Talk on the Amnesty report on Apartheid in Israel planned
May 2023
The Salisbury group, in partnership with Salisbury Concern for Israel Palestine SCIP, are planning a talk on the Amnesty report on the apartheid system in operation against the Palestinians in Israel. The Amnesty report is detailed and follows other reports by B’Tselem and Human Rights Watch on the same subject. There is also a UN report which comes to the same conclusion.
The talk will take place at the United Reform Church in Fisherton Street, Salisbury on 13 June starting at 7:30 and will be given by the Amnesty’s country coordinator for the area. There will be an opportunity for questions after the talk. The event is free with a parting collection.
We are pleased to attach the latest report thanks to group member Lesley for the work in compiling it. Note that although China appears briefly, it remains the country thought to execute more of its citizens than the rest of the world combined but details are a state secret.
The execution of Richard Glossip in Oklahoma has been stayed by the Supreme Court
May 2023
Richard Glossip has been on death row in Oklahoma, USA, for 25 years for a murder it seems likely he did not commit. He was accused of the murder of motel owner Barry van Treese in 1997. The conviction was largely based on the plea bargain struck by Justin Sneed, who has a history of mental illness, in a deal which saved his own life.
Two independent investigations have cast doubt on the veracity of the trial. First the only evidence seemed to be the plea bargain by Sneed who in fact admitted committing the murder. Further testimony by prison inmates was not given to the jury. The State withheld evidence and other evidence was either lost or destroyed by the DA’s office.
As Mr Glossip’s execution date of May 18th draws near, there has been a flurry of activity to get it delayed or vacated. On April 7th, the Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond – a pro death penalty Republican – asked the state Court of Criminal Appeals to vacate the conviction. He said “the only witness to allege Mr Glossip was involved in this case cannot be believed, it is unconscionable for the State to move forward with his execution“.
On April 20th, the Oklahoma Court upholds the conviction. On 26th April the Board of Pardons and Paroles declined to recommend clemency on 2-2 vote which meant the Governor, Kevin Stitt, was unable to do so either.
On May 5th, the Supreme Court of the United States stays the execution pending the disposition of two writs of certiorari. Should they be denied this stay will terminate automatically.
So that is the current position. The case reveals some troubling aspects of the legal system in this instance. Relying on plea bargain evidence should not be the sole justification for a conviction let alone an execution. The failure to present all the evidence to court is also questionable and the loss or destruction of other evidence is also to be deplored. The fundamental problem with the death penalty is that mistakes cannot ever be rectified once the deed is done.
We must hope that the intervention of the Supreme Court will lead to the state authorities to think again.
Graham Smith, the leader of Republic, was arrested prior to the coronation and held for 16 hours
May 2023
UPDATE: 8 May: Police express ‘regret’ at the arrest of Graham Smith. No charges will be brought under the new Public Order Act against any of those arrested. The only charges brought are for drugs related offences. Questions remain concerning why the arrests were made in the first place and what, if any, pressure had been put on the police to make them.
We have been warning for some time in previous posts – along with other organisations – that the desire by the present government and Home Secretary Suella Braverman, to limit the ability of individuals and organisations to protest by passing a series of laws to limit such activity and to give the police yet more powers to carry them out. The new Public Order Act was rushed into law and signed by King Charles just days before his coronation took place.
Using the act (it seems), Graham Smith the leader of Republic, an organisation which believes we should be run as a democracy and not have an inherited royal family at the head of the country, was arrested before the coronation took place. It is unclear on what the grounds the arrest was made and he was released after 16 hours. He was not the only one to be arrested and others included volunteers from Night Stars which prompted Westminster Council to say it was ‘deeply concerned’ by their arrest.
The new legislation arose because of the activities of the climate protestors who used a variety of methods to disrupt the capital including gluing themselves to pavements. Their protests did seem to shine a light on the poor performance by the government to tackle the climate emergency. They were not popular however and the disruption caused to commuters and others led the government to pass a range of laws to limit the ability to protest. The Home Secretary famously said in parliament that such people were “Guardian-reading, tofu eating, dare I say the anti-growth coalition”.
