP and government minister. To me, this looked like an attempt to give the court a misleading impression of Mr Marri.

The prosecution claimed that Mr Marri and Mr Baluch had incited acts of terrorism but it provided no evidence of who had been incited or how they were incited. None of the documents read out in court constituted an incitement to terrorism. Most were website press reports and news releases, many of which are available on dozens of media websites.

Some of the allegations relate to the alleged viewing of “terrorist” websites. It is, however, not proven who visited these websites. Moreover, a landmark UK legal judgement on 13 February 2008 ruled that merely visiting and viewing such websites is not a crime.

The allegation that Mr Marri possessed a “firearm” weapon that could be used for terrorist purposes has now been revealed to be a self-defence pepper spray device, similar to the ones carried by many women to protect themselves against muggers and rapists.

It is said by friends that Mr Marri had acquired this pepper spray because he feared violent attack by Pakistani government agents on himself and his family. His fears are real and credible, given the recent kidnapping and assassination of Baluch nationalists by the Pakistan authorities.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) alleged that the men had hundreds of foreign credit cards. Their friends say these are phone top-up cards and phone credit cards, presumably for use when the men travel in support of their human rights work in Britain and other countries.

The CPS also claimed that Mr Marri had made over 160 foreign trips in the previous year, which amounts to one foreign trip every other day. A laughable, implausible feat. No evidence has been offered to corroborate this police assertion. Indeed, Mr Marri denies it categorically.

Prosecutors made a big issue of the fact that there was £18,000 in cash in Mr Marri’s house. Possession of such a sum of money is not a crime. His family have explained that this money was sent from Pakistan to pay for his elderly mother’s cancer treatment in the UK and for his children’s school costs in this country. Receipts indicating such payments were presented to the court on 1 February this year.

The CPS cited Mr Marri’s possession of up to 20 mobile phones. Some of these belonged to various family members and others were used to make secure calls to human rights campaigners inside Baluchistan. These campaigners are at risk of arrest by the Pakistani authorities who target Baluch activists for assassination, arrest and torture. Having dedicated mobile phones for each individual contact is one way to minimise the risk of calls being intercepted, traced and the persons phoned in Baluchistan being arrested.

During the pre-trial hearings, every time Mr Marri and Mr Baluch refute the allegations against them with reasonable explanations, the police and CPS come up with new vague, circumstantial allegations. The police and CPS then plead for more time to search computer hard drives and trace overseas contacts.

The latest allegation made is that the men have some unspecified sinister contacts in the Czech Republic. On this flimsiest of unsubstantiated claims, their on-going detention was authorised by the judge. This is the way the law now operates in this era of the “war on terror.” Suspicion and circumstance are now enough to get you locked up as a terrorist suspect.

It is possible that the police know something about these men that I don’t. But if they have been leading a secret double life and were engaged in a terrorist plot, where is the evidence?

Based on the purely circumstantial, uncorroborated evidence made against the two men thus far, it is outrageous that they were ever detained in maximum security conditions. They should have been granted bail last December.

Their case looks like a re-run of the Lofti Raissi fiasco. Mr Raissi was another innocent man who was falsely arrested and held on terror charges without any foundation. It took months before he was cleared. By then, his life was ruined.

Mr Marri and Mr Baluch are almost certainly innocent men caught up in a web of suspicion that has probably been woven by the notorious Pakistani intelligence services, the ISI.

Put bluntly: these arrests look like another stitch-up orchestrated by the Musharraf regime, which wants to crush those who speak out against Pakistan’s murderous oppression of the Baluch people.

A short summary of the Baluchistan freedom struggle

Baluchistan was a former British Protectorate. It secured its independence in August 1947. But less than a year later, on 1 April 1948, Pakistan invaded and annexed the newly-independent state of Baluchistan. The Baluch people have, however, never given up their struggle to reassert their freedom.

After six decades of occupation and bloody repression, Pakistan is once again escalating its war against the people of Baluchistan, detaining without trial thousands of Baluchs and executing hundreds more. Because the governments of Britain and the United States want Pakistan as an ally in the “war on terror” they are arming Pakistan and tacitly acquiescing with its suppression of the Baluch people.

The international community is looking the other way, allowing the Baluch people to be suppressed and ignoring their right to self-determination.

Background briefing

Watch this internet TV interview I did last year with Mehran Baluch, the Baluch representative at the UN Human Rights Council.

Current news on the Baluch freedom struggle is here and here. These are two of the websites that allegedly incite terrorism.

Peter Tatchell is the Green Party parliamentary candidate for Oxford East, UK. See his website.

Questions for Ken

Ellie Keen — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 18:54:04 +0000

London mayor Ken Livingstone can justifiably boast that he has done much over the last 30 years to support lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Londoners. As leader of the Greater London council in the 1980s, he was the first major politician to speak out publicly in support of gay human rights. His funding of previously unsupported LGBT welfare and advice agencies was trailblazing and immensely positive.

In his first term as mayor of London, Livingstone set up the UK’s first same-sex partnership register, which paved the way for the subsequent legislation of civil partnerships. But during his second term as mayor, he caused widespread dismay in the LGBT community when he welcomed to City Hall as his “honoured guest” Yusuf al-Qaradawi. The mayor subsequently repeatedly excused and defended the viciously homophobic and murder-inciting cleric.

Qaradawi supports the execution of gay people in Islamic states, the killing of Muslims who abandon their faith, wife-beating, female genital mutilation, forcing women to wear the hijab, terrorist attacks on innocent civilians in Israel and the flogging of women who have sex outside of marriage. He also said the 2004 Asian tsunami was punishment by God because the people who died had allowed their countries to become centres of “sexual perversion”.

Together with many other people, I criticised Livingstone over his embrace of Qaradawi. He responded with the wholly untrue claim that I am an “Islamophobe” and a person with “a long history of Islamophobia”.

Since then, despite an occasional pro-gay initiative, like opposing Westminster council’s attempt to ban rainbow flags in Soho, Livingstone’s record of supporting the LGBT community has been somewhat patchy.

LGBT Londoners are, of course, not only interested in LGBT policies. Like the rest of London, they are also concerned about transport, crime, housing and the environment, as well as the candidates’ stance on matters that specifically affect lesbian and gay people.

On four issues Livingstone needs to explain why he has let down the LGBT community. The other mayoral candidates also need to state where they stand. What are the Conservative, Lib Dem and Green policies on these questions?

Refusal to fund the gay football world championships in London

Livingstone has refused to contribute to the funding of the 2008 international gay and lesbian football association world championship, which is being held in London in August. London has won the honour of being the host city, and the UK’s Stonewall FC team is a strong contender for the world title, but the mayor is withholding financial backing.

Livingstone also refused to sign a letter of support for the associations’s grant application to the lottery fund. Having the high-profile support of the mayor would increase the likelihood of the grant succeeding. It costs nothing to sign a letter of support.

The unexpected lack of financial assistance from the mayor has contributed to the association being left with a funding shortfall. How does the mayor justify this denial of a few thousand pounds to the gay football world championships when he has showered billions on the 2012 Olympics? Where do the other mayoral candidates stand on funding the gay football world cup and similar gay sporting events? And will they offer financial support to increase youth, women’s, disabled and ethnic minority participation in sport?

Lesbian and gay museum

During the 2004 Mayoral election campaign, Livingstone promised to fund a lesbian and gay museum, which is now called Proud Heritage. The idea is to add to the diversity of London’s museums by creating a new institution dedicated to documenting and celebrating the lives and contributions of LGBT people, in a similar way to the existing specialist Jewish, children’s and slavery museums.

It took until 2007 for Livingstone to grant a rather modest start-up grant of £5,000. Further money was pledged. Proud Heritage made a bid for an additional £10,000, so it could launch the first stage online version of the museum this week. The mayor eventually agreed a further £5,000. This money has been contracted by Livingstone but not delivered as of 15 April. Why not?

On the basis of Livingstone’s contracted £5,000 grant, Proud Heritage organised development work. This work on the website, which opens on April 18, has not been completed because Livingstone’s money has not materialised. This has created needless last-minute stress for the Proud Heritage organisers.

