Craig Murray's site mysteriously went down for a long while but the blogging community soon ensured that 100's of sites carried the controversial documents eg:
www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0512/S00297.htm
www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/719?PHPSESSID=0d74b2653389b4e8f611122177de2a00

It was also noted that the following Independent story does not mention the blogging sites republishing the documents nor does it quote anything from the documents.

From The Independent

Britain's former ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, has defied the Foreign Office by publishing on the internet documents providing evidence that the British Government knowingly received information extracted by torture in the "war on terror".

Murray, who publicly raised the issue of the usefulness of information obtained under torture before he was forced to leave his job last year, submitted his forthcoming book, Murder in Samarkand, to the Foreign Office for clearance. But the Foreign Office demanded that he remove references to two sensitive government documents, which undermine official denials, to show that Britain had been aware it was receiving information obtained by the Uzbek authorities through torture. Rather than submit to the gagging order Murray decided to publish the material on the internet.

The first document published by Murray contains the text of several telegrams that he sent to London from 2002 to 2004, warning that the information being passed on by the Uzbek security services was torture-tainted, and challenging MI6 claims that the information was nonetheless "useful". The second document is the text of a Foreign Office legal opinion which argues that the use by intelligence services of information extracted through torture is not a violation of the UN Convention Against Torture.

Britain's former ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, has defied the Foreign Office by publishing on the internet documents providing evidence that the British Government knowingly received information extracted by torture in the "war on terror".

Murray, who publicly raised the issue of the usefulness of information obtained under torture before he was forced to leave his job last year, submitted his forthcoming book, Murder in Samarkand, to the Foreign Office for clearance. But the Foreign Office demanded that he remove references to two sensitive government documents, which undermine official denials, to show that Britain had been aware it was receiving information obtained by the Uzbek authorities through torture. Rather than submit to the gagging order Murray decided to publish the material on the internet.

From The Melon Farmers' Forum

Shaun 21-Dec-2005

Just tried to ask the home office about the consultation, and where the responses would be posted, and the email was returned to me.

Subject: `Consultation on possession of extreme pornographic material`
Sent on `Wed, 21 Dec 2005 14:45:36 GMT`
To: `CLPUconsultations@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk

The above Email has been blocked and has not reached the intended recipient. You are advised to identify and correct the problem or contact your systems administrator or Email service provider for advice.

It seems like their server doesn`t like the word "pornographic" in the Email. It was resent OK with 'pornographic' replaced by 'graphic'

How are they supposed to do their job with this kind of stupid censorship ?

I wonder how many responses have been blocked because of this

IanG 21-Dec-2005

I think such blocking mechanisms demonstrate the levels of infancy in Government departments. There`s nothing `wrong` or `rude` or `offensive` about the word "pornography". Indeed, the word was created by Government ministers to describe "the writings of prostitutes" at the time the OPA 1851 was introduced.

Of course, such a block may have been introduced very recently because the HO are tired of receiving responses to the consultation. Moreso, if as I suspect, the majority do not agree with the Government proposals.

BigAndrew 21-Dec-2005

The Home Office don`t dictate what gets blocked. They are the same as the Dept I work for and the work is carried out by an external supplier. They can of course ask for certain things to be allowed but generally it`s left to the company providing the service.

updated 24th November

updated 29th November

updated 30th November

updated 1st December

  Official Secret: Everyone Lost in the Iraq War

From The Guardian

The attorney general last night threatened newspapers with the Official Secrets Act if they revealed the contents of a document allegedly relating to a dispute between Tony Blair and George Bush over the conduct of military operations in Iraq.

It is believed to be the first time the Blair government has threatened newspapers in this way. Though it has obtained court injunctions against newspapers, the government has never prosecuted editors for publishing the contents of leaked documents, including highly sensitive ones about the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.

The attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, last night referred editors to newspaper reports yesterday that described the contents of a memo purporting to be at the centre of charges against two men under the secrets act.
Under the front-page headline "Bush plot to bomb his ally", the Daily Mirror reported that the US president last year planned to attack the Arabic television station al-Jazeera, which has its headquarters in Doha, the capital of Qatar, where US and British bombers were based.