There is a tension when it comes to protesting. There are many who are in support of peaceful protests but are angry about those which are disruptive in some way or even where there is some violence. The problem with peaceful protests is that they are almost always ignored. It is the more violent type which become news and where the cause is thereby recognised. There were many decades of peaceful protests for women to have the vote for example which yielded nothing. Once more violent methods were employed by the suffragettes, change eventually occurred although there were other factors at play.
The Salisbury Amnesty group neither supports nor condemns the campaign for the country to be a Republic. The issue at stake is the right to campaign on the matter. There is no specific right of protest. We do have the right to free speech and we do have a right of assembly under articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention. Giving the police yet more powers to arrest on the pretext that the person might be disruptive is a worrying development. Another worrying development is the alleged use of facial recognition during the coronation. This technology has been widely used by repressive regimes such as China where the ability of people to move almost anywhere is tracked by the police.
Sources: Evening Standard, CNN, The Times, Amnesty International, and yes, the Guardian
Dean of Salisbury to mark the tragic event of Nakba
May 2023
The very Reverend Nicholas Papadopulos is to address a ceremony at the Quaker Meeting House on 15th May in Salisbury to mark the tragic event of Nakba in the Middle East. Christians, Muslims and Jews will gather to mourn the event when Palestinians around the world mark the time when they were driven from their homes never to return. A report in the New Valley News says:
“Canon Jonathan Herbert, from the Hilfield Priory in Dorset, who will lead the service, said it was important to remember the Nakba. Three quarters of the population of Palestine left their homes during the fighting when the State of Israel was set up in 1948.
“But that was not the end of the story – the Nakba continues to this day. The descendants of those who did not leave are suffering under the brutal military occupation where every aspect of their lives is strictly controlled. Homes are routinely demolished to make way for illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land, soldiers burst into in the middle of the night to kidnap children who are alleged to have thrown stones.
“The youngsters are often kept in solitary confinement and made to sign confessions in Hebrew – a language they do not understand. Farmers have to get permits to access their own land – and the permits are frequently refused”. He says he bore witness to these events when he served as a human rights monitor in Palestine.
For further details of this event contact Salisbury Concern for Israel Palestine. Most of this text taken from the New Valley News currently available around Salisbury.
Future event planned
In partnership with SCIP, we are in the early stages of planning an event to highlight the various reports by Human Rights Watch, B’Tselem and Amnesty of the Apartheid system being operated by the Israelis. This will be held probably in June and details will appear here once they are finalised.
Kruger wins the newly created seat of East Wiltshire in the 2024 General Election. None of his odd thinking emerged during the election period.
Danny Kruger has become conspicuous in recent weeks as the quasi leader of a group of MPs who wish to see a firmer crackdown on the boat people crossing the Channel to claim asylum in the UK. The issue of the boat crossings is the subject of considerable political controversy and many people are outraged at the arrivals.
He was in the news recently when it was reported that the government had ‘caved in’ to demands by party rebels, in which he was a leading member, to amend the Illegal Immigration Bill by allowing ministers to ignore European Judges in certain situations. This sprang from the last minute intervention by the European Court which prevented the deportation flight to Rwanda last year from leaving Boscombe Down near Salisbury. This decision enraged many in the Conservative party and much of the right wing media.
He is in the news again this week for an article in the New Statesman (online) which repeats and amplifies comments about immigrants calling it a ‘national disgrace’. He goes on:
“The importance of this topic to many voters cannot be overstated. To put it as plainly as people outside the liberal bubble put it: the small boats scandal shows that the powers that be are not on the side of the British people, but instead serve the abstractions of “human rights”, “international law”, or other signals of the middle class virtue. Lawyers and activists get to buff their own haloes while ordinary people pay the price, in longer queues for public services, lower wages and higher taxes”.