Why has Livingstone delayed his election pledge on the lesbian and gay museum? Why, four years after his promise, has the Proud Heritage project been underfunded by the mayor? What will other candidates pledge towards this project?

Proud Heritage is, so far, only an online museum. Will the mayoral candidates support and help finance a physical LGBT museum as well?

Mayor’s LGBT forum

The mayor’s LGBT forum was set up to liaise with the LGBT community. But from the outset it has been structured in a wholly undemocratic way.

Why isn’t the forum allowed to elect its own chair? Why did Livingstone impose as chair one of his own people, a straight woman, Anni Marjoram? Why is the LGBT forum banned from proposing resolutions or holding votes on policy recommendations to the mayor?

Attempts to propose and vote on policy issues are ruled out of order by the chair. This has disillusioned many of us who proposed and backed the forum as an open, democratic space for dialogue and consultation.

The forum is now widely dismissed as a PR exercise, with no real power or influence. Many grassroots activists no longer bother to attend. What is the point? Anything that questions mayoral policy doesn’t get on the agenda and uncomfortable debates are curtailed by the chair.

How does the mayor explain the fact that many grassroots LGBT campaigners in London no longer participate in the forum? What does he say to allegations that it has become an unrepresentative forum attended mostly by pro-Livingstone factions and LGBT groups hoping to get money out of the Greater London authority? What would other mayoral candidates do to rectify this democratic deficit?

Underfunding of LGBT groups and events

The mayor has given millions to black projects, which is a very good thing. The empowerment of ethnic communities is vital to redress social exclusion and discrimination. But Livingstone has granted comparatively little to LGBT projects. The mayor keeps promising LGBT funding but he seems rarely to deliver. He is quite good at verbal support, but little more.

How does Livingstone justify the millions of pounds he and the London development agency have given to black community groups and the largesse provided for the St Patrick’s Day events, compared to the much smaller grants that he has given to Pride London and LGBT community organisations?

In 2006, the mayor gave £175,000 to the St Patrick’s Day festival and £288,000 to the Rise festival – but only £100,000 for the LGBT Pride London festival.

I don’t begrudge support for Irish, Black, Hindu, Jewish, Sikh, Muslim and women’s groups and events. The mayor has duty to support all of London’s wonderful diverse communities. He is right to do so. It helps create a more liberal, tolerant and cohesive city.

But shouldn’t there be a more equitable distribution of mayoral funding, with all community events receiving roughly similar levels of financial backing? Or at least there should not be such huge disparities in the mayor’s financial support. Where do the other candidates stand on this question?

Livingstone’s mishandling of these four issues has implications way beyond the LGBT community. It is symptomatic of a style of governance that adversely impacts on many Londoners. As well as Livingstone, all the mayoral candidates need to address this issue, so Londoners know what they will do if they are elected mayor on May 1.

Galloway's Iranian propaganda?

Ellie Keen — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 23:12:55 +0000

George Galloway, the Leftwing Respect MP, has been accused of making allegations that border on paedophile smears and play to homophobic prejudice. He claims that the boyfriend of gay Iranian asylum seeker Mehdi Kazemi was executed for “committing sex crimes against young men”.

The insinuation of such a claim is that Mehdi’s boyfriend was a rapist or a child sex abuser. It also stigmatises Mehdi with the shame that he was the partner of someone who committed sexual assaults on male youths. He will suffer with this stigma when he is returned to the UK and could face considerable personal hostility from people who have heard and believe these allegations against his boyfriend.

Mr Galloway made his astonishing allegation on Channel Five’s The Wright Stuff. You can watch his interview here.

He has been asked to explain the source of his claim, but has so far failed to do so.

I am not aware of any paedophile-style sex abuse claims against Mehdi’s partner. Moreover, no human rights group has mentioned any evidence that Mehdi’s boyfriend was a rapist or a child molester.

Although the regime in Tehran frequently defames political, religious, ethnic and sexual dissidents with false claims of kidnapping, rape, alcoholism, sodomy, adultery, drug-taking and hooliganism, even the most extreme ayatollahs have not made allegations that Mehdi Kazemi’s boyfriend was involved in sex abuse.

Nevertheless, Galloway has broadcast this very serious, potentially defamatory, allegation to the British public, and has then failed to back it up with evidence.

To some people, Galloway’s claims look like propaganda in defence of the totalitarian, homophobic Islamic Republic of Iran. His passionate opposition to a war against Iran, which I share, seems to have clouded his judgement; leading him to downplay the regime’s persecution of lesbians and gays, which includes state-sanctioned executions.

In the same interview for The Wright Stuff, Galloway went on to state: “All the [British] papers seem to imply that you get executed in Iran for being gay. That’s not true.”

His claim that lesbian and gay people are not at risk of execution in Iran is refuted by every reputable human rights organisation, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission and the International Lesbian and Gay Association. None of these esteemed bodies are anti-Iran warmongers, as Galloway has subsequently seemed to imply.

The leftwing US journalist, Doug Ireland, has documented cases of the flogging and execution of men who have sex with men in Iran. These are just the cases we know about. It is likely that some similar executions never get media coverage in Iran and are therefore unknown to the outside world.

The Iranian Queer Rights Organisation also confirms that homosexuality is a capital offence and that gay Iranians are subjected to brutal punishments, including torture and hanging.

The government of Iran admits that it has the death penalty for homosexuality. Gay people are sometimes tortured to make confessions – even false confessions. Iranian law makes no distinction between consensual and non-consensual same-sex relations. Both are punishable by execution.

If Iran doesn’t execute queers, why does it need to retain the death penalty for same-sex relations? Why doesn’t it repeal a law it supposedly never enforces? Why doesn’t it announce a moratorium on hangings for homosexuality?

As with other dissidents, gay men are usually hanged in public by the barbaric slow strangulation method which is deliberately designed to maximise and prolong the suffering of the victim. These gruesome public barbarisms are also designed to terrorise the gay population.

To discredit the gay people it hangs, and to stir up public homophobia in support of its medieval religious-inspired punishments, the regime sometimes frames gay people with false charges of rape and child sex abuse. It wants to create the impression that homosexuals are monsters, in order to deter men from seeking same-sex relations.

This is what happened in the case of 21-year-old Makwan Moloudzadeh, who was executed in Iran last December. He was hanged for alleged sex offences against male teenagers, when he himself was a mere 13 years old. Amnesty International condemned his trial as “grossly flawed” and a “mockery of justice.”

Human Rights Watch reports that Moloudzadeh was coerced and tortured into making a confession. According to Amnesty International, his accusers retracted their sex assault allegations and admitted that they had been pressured into making false claims against him.

Even if Moloudzadeh had been guilty as charged, he should never have been hanged because the alleged offence was committed while he was a minor.

Strong evidence for Moloudzadeh’s innocence is the fact that hundreds of villagers turned out for his funeral; which would not have happened if the official Iranian account that he was a child sex abuser was true.

In a second interview on The Wright Stuff, Galloway launched into a scurrilous attack on Medhi’s friends and supporters, and the defenders of lesbian, gay and bisexual human rights in Iran, including myself:

“This (Mehdi Kazemi’s case) is a useful story for the war propaganda machine, the khaki machine now taking on a tinge of pink….what I will not accept is people being used, as Tatchell is, as the pink end of the war machine. That’s what Peter Tatchell has become by attacking Iran in the way that he does.”

At the antiwar protest in London on March 15, which I supported and attended, Galloway repeated these claims in his keynote speech. He said the “khaki war machine now has its pink contingent”. He went on to imply that people who support gay rights in Iran are “useful idiots” and said their aim is to “bamboozle the public to go along with mass murder in Iran”.

It is untrue and deeply offensive to suggest that those of us who oppose homophobic persecution in Iran are backing the bombing and invasion of Iran. We are not.

I am on record in my writings and speeches as opposing an attack on Iran. When, for example, I exposed Tehran’s racist and neocolonial persecution of its Ahwazi Arab ethnic minority, I stated categorically:

“I am part of a new campaign group, Hands Off the People of Iran (HOPI). HOPI opposes both a US war on Iran and the tyranny of the Iranian regime. My motto is: Neither Washington nor Tehran!