Richard Wallace, editor of the Daily Mirror, said last night: We made No 10 fully aware of the intention to publish and were given 'no comment' officially or unofficially. Suddenly 24 hours later we are threatened under section 5 [of the secrets act].

Under section 5 it is an offence to have come into the possession of government information, or a document from a crown servant, if that person discloses it without lawful authority. The prosecution has to prove the disclosure was damaging.

The Mirror said the memo turned up in May last year at the constituency office of the former Labour MP for Northampton South, Tony Clarke. Last week, Leo O'Connor, a former researcher for Clarke, was charged with receiving a document under section 5 of the act. David Keogh, a former Foreign Office official seconded to the Cabinet Office, was charged last week with making a "damaging disclosure of a document relating to international relations". Keogh is accused of sending the document to O'Connor between April 16 and May 28 2004.

Clarke said yesterday that O'Connor "did the right thing" by drawing the document to his attention. Clarke, an anti-war MP who lost his seat at the last election, returned the document to the government. As well as an MP, I am a special constable he said.

Both men were released on police bail last Thursday to appear at Bow Street magistrates court on November 29. When they were charged, newspapers reported that the memo contained a transcript of a discussion between  Blair and Bush.

The conversation was understood to have taken place during a meeting in the US. It is believed to reveal that  Blair disagreed with Bush about aspects of the Iraq war. There was widespread comment at the time that the British government was angry about US military tactics there, particularly in the city of Falluja.

Charges under the secrets act have to have the consent of the attorney-general. His intervention yesterday suggests that the prosecution plans to ask the judge to hold part, if not all of the trial, in camera, with the public and press excluded.

The much discussed meeting between Bush and Blair took place at a time when Whitehall officials, intelligence officers, and British military commanders were expressing outrage at the scale of the US assault on the Iraqi city of Falluja, in which up to 1,000 civilians are feared to have died. Pictures of the attack shown on al-Jazeera had infuriated US generals. The government was also arguing with Washington about the number of extra British troops to be sent to Iraq at a time when it was feared they would be endangered by what a separately leaked Foreign Office memo called "heavy-handed" US military tactics.

There were UK anxieties that US bombing in civilian areas in Falluja would unite Sunnis and Shias against British forces. The criticism came not only from anti-war MPs, but from Blair's most senior military, diplomatic, and intelligence advisers. When Blair met Bush in Washington, military advisers were urging the prime minister to send extra forces only on British terms.

Andrew Nicol QC, a media law expert, said he was unaware of any case going to trial where a newspaper or journalist had been prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act. He said Lord Goldsmith appeared to be trying to "put down a marker" to prevent further leaks or publication of further disclosures from the document already allegedly leaked.

Last night the former defence minister Peter Kilfoyle tabled a Commons motion saying Blair should publish the record of his discussion with Bush.

The Attorney General was interviewed on Radio Four's Today programme over government plans to scrap jury trials in complex fraud cases. Instead, as the interview with John Humphrys ground to an end shortly after 8.30am, the urbane Lord Goldsmith found himself explaining why he had warned national newspapers not to reveal the contents of a top secret memo detailing a lengthy conversation between the Prime Minister and President George Bush over the direction of the war in Iraq.

I wasn't seeking to gag newspapers; what I said to newspapers was you need to take legal advice, Goldsmith insisted as an increasingly irritable Humphrys accused him of trying to silence the media for political expediency. It is not being used to save the embarrassment of a politician, Goldsmith persevered. That is completely not the case at all.

The status of the now infamous five-page document concerning the meeting between Bush and Blair, on 16 April last year, has already reached mythic proportions among bloggers on the internet. It is the smoking gun to end all smoking guns, claim conspiracy theorists, who believe it details everything from an agreed date to pull the troops out, to plans to take the one-time rebel stronghold of Fallujah.