The placing of human rights and international law in inverted commas is interesting and is a piece with another quote from a chapter he wrote on this subject discussed below. The article suggests that ordinary people are experiencing difficulties in obtaining public services and having to pay higher taxes because of this immigration. The facts speak otherwise and a number of Home Office reports demonstrate that immigrants are a net benefit to the UK economy. Mr Kruger may be forgiven for not knowing this as the reports have not been published. Wording such as the ‘abstractions’ of human rights suggest that they are in some way theoretical and is perhaps intended to be dismissive. ‘Powers that be’ is also puzzling since that is the Conservative party of which he is a member. Issues of access to public services is as a result of government policy, austerity and other matters not connected with immigrants.
In a book produced by a group of backbench Conservatives called Common Sense: Conservative Thinking For a Post-Liberal Age (2021) is a chapter written by Danny Kruger entitled Restoring rights: Reclaiming Liberty. This chapter goes a little way to explain the thinking of the MP.
His chapter contains odd reasoning and some curious logic. His first claim is that the European Convention on Human Rights, drafted by British Lawyers after World War II [lawyers from other countries were involved so it is incorrect to say ‘British lawyers’] ‘sits uncomfortably with the English tradition of preventing tyranny’. This will come as something of a surprise to the millions of people who were enslaved and were worked to death in the sugar plantations or those who worked in fearful conditions in nineteenth century factories. The acquisition and retention of Empire also has many horror stories. Quite where this ‘prevention of tyranny’ was taking place is not made clear.
Human rights are misnamed he claims ‘the rights we really need, and the only ones we really have, derive from something higher and something lower than mankind. They derive from the idea of God, and from the fact of nations: from a Christian conception of law …’ It would be difficult to locate in the Bible many of the principles enshrined in the ECHR or the Human Rights Act (which Mr Kruger is keen to abolish) if only because these ideas and principles were a long way from a society colonised by the Romans and where practices like slavery were common. There are many favourable references to slavery in the Bible for example. The ‘lower than mankind’ element is not explained (although it could be a reference to Psalm 8).
He quotes approvingly the American author Patrick Deneen who wrote Why Liberalism Failed (2018). Many do not agree with Kruger’s admiration of Deneen’s book regarding his blame of a huge range of society’s ills on excessive liberalism to be odd not to say ridiculous.
His analysis seems to go seriously awry however with the following passage:
“And so, from an early stage we came to think of rights as the means by which we are set free from external pressure, set free from obligations to others; and from there it is a small step to the hypocritical assumption that rights confer obligations on others to satisfy us” p49 ibid. This is a unique view of what human rights is about. Surely the point of our system of government is that it does involve governments carrying out policies which are about the wellbeing of those who are governed? It is why we elect members of parliament to raise taxes and pass laws which make our life as acceptable and as fair as possible. Who are these ‘others’ he refers to?
To read all of Mr Kruger’s articles and speeches is to struggle to find a coherent strain of thought as far as human rights is concerned. They are a mixture of false premises, muddled thinking and ideas sprayed around which frequently make little sense. Yet he appears to be someone of influence in the party at present and is often to be seen being interviewed.
Sources include: New Statesman, the Sun, Evening Standard.
We held our annual market stall in Salisbury Market, Saturday 22 April and it was a success. We stayed until nearly 1 pm and there was a steady flow of customers throughout the morning. It’s surprising to note what sells and doesn’t sell each year: this year saw books sell well whereas there was little interest in CDs for example. Pictures all cleared. One picture is off to hang is a café in Oregon and another was going to Virginia. Thanks to supporters for coming and helping.
We are pleased to attach the minutes of the April meeting thanks to group member Lesley for producing them. It contains a number of activities and reports of interest. We shall be holding our annual fund raising stall in the market place this Saturday 23rd and if members and supporters have any thing to sell that would be appreciated. Bric-a-brac is popular, good books, china and pottery are also wanted. No electrical goods.