A war against Iran would be another disastrous neo-imperial adventure, which would strengthen the Tehran dictatorship. President Ahmadinejad would play the patriot and manipulate nationalism to rally the population behind him. He would use a US military attack as an excuse to further crack down on dissent in the name of safeguarding national security.

The overthrow of the theocratic police state by the Iranian people – not by US military intervention – is the best way to resolve the nuclear crisis and prevent a needless, unjustified war. With no dictatorship in Tehran, President Bush and the neo cons would lose the rationale for a military strike against Iran.”

Galloway’s insinuation that I am banging the war drum and siding with imperialism is both laughable and dishonourable.

For nearly 40 years I have supported the Iranian people’s struggle against dictatorship, first against the western-backed Shah and, since 1979, against the clerical tyranny of the ayatollahs. I have been totally consistent. I am not suddenly focusing on Iran’s human rights abuses and doing the dirty work of the Washington neocons, as Galloway seems to suggest.

Undeterred by criticisms that his outbursts collude with homophobia and with a viciously anti-gay regime in Tehran, Mr Galloway boasts: “I have an unblemished record of support for lesbian and gay equality.”

Well, not quite. The Public Whip website (which monitors MPs votes) notes that Galloway did not vote on 8 out of 10 of the major parliamentary votes on gay law reform in recent years. His repeat absence is a strange way to express support for gay rights. Most other MPs turned up to vote. Why not George?

Galloway is, of course, a Respect MP. A commitment to gay rights was entirely absent from Respect’s 2005 general election manifesto. Some insiders claim gay equality was originally included but was removed to appease Muslim fundamentalist voters (this apparent assumption by Respect that all Muslims are homophobic fundamentalists is just plain wrong – they are not).

The policy section of the Respect website has included a one-line opposition to discrimination based on sexual orientation but it is hidden away under “other policies”. Not exactly upfront.

One of Respect’s major funders is Dr Mohammed Naseem. He is a one-time member of their executive and was a Respect parliamentary candidate. He is also a leading member of the Islamic Party of Britain (IPB) which appears to advocate the death penalty for consenting adult homosexuality in certain circumstances.

The IPB is viciously homophobic in other respects too, as it’s website explains, and as my OutRage! colleague, Brett Lock, has revealed.

Naseem is a strange bedfellow for a supposedly pro-gay rights MP.

George Galloway was magnificent before the US Senate, exposing the Iraq debacle. Sadly, he now sometimes seems to be exonerating a cruel, unjust regime in Tehran that is responsible for some of the worst state-sanctioned homophobia in the world. This regime is also responsible for the equally heinous persecution of trade unionists, women’s rights campaigners, student leaders, human rights advocates, investigative journalists and activists who defend Iran’s subjugated minority nationalities, such as the Kurds, Arabs and Baluchis.

Misguided, untruthful attacks on Iranian gay people, the queer rights movement and the pink community do not strengthen the antiwar movement and the struggle against US imperialism. On the contrary, they play straight into the hands of the tyrants in Tehran and their mirror opposites in Washington. They betray all Iranians who are yearning and striving for democracy, human rights, social justice and the self-rule of Iran’s oppressed minority nations.

Treating people like cattle

JamieSW — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 13:46:55 +0000

The abusive conditions in which live farm animals are transported has rightly provoked immense outrage. But the inhuman conditions in which prisoners are transported around the country merits no outcry at all. Why the double standards?

Prisoners, many of them on remand, who later will be found innocent of any crime, are packed into claustrophobic sweatbox prison vans. Victims describe the experience as dehumanising. Some say they felt like sheep in slaughterhouse pens or like slaves on the Atlantic crossing.

These prison transit vehicles are run by private companies such as GSL. They operate under contract on behalf of the prison service.

Inside many of these Home Office-approved human cattle trucks, each prisoner is locked in a tiny coffin-like cubicle measuring about 34in by 24in, with a 10in square clear plastic window. The cubicles have a height of around five feet, which means that most detainees are unable to stand up. They have to remain seated on a small hard metal seat with no seatbelts. Every time the prison van swerves and brakes, they get shaken around. There is no protection from serious injury or death in the event of a traffic accident.

Many prisoners spend long hours in these vans as they are transported, sometimes hundreds of miles, between courts and prisons. They usually get no fresh air or exercise, no food or water and no toilet facilities. They are expected to piss and shit in their cubicles.

No one expects five-star prison vans, but a minimum standard of basic decency – like toilet facilities, water and food on long journeys – seems a reasonable expectation of a civilised society.

Even children and teenagers have been subjected to these depraved Victorian asylum-like conditions. Baroness Anelay of St Johns expressed to the House of Lords “significant concerns that we have about the conditions and treatment of children during transportation from both court to custody and between establishments. The conditions in which the children are transported are often very poor. Young people report spending lengthy periods in what are only, after all, sweatboxes, without access to food and water or regular toilet breaks.”

Following an inspection of Onley young offender institution last year, the report of the chief inspector of prisons, Anne Owers, stated: “It is deplorable to find, as we did, that some young people were not only reduced to urinating in the escort vehicle, but also had to clean it out on arrival”.

Retired midwife and peace campaigner Olivia Agate told the Guardian how she spent five hours in a prison van: “During the journey, a woman shouted out that she was going to be sick but the staff ignored her … We could hear the poor girl retching but the van carried on. When we got to Durham, the smell was awful.”

I think we can all imagine the effect that transportation in these barbaric conditions has on people who are physically ill, traumatised, mentally unstable or claustrophobic – especially the many thousands of people who are innocent victims of wrongful arrests or convictions.

Moreover, even if the people in transit are guilty of crimes, this is no excuse for the Home Office and prison service, in our name, to stoop to the level of criminals and degrade their fellow human beings in this way.

Peter Simon, a black activist, was arrested following a protest in support families and young people last month. He has firsthand experience of how Serco treats prisoners in transit. This is part of his account of what he alleges happened to him:

“The attendant gestured toward the opening of the chamber and mumbled, ‘crouch in’ while directing me to step upwards into the little booth … (He) began battering his shoulder hard against the door of my cubicle from the outside, compressing me further within, ramming again … I was now beginning to feel like a black-skinned slave tight-packed (as of old, albeit in a different variation of the hell) out of some kind of sadistic lust for human degradation and profit … My mouth was drying up even more and a slow panic was beginning to ensue. My chest was getting tighter … my heart rate had risen to just over 95 bpm and getting to 100 and I was floundering … the sickness churned again in my stomach. I suffered a cramp attack in the left leg. But I could not in any way stretch to alleviate the agony, and I found myself groaning out in despair. I called out to the attendant to let him know I was ill. He lifted his head but remained seated. The lack of ventilation (too). I was feeling so light-headed, tight-packed and boxed. I gasped, lost consciousness.”

These are symptomatic of the wider abuses of the prison service, which Juliet Lyon, Director the Prison Reform Trust, discussed when I interviewed her for my Talking With Tatchell online TV series. You can watch the interview here. The fact that abuses are endemic in the whole prison system is no excuse to ignore, downplay or accept the abuses in the transportation system.

The humiliation and degradation of the prison van system happens with the knowledge of the home secretary Jacqui Smith and the director of the prison service, Phil Wheatley. They are aware of the squalid conditions, yet they continue to license companies like Serco and GSL which perpetrate this abuse.

These state-sanctioned human rights abuses are a criminal enterprise. The home secretary, director of prison service and the heads of GSL and Serco should, in my opinion, be prosecuted and put behind bars.

It is this kind of government-authorised inhumanity that has driven me and thousands of other people to leave the Labour party we once loved and served. It is now a party that all too often panders to the lynch mob mentality and authorises the brutalisation of other human beings in order to grab a few more tainted law and order votes. Shame on Gordon Brown and Jacqui Smith. New Labour. New abuses.