The one indisputable fact, though, is that part of the memo - 10 lines to be precise - concerns a conversation between Bush and Blair regarding Al Jazeera, the Arabic satellite television station that the US accuses of being a mouthpiece for al-Qaeda. According to those familiar with the memo's contents, Bush floated the idea of bombing the Qatar-based station. The Daily Mirror, which ran the story last Tuesday, claimed the Prime Minister talked Bush out of the plan.

The memo reveals Bush's profound obsession with Al Jazeera, an obsession that stretches from stucco-clad government offices in Washington to the tin huts located behind the razor wire in Guantanamo Bay. Why is the most powerful man in the world worried about a 24-hour news organisation?

Salah Hassan, an Al Jazeera camerman, was arrested by US forces in November 2003, while filming the aftermath of an attack on a US convoy near the city of Baquba. Following his arrest he was surprised to discover he had been trailed by US troops for weeks and had been secretly photographed at the scene of other attacks.

At the heart of the accusation is the fundamental tension between journalists - largely Arab reporters catering for an Arab audience - who say they are anxious to cover the story from both sides, and a United States that regards reporting on some aspects of the insurgency as tantamount to collaboration with terrorism.

Most gallingly for the US, its reporters have told a story that Washington either disagrees with or would rather remain untold: that the kind of war America is prosecuting in Iraq is messy and heavy handed; that civilians are too often the victims, and that the insurgents are not shadowy sinister figures but ordinary men with more support than politicians would like to acknowledge.

As a result Al Jazeera has seen itself under almost constant attack by a White House whose instinct has been to control the media since the war in Afghanistan. The US military has harassed its reporters. Its offices in Baghdad and Kabul have both been bombed by the US and reporters have been detained, threatened and abused.

By the April of 2004 - and the first battle of Fallujah - US official loathing of the channel had reached a tipping point. Its focus was the figure of Ahmed Mansour, who reported from the city.

Mansour told The Observer last week: The American authorities did not hide their extreme annoyance and fury as a result of my coverage of the first Fallujah campaign in April of 2004. My sole crime was broadcasting the reality of a war I was witnessing.

The controversial memo was ritten by a Blair aide who accompanied the Prime Minister to Washington it was headed 'top secret'. Lurking within the pages were also frank discussions over the US assault on Fallujah. It was clear from the tone of the memo that Blair was far from happy at the tactics used by American forces. Then, within a few short lines, came the bombshell: documentary evidence the US president had openly talked about bombing Al Jazeera.

Details of the Foreign Office's deep misgivings over the way the US was prosecuting the war had already been reported on 23 May last year in the Sunday Times , which had obtained another leaked document. Back then there was no desire by the Attorney General to pick a fight with Fleet Street and threaten it with the Official Secrets Act. Some suspect the difference this time is down to the fact the Al-Jazeera memo has deeply embarrassed the Bush administration.

Two men appeared in court today charged with violating the Official Secrets Act over the leak of a document that reportedly detailed a private conversation between George Bush and Tony Blair where they allegedly discussed bombing al-Jazeera TV.

Former parliamentary researcher Leo O'Connor pleaded not guilty to "receiving a document through its disclosure without lawful authority from a crown servant".

David Keogh, a former cabinet office communications officer, did not make any plea. He is charged with "making a damaging disclosure of a document relating to international relations without lawful authority".

Speaking outside Bow Street magistrates court in London, Neil Clark, the lawyer defending O'Connor, said his client was shocked when he learned he was to be prosecuted, more than a year after he was first arrested.

The two men were arrested in April 2004 but only charged on November 17 this year. Asked outside the court about the delay, Clark yesterday pointed out that any prosecution under the secrets act needed the consent of the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith.

Prosecutor Rosemary Fernandes asked the court to remand the two men on bail on condition that they do not have any direct or indirect contact with each other and that neither leaves the country.

O'Connor is a former parliamentary researcher for ex-Labour MP Tony Clarke and allegedly gave the memo to his former boss. Clarke says he returned it to Downing Street.

The pair will reappear at Bow Street on January 10 for a committal hearing.