It will also be an opportunity to make yourself known if you are interested in joining us.
We are pleased to attach this month’s death penalty report for the period mid March to Mid April thanks to group member Lesley for compiling it. Note that China is believed to execute more of its citizens than the rest of the world combined but details are a state secret.
Refugees summary for the period mid March to mid April.
With the third reading of the Illegal Migration Bill due on the 25th April, the main centre of debate this month has been over the accommodation problems for refugees awaiting processing by the Home Office. With the cost of hotels soaring, other possibly cheaper options are being considered. The most notable suggestion has been for housing applicants on the barge Bibby Stockholm off the Dorset coast.
Asylum seekers will be housed in the most basic accommodation possible, including disused army bases, airfields and possibly ships, to save money and to dissuade people from coming to the UK, the government has said. Conservative MPs with possible sites in their constituencies are not happy; one suggestion to use an airfield in Essex has been opposed by Priti Patel, so the plan looks fraught. On the Home Office’s calculations the planned accommodation would take on a total of 5400 single men.
In a Commons statement setting out the next stage in the plans to reduce asylum claims in the UK, Robert Jenrick, the immigration minister, said the plans would meet legal requirements to ensure that those who arrived were not made “destitute”, but nothing more. “We must not elevate the wellbeing of illegal migrants above those of the British people,” he told MPs.
After falling by 17% on last year’s figures, the number of boat arrivals was at a record 1000 last week.
It has been noted that up to one third of the overseas aid budget is now being spent on the domestic asylum system.
Arguments continue about the methods of assessing the age of arrivals claiming to be children. The government intends to continue with its “biological” checks although these have been dismissed as not working. Presently about 15% of those claiming children status are found to be adults.
A 2021 report by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration on an inspection of asylum casework found poor workplace culture, low morale and high attrition. According to a recent letter to the Home Affairs Select Committee the annual attrition in the 2021/2 financial year was 46%. The Inspector cited pressure to meet targets, the downgrading of the decision-maker role in 2014 and poor career progression as key contributing factors to this problem.
A decline in productivity is borne out in official statistics, with the Institute for Government calculating that there has been a 62% decrease in asylum decision making rates between 2011/12 and 2021/22, despite an increase in the number of caseworkers. This demonstrates that simply increasing the number of caseworkers, as proposed by the Prime Minister in December 2022, will not alone address the productivity issues.
Reducing unnecessary processes in the asylum decision-making system could help reduce the asylum backlog. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees have recommended that the UK better triages cases to “enable those with vulnerabilities and/or meritorious claims to obtain the protection they need on a timely basis”, as well as recommending the introduction of simplified asylum case processing, for example through the use of “pre-filled caseload specific templates for interviews”. Applications from countries that have been identified as having high grant rates, such as Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Eritrea and Yemen, could be suitable for such processes.
The Home Office has been accused of “blocking” MPs from helping desperate asylum seeker constituents despite the backlogs in the department. Labour MP Kate Osamor has been seeking to help a family of five, including a newborn, facing imminent homelessness in her Edmonton constituency. They submitted an asylum application last September and are in the usual state of limbo. Ms Osamor says when she contacted the Migrant Help charity on their behalf she was told they were unable to deal with MPs directly. Migrant Help is an advice charity and is the Advice Issue Reporting and Eligibility provider appointed by the Home Office.
When contacted by The Independent, a Migrant Help adviser said: “I am afraid Migrant Help are not contracted to respond to MPs correspondence and have forwarded the attached to the MP correspondence team. Our call handlers will reach out to the service user to see if there is any further support they can provide. I would like to clarify that not responding to MP enquiries is not a Migrant Help policy but a directive given to us by the Home Office as part of our work under the advice, issue reporting and eligibility (AIRE) contract. I have expressed concerns regarding this process”.
Amnesty in Salisbury & South Wiltshire 