Welcoming a Tyrant

Ellie Keen — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 22:35:00 +0000

The Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf is in Britain to drum up support for his tyrannical regime. His visit is a desperate PR ploy, designed to repair the damage caused by his repressive policies. These include the imposition of emergency rule late last year, which led to media censorship, violent suppression of popular protests, mass arrests of opposition party leaders and activists, and the crushing of the independent judiciary, with the detention of over 60 supreme court judges and lawyers.

Musharraf misleadingly justified emergency rule in the name of a crackdown on terrorism. In truth, instead of arresting terrorists, he seized thousands of peaceful opposition party officials and members. Since Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, tens of thousands more have been detained.

Gordon Brown refuses to meet the Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe, but on Monday he will embrace Musharraf of Pakistan at 10 Downing Street. No surprise there. After all, Britain and the US are long-time allies and supporters of Musharraf’s dictatorship. Despite occasional mild admonishments, our government, in our name, supports him politically, diplomatically, economically and militarily; selling Musharraf the weapons he uses to suppress his own people. Since 2001, the US has bankrolled Musharaf to the tune of $10bn. US fighter planes are used to bomb and strafe pro-nationalist towns and villages in annexed and colonised Baluchistan. Without western aid to support this state terrorism, Musharraf’s regime would fall.

Musharraf will, as usual, claim that he is saving Pakistan from Islamic fundamentalism and holding the fort against the terror threat of al-Qaida and the Taliban. He will portray the “tribal regions” of Pakistan, like Waziristan and North West Frontier, as hotbeds of extremism and terrorism that only he can control; wilfully suppressing all knowledge of the gross human rights abuses perpetrated by his subjugating army in the these regions and the legitimate liberation struggles of the people there.

Our prime minister will fall for this hogwash and spin. He will parrot Islamabad’s line that we need Musharraf as an ally in the so-called “war on terror” and that without him the country would be taken over by Islamist extremists.

Nonsense. The extremists are already in the Pakistani government, army, police and intelligence services. These state agencies are heavily infiltrated by fundamentalists and Musharraf has failed to remove them.

Moreover, if there were free and fair elections, the opposition parties would win and could start addressing some of the underlying injustices in Pakistani society that have allowed fundamentalist ideas to gain a foothold. Democracy is the best safeguard against dictatorship, whether of the Musharraf or Islamist variety.

The elephant in the room during Monday’s Downing Street meeting with Gordon Brown will be Musharraf’s complicity in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and the subsequent attempted cover-up.

The Pakistani leader has form with regard to political assassinations. In 2006, his forces murdered the frail 79-year-old Baluchistan nationalist leader, Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, a former provincial governor and chief minister of Baluchistan. Previously an independent nation, Baluchistan was invaded and occupied by Pakistan in 1948. Another Baluch leader, Balach Marri, was killed by Pakistani forces last November.

So far as Bhutto’s murder is concerned, Musharraf was the main beneficiary. He has gained the most from her death. She was his main political rival and a likely election winner. With Bhutto dead, Musharraf’s chances of election in next month’s poll are much improved.

Musharraf is a guilty man. Three scenarios of guilt are possible. Either he personally ordered Bhutto’s assassination or he failed to control the rogue elements in the military and intelligence services that killed her. Even if Islamist radicals murdered her, he neglected to provide Bhutto with adequate personal security and he refused her requests for greater protection. Either way, to varying degrees, Musharraf was complicit in Benazir’s assassination. The buck stops with him.

Musharraf has, however, been busy trying to pin the blame on North West Frontier nationalist leader Baitullah Mehsud. This report by Mushtaq Yusufzai and Javed Afridi for the Pakistani newspaper, The News, casts doubt on these claims. I cannot vouch for the allegations made in this story, but they strike me as plausible and worthy of serious consideration. It is worth reading the story in full here:

PESHAWAR: Militant commander Baitullah Mehsud, accused of masterminding the suicide attack that killed former prime minister and PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi, has rejected the allegations as baseless.

“We are equally grieved by the tragic death of Benazir Bhutto and extend our sympathies to her family and party workers in this hour of grief,” said Maulvi Omar, a spokesman for Baitullah Mehsud.

“Why on earth would we kill her? We had no enmity with her and more importantly she had done no wrong to us,” Maulvi Omar said.

“By blaming us for the murder of an important political leader like Benazir Bhutto, the government is in fact misguiding the world. Planning such actions is simply beyond our imagination,” he claimed.

He alleged that the government was attempting to portray the tribal areas as centres of terrorists so as to earn dollars from, what he termed as, Western masters.

While there is good reason to be sceptical of such denials, in the past Mehsud has never been shy of claiming responsibility for his military operations. Moreover, he stood to gain from Bhutto’s election. She had, after all, promised greater autonomy for the provinces and an end to Musharraf’s brutal suppression of minority tribes and nationalities. Although Mehsud may have ordered the assassination, it seems doubtful.

Gordon Brown’s willingness to fete a despot like Musharraf is an insult to the millions of Pakistani people who oppose tyranny and yearn for democracy and human rights. New Labour is yet again colluding with oppression. It is siding with a dictator against his victims.

When the prime minister embraces Musharraf on Monday, I will be joining the Pakistani protests outside Downing Street at 11am. We will be there in solidarity with the people of Pakistan who want an end to Musharraf’s dictatorship. I hope some of you will join us.

Asylum System is Criminal

Ellie Keen — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 02:13:57 +0000

Britain’s asylum system is a regime that includes government-tolerated criminality. Illegal acts and the abuse of asylum applicants are allowed to happen and are not punished. Many of these violations of the rule of law are perpetrated by the private companies that are contracted by the Home Office to run asylum detention camps and the deportation of would-be refugees.

This outsourcing of asylum abuses echoes the US policy of extraordinary rendition and torture of terror suspects in third countries. It does not, however, relieve the government of ultimate responsibility for criminal acts committed by others on its behalf and in pursuit of its objectives. The buck stops with the Home Office.

Home Office ministers and officials should be sacked. They should also face criminal charges of failing in their duty of care.

The latest evidence against them comes in a shocking new report by the government’s own watchdog, the Border and Immigration Agency Complaints Audit Committee.

The report is one of the most damning condemnations ever made concerning the Home Office and its private agents. It reveals “glaring failures” and widespread abuses of people facing deportation, including allegations of racism, discrimination and physical assault by contractors hired by the Home Office’s Border and Immigration Agency.

The Audit Committee said complaints about mistreatment by immigrants and asylum applicants were often not followed up. It found that only 8% of complainants were interviewed and 89% of investigations were “neither balanced nor thorough”.

The committee revealed that 19% of misconduct complaints against deportation agencies in 2006/07 concerned criminal behaviour – a rise of 12% over 2005/06.

It condemned the denial of legal and human rights to deportees by the private firms who act on behalf of the Home Office; detailing “glaring errors” in dealing with complaints about the mistreatment of people being deported from the UK.

The committee’s report says investigations into misconduct complaints have been “poor”, with 71% of complaints not being completed within time targets. In 95% of cases, those investigating the complaints had been from the companies under investigation. “Upwards of 20%” of records sought by the committee were missing and 83% of replies received were “indefensible”.

The report says complaints of wrong-doing are of “grave concern to us because of the risks of injury or death, wrongful arrest and civil liability arising from the arrest, detention and removal of failed asylum seekers”.

In a case highlighted by the BBC in its report on the committee’s findings, asylum seeker Apollo Okello said he had been bundled on to a plane at Heathrow Airport and refused permission to see his lawyer, despite the security guards knowing he already had permission to stay in the UK. He says he was beaten up in the back of a van: “That’s where I was punched – my ribs, my eyes, my neck, my back.” Mr Okello also said one of the guards told him: “These black monkeys don’t want to go back to their country.”

I can corroborate these patterns of abuse from my own recent work with asylum claimants.

Although they have committed no crimes, they are held in detention centres, such as the notorious Campsfield House in Oxfordshire. These are prisons in all but name. People mostly get put in detention if the Home Office thinks their claims are unfounded and or if they come from a “white list” country which is deemed to be safe. In other words, the Home Office prejudges their application.