The Daily Mirror, citing unidentified sources, claimed the document reveals that Blair argued against Bush's suggestion of bombing al-Jazeera's headquarters in Doha, Qatar. The newspaper said its sources disagreed over whether it was a serious suggestion.

In a written parliamentary question, last week, Plaid Cymru MP Adam Price asked Blair what information you received on action that the United States administration proposed to take against the al-Jazeera television channel. The prime minister replied: None.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan called the newspaper's claims "outlandish and inconceivable".

[...Surely our persecution service would not use the Official Secrets Acts against comments that were so "outlandish and inconceivable". The use of this Act implies that the accusations are likely to be true...]

There's one thing about the Al-Jazeera story that doesn't seem to have been picked up. Mr O'Connor was, as stated, an assistant to a former MP. He passed the leaked document on to his boss. Surely, in a purported democracy, it has got to be wholly legitimate to send information about an event of this kind to a Member of Parliament, perhaps through one of your mates who works for him, for the mate to open the letter, read it, and pass it on to his boss.... Or am I missing something?

So how come the Home Office are planning to lock people up for 3 years for merely watching spanking videos? Hardly what I would call a light touch, more like a CIA torture interrogation

From The Register

Light-touch regulation, minimal legislation and a close working relationship with business is the answer to the net's problems, not least child pornography, according to UK secretary of state for trade Alun Michael.

Speaking to us at the World Summit, where he was the UK government's most senior representative, Michael said that working with industry on the child porn issue in particular had achieved more in one year that legislation could have done in five - and at minimal cost.

"Light regulation is the way forward. And a partnership between government and industry, and government and the voluntary sector. If you get those relationships right, you can get further than with a top-down regulatory approach. It’s not a soft approach, in many ways it’s a tough approach, but it’s one built on building relationships, building confidence and moving forward together."

It was in government's own interest to work with business and civil society, rather than attempt to deal with the internet and the problems it throws up with new laws, he said. Convergence of technologies makes it very difficult to have a rigid approach to regulation and to government. There are things that need to be dealt with - issues like international terrorism and child pornography - but our approach is light-touch regulation in co-operation with industry wherever possible. And we shouldn’t have regulation that anticipates problems that may never arise. Flexibility is very important.

As to the issue of human rights and freedom of expression on the internet, which also became a big topic at the summit, Michael declined to expand on the UK's official representations to the Tunisian government, stating only that: Freedom of the internet is very important to us, and we have made that clear both on behalf of the EU and UK in the build-up to the conference and during it.

Based on an article from MVC

Shameful nutter MP Keith Vaz looks set to create consumer confusion and industry fury with his plans to present a Bill to Parliament calling for a Government-backed age ratings scheme for games.

In an exclusive interview with MCV, the MP has revealed that he will demand a statutory system of regulation for the industry that could threaten the PEGI scheme.

Vaz is not convinced the tight regulations that already govern the industry are sufficient. I want to see a statutory system, not a voluntary code drawn up by the industry itself. I’m introducing my own Bill to make sure that happens. It’s not – and never has been – something that can be done by the industry itself.

These demands come despite the current procedures that require any game depicting sexual activity or violence to be automatically submitted to the BBFC for classification. All other titles are rated by the pan-European PEGI system.

This proposal is way beyond need, ELSPA director general Roger Bennet blasted back. Our system is tried, tested and trusted. A mandatory scheme would drive a coach and horses through the PEGI rating system which is robust, consistent across much of the Continent and open to consumers. It would fragment the entire procedure, forcing governments to draw up individual guidelines. It would be an absolute disaster for the games industry.

The Video Standards Council is similarly concerned. Vaz doesn’t want to know about the facts, VSC director Laurie Hall said. ELSPA and ourselves have tried to explain this to Mr Vaz and he doesn’t want to listen. We have consulted senior lawyers and the government and they were both perfectly happy. What more needs to be done?