In detention centres, run by private contractors appointed by the Home Office, asylum claimants are at the whim and mercy of the guards. Many guards are caring, fair and commendable. But in cases bought to my attention, some guards are bigoted and brutal.

Violent assaults do sometimes take place. They happen mostly in the “blind” areas, where there are no CCTV cameras. They also occur in the internal prisons within the detention centres – the high security segregation units – where “troublemakers” who try to assert their legal rights are sometimes punished.

As well as racist, misogynistic, anti-Muslim and homophobic insults, abuses include unjustified strip-searches and internal genital examinations. There are no checks and balances to protect against these violations. The systems of redress are woefully inadequate. Detainees are virtually powerless.

A Ugandan torture and rape victim I am supporting, KM, was held in detention for six months, without receiving any medical treatment or psychological counselling. He says requests for treatment are frequently ignored and people suffering severe trauma are sometimes fobbed off with aspirin.

Some claimants are deported illegally, without removal orders being served. Others get deported, even though they have a pending judicial review of the decision to refuse them asylum. Having an upcoming case in the High Court is no bar to the Home Office forcibly removing someone from the UK.

Despite filing for a judicial review of the decision to deny him asylum, a Jamaican national, EB, was forcibly repatriated. When he got off the plane in Kingston, he could barely walk. EB alleges his injuries were from violent beatings by Home Office-contracted security guards who forced him on to the plane and held him down in his seat during the flight.

I have experienced people being served with deportation notices while awaiting medical examinations to confirm their claims of torture. Their removal looks like a deliberate attempt to thwart medical corroboration. Even those who have their claims of torture confirmed by the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture are not safe. Some still get deported, without any court ever being allowed to consider the medical evidence.

It is not unknown for the Home Office to serve removal notices with little or no warning, perhaps just an hour before asylum applicants are carted off to the airport. This leaves lawyers insufficient time to challenge the deportation.

I am also aware of detainees who have had phone access confiscated when they are due for removal. This means they cannot contact their solicitors. They end up on the next plane out of Heathrow.

One of my asylum applicants in a London detention centre was bussed to Scotland shortly before his deportation order was served. His removal from English legal jurisdiction seems to have been calculated to make it as difficult as possible for his solicitor to take last minute action to halt him being sent back to Uganda.

Asylum seekers scheduled for deportation can be shackled, bound and forcibly injected with sedating medication, according to eye-witness accounts I have received. To stop deportees screaming en route to the plane, some escorts allegedly apply semi-strangulating thumb pressure to the throat and twist handcuffs so tight that they pinch wrist nerves and cut the flesh, leaving some victims complaining of semi-permanent nerve damage.

Home Office ministers cannot blithely claim they are unaware of these abuses. If they don’t know, they should. It is their responsibility. If they do know, why are they allowing it to continue?

The Border and Immigration Agency Complaints Audit Committee has highlighted many complaints of abuse and the failure of the government to remedy them. The Home Office is responsible for the Border and Immigration Agency and its private contactors. The buck stops with the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith MP, and her immigration minister, Liam Byrne MP.

This report is so damning, and the abuses so serious and widespread, that these ministers should be sacked and face criminal charges of negligence in their duty of care towards immigrants and asylum applicants.

Green is the new red

JamieSW — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 00:00:52 +0000

For two decades, the Labour left has been marginalised and on the defensive as New Labour has ditched socialism and the trade union movement. The Labour leadership has sacrificed socialist values and policies for short-term political gain; seeking office at the expense of social change. It has pandered to prejudice and irrationality on issues like asylum, drugs, terrorism, Europe and crime.

Internal Labour Party democracy is largely destroyed and members have no meaningful say about anything. Labour’s annual conference has been neutered, no longer deciding policy – every key decision is now determined by Gordon Brown and his inner circle.

This is autocracy, not democracy with party members reduced to cheerleaders and election fodder. Labour is now beyond reform, even if a majority of party members wanted a socialist agenda, the leadership would veto it. The era when Labour was the party of the left is over – forever.

New Labour has never been committed to the redistribution of wealth and power, the gap between rich and poor has widened since 1997 and Gordon Brown, like his predecessor Tony Blair, spends more time with millionaires than with trade union leaders. In the name of the ‘war on terror,’ the government is curtailing freedom and liberties on a scale unprecedented in peacetime. The snooping, surveillance state is fast becoming a reality, with ID cards, CCTV and widespread email and phone interception.

Labour’s great, historic achievement was the creation of the NHS and the Welfare State but Gordon Brown is gradually dismantling it. This creeping privatisation of health and education is something that not even Margaret Thatcher attempted. Blair and Brown have out-thatchered Thatcher.

The only alternative?

This poses a huge dilemma for the many good socialists who remain inside the Labour Party. Why stay with a party that isn’t even democratic, let alone socialist? What is the alternative?

The most significant left alternative to Labour is Respect, but it is politically compromised. Following in New Labour’s footsteps, it has an authoritarian, command-style leadership that has declared it is not a socialist party. They even support the monarchy!

The possibility of securing socialism through New Labour or left alternatives like Respect is zero. There is only one left option left – the Green Party, which is why I joined and why I am standing as the Green Party’s parliamentary candidate for Oxford East.

The Greens are now the most progressive force in British politics. With our radical agenda for grassroots democracy, social justice, human rights, global equity, environmental protection, peace and internationalism we are well to the left of New Labour and the Liberal Democrats.

Green is the new red

Green is the new red – an empowering political paradigm for human liberation which offers the most credible alternative to New Labour and the best hope for radical social progress.

Unlike the far left sects, the Greens are winners with a wide base of national support. We have dozens of local councillors and elected London Assembly and in the Scottish and European Parliament members. In the last European elections, the Greens won 6.2% of the vote in England, a promising and growing base of support from which to build an alternative radical politics.

If more leftwingers and progressive social movements united together in the Green Party, the Greens could do even better. We have the potential to become an influential electoral force, with the likely election of the first Green MPs soon.

A substantial and growing Green vote at local, regional, European and Westminster elections would pressure New Labour and the Liberal Democrats to adopt more left-leaning and pro-environmental policies. Perhaps, one day, the Greens might even hold the balance of power in parliament.

The Greens are not obsessed with elections and parliament, we are also committed to grassroots direct action protest and community empowerment. As Labour has moved from left to right, the Greens have shifted from centre-left to radical left, now occupying the progressive political space once held by left Labour.

The Green Party’s Manifesto for a Sustainable Society incorporates key socialist principles. Rejecting privatisation, free market economics and globalisation, and it includes commitments to public ownership, worker’s rights, economic democracy, progressive taxation and the redistribution of wealth and power.

The Green’s synthesis of ecology and socialism integrates policies for social justice and human rights with an agenda for tackling the catastrophic dangers posed by global warming, environmental pollution, resource depletion and species extinction.

The Greens recognise that preventing ecological cataclysm requires constraints on the power of big corporations. Profiteering and free trade has to be subordinated to policies for the survival of humanity. In other words, we need controls on business for the common good. Public interest must come before private profit. This sounds like socialism to me.

A red-green alliance

True, the Green Party includes people who are not on the radical left. The past political alliances and policies of some elected Green councillors have been a big mistake. Green Party members recognise these errors and are working to make sure they don’t happen again. There has never been a perfect left-wing party and there never will be but the Greens are our best hope.

Left-wing critics complain that the Greens are not a pure socialist party and are not working class-based. But look at the implications of what the Greens say; their goals and policies are often similar to the left’s – without the left-wing jargon. Despite a different way of expressing things, what the Greens advocate is, in essence, socialistic.

The Greens are building links with organised labour, we have a Green Party trade union group and Green conferences and public meetings increasingly feature trade union activists. Local Green councillors have been in the forefront of supporting union struggles, including the NHS and postal workers. With more leftwingers inside the party, the Greens would undoubtedly strengthen their ties to the labour movement.

Cooperation with the unions has great potential. Working with the Greens, the Australian construction and transport unions enforced ‘green bans’ on environmentally destructive big business developments that threatened inner-city working class communities. This shows how workers and greens can cooperate for the betterment of all.