From The Observer

I hate the Pope. Wholeheartedly, gut-wrenchingly hate him. I hate him for sitting around in his white frock, luxuriating in the infinite wealth of the Vatican while casually denying condoms to the dying of Africa. I hate him for condemning the poorest of women to early death by childbirth. And I pretty much hate, by extension, the Roman Catholics whose devotion permits his tyranny to thrive.

While we're at it, I hate the people in the sinister church at the end of my street who beat 'devils' out of the flesh of children. I hate the Jamaican congregation who kicked a man to death on a rumour that he was gay. I hate Sikhs who bully theatres. I hate Muslims who fly planes into tall buildings.

And editors permitting, I am free not only to say so, but to admit that I hope to influence you. In other words, I admit to attempting to incite you to religious hatred of these people.

But not, I fear, for much longer. The Racial and Religious Hatred Bill was flung back from the Lords last week; in its present form, cried Lord Hunt, it had 'gone too far' - no comic vicars for Rowan Atkinson, that kind of thing - so when it comes back before them next month, they want to see 'amendments'.

What looks likely to survive, however, is a point thus far agreed on all sides: that even if you hate a religion, you will not be allowed to express a hatred for the religious; you may hate the thought, but not the thinker. Hunt (anti the bill as it stands) went out of his way to 'deplore the idea that anyone could be hated for their religious beliefs', while Lady Scotland (pro) claimed that her sex, race and faith define her, and that if anyone 'uttered words of hatred' against her on the first two counts, they could be 'dealt with' and so, therefore, they should be on the third. With which nobody, much, disagreed.

Common wisdom holds that a faith and its faithful are separate. As Estelle Morris put it on Question Time, we can oppose religious beliefs 'but not people for holding them'. She did not explain how that works, mind, and neither can I.

As long as a person's values top any list of reasons to like them or not, if these include adherence to a religion which you sincerely believe causes harm, then how can you not like the person less?

Beliefs, be they political or religious, are a matter of choice, and if we may loathe not only the BNP but, by inextricable connection, anyone who chooses to join it, so I should be able not only to loathe the devil-bashers at my local church, but also to say so.

All the damage that religion does is done by the hands of its believers. They can only be stopped by those of us whose belief that they are wrong - a belief, that is, every bit as strong as theirs - having the same right they have to yell fury at their opponents. If we further incited anyone to smack them about, that would be a different matter. But then, we've already got a law against that.

From The Times

Ministers sounded a retreat on their plans for a contentious new law to outlaw incitement to religious hatred last night as the Lords inflicted a crushing defeat by throwing out the Bill.

Peers voted by 260 to 111 to tear up the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill and replace it completely with text that severely limited its scope and added safeguards for free speech.

The scale of the defeat would have been larger still had it not been for an last-minute offer from a Home Office Minister to attempt to find a compromise within the next fortnight.

Baroness Scotland, of Asthal, QC, admitted that there are issues which we found difficult and pleaded with peers to give her time to try to bring forward amendments at its report stage.

Opposition to the Bill, which has been led by an eclectic alliance including evangelical Christian groups and the comedian Rowan Atkinson, is likely to intensify after her admission of doubts within the Government over the Bill.

Lady Scotland told peers: We are thinking very hard indeed about how the gap that seems to have arisen, which divides us, could or should be bridged. If your lordships ask today, I am not able to bridge that gap. If your lordships ask (whether) I can bridge it by report (stage), that may or may not be the case but I am certainly going to look at it and I am going to try.”

Lord Hunt of Wirral, the Tory peer who led the debate, insisted on pressing ahead with a vote nonetheless after accusing ministers of reneging on a previous pledge to consult opposition parties over the Bill. But he offered talks to seek a compromise before its return to the Lords next month, saying a redrawn Bill with narrower powers would still allow Labour to meet a manifesto pledge for such legislation.

Lord Hunt led the attack on the measure on behalf of a cross-party coalition that included Lord Lester of Herne Hill, for the Liberal Democrats, the Labour peer Lord Plant of Highfield, and Lord Carey of Clifton, the former Archbishop of Canterbury. Their amendments struck out original proposals to extend the new offence to words, behaviour or material that were abusive or insulting and likely to stir up religious hatred, and instead restricted it to things that were judged threatening.