The great virtue of the Green Party is that it is a grassroots democratic party, controlled by the ordinary membership with no power elite or embedded hierarchy. It is not a top-down, centralist party like New Labour.

Thousands of socialists have left New Labour in despair and disgust, many have already joined the Greens helping accelerate our leftward trajectory. If more socialists joined, the Green Party would move even further left.

Unlike New Labour, the Greens value idealism and principles. We have a vision of a radically different kind of society, which makes us receptive to left alternatives.

For all these reasons, the most effective way to advance the left nowadays is to join the Greens. Fusing the best of the red and the green would strengthen both strands of progressive politics, offering a powerful, united challenge to neo-liberal orthodoxy. The potential is there. Seize it. Now is the time for reds to go green.

Further information regarding Peter Tatchell’s campaigns www.petertatchell.net and www.greenoxford.com/peter

Figures of Disgrace

Tim Holmes — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 16:08:37 +0000

In order to appease the anti-asylum vote and attempt to meet its asylum reduction targets, the government has deliberately erected so many obstacles to claiming asylum that even genuine refugees are nowadays labelled as bogus and deported.

The Home Office minister Tony McNulty has announced, with a fanfare of pride and publicity, that in 2006 the government cut the number of asylum applications and increased the number of deportations.

Asylum applications have dropped to the lowest level for 14 years, with the number of people applying for refugee status in the UK falling to 23,610 in 2006. Statistics show deportations in the second quarter of 2007 fell by 6% compared with the same period last year. But the overall trend of the last year is that the number of asylum seekers deported from the UK rose by 17% in 2006; with deportations totalling 18,280.

Labour and the Daily Mail are jumping for joy. For the many genuine refugees who are wrongly branded by the Home Office as “failed” asylum seekers, this get-tough policy is a humanitarian disaster. Some are being sent back to countries where they are at risk of arrest, jail, torture, vigilante attacks, death squads and worse.

The truth is that much of the government’s “success” in cutting asylum numbers and hiking deportations is because it has shamelessly rigged the asylum system to ensure the failure of as many applicants as possible.

This is a cynical, ruthless, immoral policy – devoid of compassion and humanity. Labour’s pride in its rigged asylum system is one reason why so many people, like me, have left Labour in droves. We can no longer stomach this heartless, dishonest government, which brags that it deports one asylum seeker “every eight minutes”.

I have no objection to the removal of people who make false, fraudulent claims. There are some bogus claimants who abuse the system. Their applications should be rejected. But I know from firsthand experience that many genuine refugees get labelled by the Home Office as crooks and charlatans.

I have assisted asylum applicants for over 20 years – not only gays and lesbians, but also people who have suffered political and religious persecution. In the last couple of years alone, I have helped over 100 refugees who were declared by the government to be “not genuine”. With my help, and the assistance of others, all but two of these applicants were eventually able to corroborate their harrowing accounts of brutalities such as imprisonment, torture, rape and the murder of their loved ones.

The fact is that many, if not most, asylum applications “fail” because of poor or non-existent legal representation, not because the claims are unfounded.

A majority of the asylum seekers who contacted me had no solicitors. They had been abandoned. A few never had solicitors in the first place. With no legal representation, and often speaking little or no English, no wonder they failed at their first attempt to get asylum.

Apart from two claimants, all the asylum applicants I have supported had no income and were dependent on legal aid. A dwindling number of legal aid solicitors do a good job. Many let down their clients. Some are third rate and incompetent or, more usually, they are under-funded and over-burdened with asylum claims.

The Home Office has a list of legal aid solicitors it recommends to asylum claimants. It just so happens that most of these firms have a high failure rate, which is very convenient for a government hell-bent on slashing asylum numbers.

The talk on the asylum street is that shoddy solicitors gravitate to asylum work because it is easy pickings, with little competition from first-rate lawyers. It certainly looks that way from my experience.

In one case with which I was involved, a Home Office-approved legal aid practitioner acting for ex-Soviet bloc asylum applicants was so incompetent that I had to advise him on basic points of law.

Cuts in legal aid funding mean that many reputable solicitors no longer take on asylum cases. They say it is impossible to do a decent job representing asylum applicants with such miserable levels of funding.

All the solicitors I have spoken to agree that the number of hours paid by legal aid for the preparation of each asylum application is insufficient. It does not cover all the work required to produce a professional application or appeal.

The preparation of a proper asylum case involves a solicitor taking a detailed statement from the applicant, which can be especially slow and laborious because many applicants do not speak English and are deeply traumatised due to torture or to the murder of their friends and family.

Case preparation also involves securing corroborating affidavits from witnesses and family members in far-flung countries, obtaining expert reports from academics and human rights groups, organising medical examinations and documentation to confirm assault and torture, and researching the legal basis of the claim and the relevant case law.

The government expects legal aid solicitors to be able to do all this with a mere few hours’ work. In most cases, this is impossible. The wholly inadequate legal aid fees mean that most asylum applicants never have their case adequately presented to the Home Office – which is the way the government likes it, because it increases the “fail” rate and boosts deportations.

The under-funding of legal aid asylum cases means that many reputable law firms have pulled out of asylum work. A few firms struggle on heroically, doing good quality legal aid asylum work at a financial loss.

This leaves the field open to less scrupulous solicitors. Some see asylum applicants as cash cows. They know the legal aid money is inadequate. They realise they won’t be able to prepare a proper claim. But they just take the money and a present a half-baked submission on behalf of their client.

The legal aid solicitor for one of my Palestinian claimants represented her at an asylum hearing based on a 20-minute interview conducted one hour before the case began. This was not long enough to document her full story, let alone get any supportive evidence. At the hearing, key aspects of her persecution as a Muslim woman were never heard and no corroborating documentation was presented. No wonder she “failed”.

One Iranian I am assisting is represented by a firm of legal aid solicitors recommended by the Home Office. They told him they did not “have time” to record his story of persecution and, anyway, it was “too complicated”. Without the applicant’s approval, they presented an asylum tribunal with a plausible – but entirely fictitious – story, which had nothing to do with his actual experience of human rights abuses in Iran. I can only assume that this firm also presents bogus evidence in other “complicated” cases. The Home Office under-funding of legal aid encourages such abuses. It is an open invitation to unscrupulous laws firms to take short-cuts and manipulate the system.

The government’s fast-track system is designed to speed up the processing of claims and expedite the removal of “failed” asylum seekers. A solicitor assigned to a new claimant often gets less than 24 hours notice of their client’s Home Office hearing. Unsurprisingly, the refusal rate is high. If the claim is refused, the appeal can be scheduled for as little as a week or so later – which is rarely enough time to get additional supportive evidence.

My experience is not untypical. Similar complaints about the asylum system are reported by other organisations working with asylum applicants, such as the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns.

Bail Circle, and the London Detainees Support Group.

Home Office ministers like Tony McNulty cannot claim they are unaware that the asylum system is rigged to fail as many applicants as possible. They cannot plead ignorance about the woeful inadequacy of legal aid funding. If they don’t know, they should know. It is their responsibility. If they do know, why are they allowing it to continue?

Inhumanity to Animals

eddie — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 14:27:06 +0000

Conditions for animals in Britain’s research laboratories fall short of new Europe-wide guidelines which came into force last month. These deficiencies contrast with the government’s frequent claim that Britain has the strictest animal welfare regulations in the world.

Widespread violations of the new guidelines have been highlighted by the Dr Hadwen Trust for Humane Research which funds non-animal techniques to replace animal experiments. It says university labs tend to be the worst offenders.

The new Europe-wide guidelines, designed to improve animal housing and care in medical research laboratories, are contained in a revised appendix to Council of Europe Convention ETS 123 – European Convention for the Protection of Vertebrate Animals used for Experimental and Other Scientific Purposes which was unanimously adopted by signatory parties, including Britain, on 15 June 2006 and which came into force in June this year.

In many aspects, the British Codes of Practice (CoP) for the housing of laboratory animals are significantly lower than the new European recommendations.

In a letter to the Dr Hadwen Trust, the Animals Scientific Procedures Division of the Home Office admits it has not announced a revision of Britain’s CoP to meet the new standards nor taken measures to ensure that British laboratories will be compliant. In fact, the government has ignored requests by MPs to make Convention compliance mandatory within the UK. Of particular concern, Home Office advice on minimum cage sizes for some primates falls dramatically short of what the Convention now recognises as best practice in the interests of animal welfare.

Britain is the largest user of laboratory primates in Europe, with more than 4,600 experiments performed on these animals each year.

It is widely recognised that primates are thinking, feeling creatures with many human-like traits, including affection, intelligence and altruism. Evidence suggests that imprisonment and invasive experiments cause them physical and psychological damage in ways not dissimilar to that experienced by humans who are subjected to comparable suffering.

However, despite their genetic and social closeness to human beings, the government has repeatedly rejected appeals to enforce more humane conditions. Minimum cage sizes for some primate species in Britain’s CoP are up to eight times smaller than the new European recommendations.

For example, cages for smaller marmosets should be twice as big; for tamarins less than 0.7kg they should be six times bigger; for squirrel monkeys less than 0.7kg they should be eight times bigger; and for macaques and vervets the cages should be up to seven times bigger.

Dr Gill Langley, science director at the Dr Hadwen Trust, says: “Primates are highly sentient animals with complex social and environmental needs that will always be seriously compromised in any laboratory. Macaques and marmosets are denied the space and freedom of their natural forest homes and have to endure procedures like brain damage, force-feeding with toxins and the infliction of debilitating diseases. At the very least the government should have ensured that housing conditions met or exceeded the new minimum standards, but instead they appear to be treating the welfare of animals with contempt.”

Housing standards for other species are also now considered out of date. Guinea pigs, gerbils and rabbits should all be provided with more than double the space currently recommended by the Home Office, and enclosures for pairs of cats should be almost seven times wider and four times higher.

Dr Langley, who served for eight years on the Animal Procedures Committee (APC) which advises the government on animal research issues, warns that British universities and medical schools are likely to have the poorest housing standards for laboratory animals. They represent the largest single category of UK laboratory animal use (43.5% of the total) and yet are least likely to exceed even the current entirely inadequate UK Codes of Practice.

In its letter to the Dr Hadwen Trust, the Home Office admits it has merely advised research establishments to take note of the new recommendations when refurbishing their laboratory facilities, and that it has not pressed them to enforce the regulations. In reality, refurbishment is infrequent, particularly for universities which are more likely to be financially constrained. The consequence is that a large proportion of labs still fall far below the new minimum welfare guidelines.

Paragraph 7 of the Introduction to the Convention’s revised Appendix A states: “If existing facilities or equipment do not conform to the present guidelines, these should be altered or replaced within a reasonable period of time, having regard to animal welfare priorities and financial and practical concerns.”

This was never intended as a get-out clause, to allow researchers to indefinitely postpone upgrades to animal housing conditions. Yet many research establishments are treating it as an excuse to delay the required improvements to some distant, unspecified point in the future.

Despite being a signatory to the Council of Europe Convention, the UK government has not made conformity with the new guidelines compulsory for British animal research laboratories and there is no penalty for non-compliance, so labs have little incentive to replace outdated, cramped animal housing.

“The government has taken no meaningful action to implement these new guidelines, despite ample time,” reports Dr Langley. “That betrays a worrying lack of interest in the suffering of laboratory animals. Discussions in Europe have been on-going for more than eight years, and the new housing sizes finally agreed a year ago, yet the government has done little to improve conditions and laboratories are effectively free to ignore the new guidelines.

“The government’s often-stated claim to have the highest standards in the world has always been a sham from the animals’ perspective. They endure months or years of experiments confined in small and inadequate conditions that we wouldn’t dream of keeping our own pets in. Flouting the Council of Europe Convention’s guidelines sends out a very clear message to the British research community that animal suffering simply doesn’t matter enough. If the government’s commitment simply to providing better housing for lab animals is so weak, what confidence can we have that its commitment is genuine in other areas it claims to prioritise, such as the replacement of animal experiments?”

Equality is Still a Dream

Alex Doherty — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 12:16:06 +0000

If you thought the battle for gay human rights was won, think again. Because the high court has ruled that lesbian and gay people are not entitled to legal equality.

Sir Mark Potter, president of the family division, dismissed an application by a British lesbian couple, Sue Wilkinson and Celia Kitzinger to have their Canadian marriage recognised in the UK. They were lawfully married in Canada in 2003 after the marriage laws in the province of British Columbia were opened up to same-sex partners.

Potter effectively declared that homophobic discrimination was justified in order to protect the tradition of heterosexual marriage. In his view, loving, long-term same-sex relationships clearly do not merit recognition on a par with their opposite-sex counterparts, and the law is right to uphold the legal supremacy of heterosexuality.

Sir Mark’s judgment will be seen by many people as a throwback to the dark ages of judicial homophobia. It could have been authored by the Christian fundamentalists of the rightwing Evangelical Alliance. The anti-gay bigots are rejoicing; the queer community and our heterosexual allies are stunned.

This ruling is further evidence of the institutional homophobia at the heart of the legal system. Equality? What equality? Equal treatment by the courts is still just a dream for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Wilkinson and Kitzinger, who have been together for 16 years, argue that since all marriages conducted lawfully abroad are recognised by the UK authorities, their marriage should be also accorded official recognition.

For an overseas marriage to be accepted in the UK, the partners must show that their marriage is lawful, that it is recognised in the country in which the marriage took place, and that nothing in the law of the country where they were married restricted their right to marry.

Wilkinson and Kitzinger say their marriage fulfils these requirements. They therefore applied to the High Court to have their Canadian marriage recognised in the UK, in the same way that heterosexual marriages in Canada are recognised by the UK authorities.

But the British (Labour!) government downgraded Wilkinson’s and Kitzinger’s marriage to a civil partnership; refusing to recognise them as a married couple.

Wilkinson and Kitzinger rejected the conversion of their marriage into a civil partnership, believing this to be, symbolically and practically, an inferior substitute. They argued that the failure to recognise the validity of their marriage constitutes a breach of their rights under Articles 8 (right to respect for private and family life), 12 (right to marry) and 14 (prohibition of discrimination) of the European convention on human rights, which is incorporated into UK law by the Human Rights Act 1998.

But Potter rejected their application, claiming that granting their request would risk undermining the “valued” and “respected” institution of marriage.

While acknowledging that the couple had been discriminated against by the non-recognition of their marriage, he said this discrimination was justified in order to protect the traditional “long-standing definition and acceptance” of marriage as a union between a man and a woman with the primary aim of producing children.

“The majority of people … regard marriage as an age-old institution, valued and valuable, respectable and respected, as a means not only of encouraging monogamy but also the procreation of children,” Potter wrote in his ruling.

“This form of relationship [heterosexual marriage] is the one which best encourages stability in a well-regulated society.”

Same-sex relationships were “different”, and “to accord a same-sex relationship the title and status of marriage would be to fly in the face of the [European] convention [on Human Rights] as well as to fail to recognise physical reality,” claimed the judge.

Commenting on the high court ruling, Sue Wilkinson said: “We are deeply disappointed by today’s judgment – not just for ourselves, but for same-sex couples nationwide. It perpetuates discrimination and it sends out the message that lesbian and gay marriages are inferior. Denying the validity of our marriage upholds discrimination and inequality. This judgment will not stand the test of time, and we look forward to the day when there is full equality in marriage for same-sex couples.”

Whatever your views on same-sex marriage, Sir Mark Potter’s decision undeniably defies the democratic principle that everyone should be equal before the law. It contradicts the anti-discrimination clauses of the Human Rights Act.

Moreover, his insistence that same-sex couples should accept the inferior status of civil partners is deeply insulting.

Civil partnerships are not equality. The separate systems of marriage and civil partnerships are a form of sexual apartheid, with different laws for gays and straights; marriage is for heterosexuals only, and civil partnerships are for gay people only. Two wrongs do not make a right. Separate is not equal. Civil partnerships are second best. Nothing less than marriage equality is acceptable. The current ban on same-sex marriage in the UK signals the continuing second-class legal status of lesbian, gay and bisexual people.