They required that the prosecution must prove in each case that the defendant acted with criminal intent, going further than the existing offence of incitement to racial hatred, and added a broadly defined protection of freedom of expression that defended the right to ridicule, insult or abuse religions or their adherents, and specifically allowed proselytising.

The new clauses fundamentally alter the structure of the Bill. Instead of amending the Public Order Act 1986, as ministers proposed and which was used to outlaw incitement to racial hatred, peers voted for an entirely new schedule setting out the new offence of incitement to religious hatred.

Lord Hunt, opening the debate during the Bill’s committee stage, said: You cannot promote tolerance by limiting freedom of expression. Tolerance and freedom of expression buttress one another. They are inseparable siblings. This Bill just goes too far, far too far.

Lord Lester accused the Government of trying to introduce sweeping new speech crimes to deal with what ministers admitted was a minute gap in existing public order powers. He claimed ministers were “playing politics with religion” and using the Bill to try to persuade Muslims to vote Labour.

Editorial from The Times

Ripe for ridicule: The Racial and Religious Hatred Bill must be amended

The Prime Minister’s ill-conceived attempt to criminalise incitement to “religious hatred” has received a lifeline that he would be well advised to grasp. A series of amendments to be debated in the House of Lords tomorrow could yet rescue the Bill from some of its inherent flaws. If ministers refuse to accept them, however, they will be responsible for ushering in some of the most serious curbs on free speech since the prosecution of Gay News under the blasphemy laws some 40 years ago.

The Racial and Religious Hatred Bill is not yet the talk of locals in the public bar of The Dog and Duck, or of parents on the school run. But it will become just that if it is railroaded through without any changes. It was designed to extend to Muslims the kind of protections from insults and abuse that they had failed to get when they sought to prosecute Salman Rushdie for blasphemous libel in 1991, Choudhury’s case. Ancient blasphemy laws cover Christianity. Jews and Sikhs are regarded as distinct races and are therefore protected by laws prohibiting racial hatred. Muslims, fearful of a public backlash in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, were anxious to be accorded similar protections from any anti-Islamic backlash. There would undoubtedly be symbolic value to such a new law, if it could be introduced in a way that did not undermine civil liberties.

But the drafting of the Bill has produced not just a mess, but a proposed law that would severely threaten free speech. No one can choose their race, but they can, and do, choose their religious or political beliefs. Criticism of these beliefs is the very essence of a healthy democracy.

The Bill is also defective because it lacks “legal certainty”. There is no adequate definition of “hatred”, or what would amount to “insulting or abusive behaviour”. The Bill would therefore attempt to outlaw something it cannot define. Such inattention to detail has produced four broad concerns.

First, the effects will be far wider than intended. In ascending order of seriousness, Moonies and Scientologists could waste valuable police time getting officers to stop or investigate concerned Christians leafleting against these sects; comedians, newspaper columnists or members of the public could find themselves facing criminal charges for poking fun at the leaders or beliefs of any religion; Salman Rushdie could find himself prosecuted for The Satanic Verses; and the Bill could actually drive a wedge between Muslim communities and the rest of the country. Religious groups may seek to silence critics by demanding criminal investigations rather than winning their case in the court of public opinion with reasoned argument.

The Lords amendments, tabled by a cross-party group of peers, seek to clarify the important distinction between laws against racism and those that seek to protect the religious from persecution. They specifically spell out that ridicule, criticism and antipathy expressed towards a religion — an important measure of a healthy liberal democracy — would be protected.

As the comedian Rowan Atkinson has put it, the Government is proposing a law that would allow people to ridicule ideas as long as they were not religious ideas. That cannot be right. If allowed to stand, a Government that often offers the impression of being indifferent towards civil liberties will have strengthened that perception.

From The Telegraph by James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool

The Racial and Religious Hatred Bill is now before Parliament, and is threatening to change the legal, religious and cultural landscape of England and Wales.