I am angry, but not downcast. This is a temporary setback in the long struggle for marriage equality. We have lost round one, but the non-recognition of same-sex marriage will be eventually overturned. Justice has been delayed, but it cannot be denied.

Down with Sexual Apartheid

Alex Doherty — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 19:06:59 +0000

A British lesbian couple married lawfully in Canada will this week in the high court in London challenge the UK’s non-recognition of same-sex marriage.

University professors Sue Wilkinson and Celia Kitzinger were married in Canada in August 2003, while Sue was working there, after the province of British Columbia opened up civil marriage to same-sex couples.

Their marriage is fully recognised in Canada. But the UK’s Civil Partnership Act states that same-sex couples who legally marry overseas “are to be treated as having formed a civil partnership”. Sue and Celia are not content with this second-class legal status. They want the UK to recognise their marriage for what it is: a marriage, not a civil partnership.

“A different-sex couple married in Canada would automatically have their marriage recognised as a marriage in the UK. We believe that to operate a different set of rules for same-sex couples is profoundly discriminatory – an affront to social justice and human rights,” said Sue Wilkinson.

“Our lawyers are seeking a declaration of the validity of our marriage, with reference to the European convention of human rights and the Human Rights Act 1998,” added Celia Kitzinger.

Their legal case is part of an international movement to secure the global recognition of Canadian same-sex marriages. In Ireland, another lesbian couple married in Canada, Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan, are mounting a similar legal challenge in the Irish courts. There are also challenges pending in Israel, New Zealand and Hong Kong.

The civil rights watchdog Liberty is providing pro bono legal representation and advice. The lead barrister is Karon Monaghan of Matrix Chambers.

The principle at stake in Sue and Celia’s legal case is very simple. In a democratic society, everyone is supposed to be equal before the law. Refusing to recognise same-sex marriages enacted in Canada is a denial of equality, since opposite-sex Canadian marriages are granted automatic legal recognition in the UK.

This week’s hearing in the high court has potentially huge legal ramifications. It is a historic challenge to a grave injustice; the first step towards overturning the ban on same-sex marriage in Britain.

If the court rules that lesbian and gay marriages enacted overseas are valid in the UK, then it will be difficult, morally and politically, to continue denying same-sex couples the right to marry in the UK. The pressure to end the ban on same-sex marriage is bound to grow, and legal challenges will inevitably follow.

Apologists for civil partnerships claim that Sue and Celia are making a fuss over nothing. Civil partnerships are, they say, civil marriages in all but name. But if the differences are so negligible, why won’t the government recognise overseas same-sex marriages and why won’t it amend the UK’s marriage laws to include same-sex partners?

The truth is that the non-recognition of same-sex marriage is institutional homophobia. It symbolises the continued second-class legal status of lesbian and gay people. We are still not deemed equal citizens deserving of full legal rights.

The Civil Partnership Act was a cause for celebration. It has remedied many of the injustices faced by same-sex couples. But it is not equality. It creates a two-tier system of relationship recognition and rights.

Gay partners remain banned from getting married, and heterosexual couples are excluded from civil partnerships. The homophobia of marriage law is compounded by the heterophobia of civil partnerships. These twin discriminations reinforce and extend inequality. Since the gay community has always demanded equal rights, why should we now settle for discrimination?

Imagine the outcry if the government reserved marriage for white people and introduced a separate partnership register for black couples. It would rightly provoke accusations of racism and apartheid.

Marriage law and civil partnerships legislation are a form of sexual apartheid. They enforce separate rules for heterosexuals and homosexuals, perpetuating discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. Marriage is the gold standard; civil partnerships are marriage-lite for queers; they are second best. No thanks.

Don’t get me wrong. I am no fan of wedlock, given its patriarchal history. Equally, I am no fan of discrimination. Although I don’t want to mimic straight couples, neither do I want to be told that rights available to heterosexuals are denied to me because I am gay. The ban on same-sex marriage is discrimination, and it must go. I say this as someone who would never want to get married but who nevertheless defends the right of others to make that choice.

This is what Sue and Celia’s legal challenge is all about: ending discrimination based on sexual orientation so that every couple can make their own free choices.

Civil Partnerships

Alex Doherty — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 21:08:01 +0000

Hundreds of same-sex couples will this week tie the knot in Britain’s first civil-partnership ceremonies. In registry offices all over the land, lesbian and gay partners will, at last, gain legal recognition.

While this milestone is a cause for celebration, it also has a downside. For the first time in modern British legal history, instead of repealing discrimination parliament has reinforced and extended it. Civil partnerships are for same-sex couples only. Straights are excluded. Conversely, marriage remains reserved for heterosexuals, to the exclusion of gays. The differential treatment of hetero and homo couples is enshrined in law. Welcome to segregation, UK-style.

The homophobia of the ban on same-sex marriage is now compounded by the heterophobia of the ban on opposite-sex civil partnerships. It’s official: one law for heterosexuals and another for lesbians and gays. Since when have two wrongs made a right?

Imagine the outcry if the government prohibited black people from getting married, and established a separate partnership register for non-whites. It would be condemned as racism. Is the segregationist nature of marriage and civil-partnership law much different? By legislating a two-tier system of relationship recognition Labour has, in effect, created a form of legal apartheid based on sexual orientation. In a democracy everyone is supposed to be equal in law. Separate is not equal. The gay community has always insisted on equality. Why should we now accept partnership laws that perpetuate discrimination?

Many of us are not satisfied. According to a Pink Paper poll, half the lesbian and gay community believe “civil partnership is second best to marriage”. When Denmark and the Netherlands introduced civil partnerships, less than 15% of same-sex couples registered their relationship. A similar low take-up is likely in the UK. Some won’t register because they want the gold standard, marriage. Others will remain unregistered because they don’t want to mimic straight lifestyles or to get lumbered with the legal straitjacket of wedlock.

This queer scepticism is echoed by many heterosexual couples. They are increasingly deserting marriage in favour of cohabitation. Time, surely, for a new legal framework of relationship recognition?

Instead of legislating a second-rate version of marriage for gays only, the government could have created a truly modern system of partnership rights for everyone, covering all relationships of mutual care and commitment.

Supportive, caring relations – whether between lovers or friends – are good for the people involved and have a wider social benefit. They enhance a person’s wellbeing and offer support in times of need, as well as diminishing dependence on the state. It is therefore in society’s interest to encourage and reward all such relationships with legal validation and protection.

My proposed civil-commitment pact would allow people to nominate as their next of kin and beneficiary any “significant other” in their life. It could be a lover, but it could also be a sister, carer, housemate or lifelong best friend.

Many non-sexual friendships are as sincere, loyal and enriching as relations between people in love. They, too, should have legal recognition. Restricting partnership rights to people in sexual relationships discriminates against close friends who support each other but are not in a traditional love coupling. If an elderly brother and sister set up house together and care for one another, why shouldn’t they have legal rights?

Unfortunately, few partnerships last a lifetime. Single people account for nearly a third of all households. Friends now play an increasingly important role in people’s lives and support networks. It’s wrong to deny legal rights to close friends who have a strong, supportive bond, just because they are not lovers and don’t have sex.

Similar legislation exists in Tasmania. Legal rights are granted to all relationships of mutual devotion and support, including gay couples, carers and unmarried heterosexual partners. It works Down Under; why not here?

As well as allowing people to nominate any significant person in their life, my civil-commitment pact would offer flexibility and choice. Partners could pick and mix from a menu of rights and responsibilities. Rights concerning tax contributions and social-security benefits would have to be linked together to prevent people claiming the benefits of relationship registration and avoiding the costs. Otherwise, there is no reason why two people should not be free to construct their own unique partnership agreement, tailored to their needs.

We see around us a huge variety of relationships and lifestyles. There are couples who live together, and those who live apart. Some share their finances; others maintain financial independence. The law should reflect and support these diverse relationship choices. The one-size-fits-all model of relationship recognition – exemplified by marriage and civil partnerships – is no longer appropriate.

Peter Tatchell campaigns with the queer rights group OutRage!