Franklin Roosevelt was given sobering advice from one of his Supreme Court Justices: "Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficial. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greater dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."

It's a fitting commentary on the Government's Bill, which it has hastily rushed back to Parliament without the full consultation it promised.

I do not doubt the goodness of the Government's intentions. I want what it wants - good and harmonious relationships between faith communities. The stability of our country depends on it. It is not an exaggeration to hold that the future of the world itself depends on different religions sharing this planet in harmony.

The Government is right to put our own country's house in order and to build up good relations, especially with the Muslim community. It would do well to take a leaf out of the Prince of Wales's book: quietly, over the past 25 years, he has worked at extending the hand of friendship and building up trust.

Neighbourliness between religions is the soil in which our society can grow into the future. One sign of hope is that the wise and mature leadership of the ageing members of the Muslim community is being passed on to a new generation of able, thoughtful, younger men and women.

The Government is right to want all this. But it is wrong to want this Bill. Ministers are "well-meaning but without understanding" of what it will do to relationships between the faith communities, and how it will erode our liberty, corrode democracy and encroach on religious freedom.

The birth of Christianity was marked by clashes between the faithful and the state. At the end of the Acts of the Apostles, Paul, imprisoned in Rome because of his beliefs, teaches "about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance".

The words used come from classical Greek, and mean "unfettered freedom of speech". This philosophical and religious outspokenness is the cornerstone of our civilisation and democracy, and to compromise it would begin to change the character of our culture.

When introducing the Bill to the House of Lords, the Lord Chancellor admitted that it was controversial, and kept emphasising that it was addressing only a "small gap in the criminal law". Lord Lester and Lady Kennedy, however, argued that the gap was a figment of the Government's imagination, and that all the hypothesised cases could be dealt with by other legislation.

In a significant and conciliatory concession, the Lord Chancellor created a small space for a U-turn. He said he hoped that the debate would show "whether we have succeeded in doing it in a way that does not have unintended and unacceptable consequences".

Sadly, you cannot prove consequences until it is too late. And there is a growing body of opinion among friends of the Government that the probable consequences of this Bill will be not only unintended but also unacceptable.

For all the faults of Western society, one of its cherished ideals is the freedom of religious expression. This is a feature that distinguished us from countries of the Communist bloc, and differentiates us now from Islamic states that rigidly inhibit religions other than Islam.

The possibility of religious tracts being referred to the Attorney General will introduce to our culture a new climate of fear. It is not good enough to say that prosecutions will require the consent of the Attorney General. Just the headline "Bishop's sermon on ritual slaughter is referred to the Attorney General" would create an atmosphere of fear and to inhibit freedom of speech.

It is also no good saying, as the Lord Chancellor does, that it will be up to the courts to define the indefinable, such as "religious beliefs" and "religious hatred". Simply bringing a person before the courts for their beliefs, however odious or innocuous, introduces to our society an element hitherto foreign and starts to shape our culture differently.

It makes people hesitant to express convictions which explicitly or implicitly criticise another faith. It begins to stifle and silence serious and robust debate about religion in a modern, pluralist and democratic culture.

Democracy depends on freedom of expression. As the former attorney general of India has said, "We need not more repressive laws but more free speech to combat bigotry and to promote tolerance."

Sometimes religion needs to be criticised. This is where religious leaders have been less than frank in this debate; we have to admit that religion holds sway over people. Religious power is as corrosive as its political version: it must not be allowed to escape the scrutiny of public comment and criticism.

By trying to close a putative "small gap in the law", the Government will be opening a chasm into which the vulnerable, not least women and children, will fall and languish, because people will be hesitant to criticise either the specifics or the generalities of a faith for fear of being prosecuted under this new Bill. Is this what the Government really wants?

I put this point about the vulnerability of women and children to a government minister in a private discussion. The thoughtful silence showed the deep-down doubt about the wisdom of this legislation. Why is the Government so publicly impervious to persuasion?

Some think that it was a deal done at the last election to recover the Muslim vote wiped out by mythical weapons of mass destruction. It would be good to prove the cynics wrong by making a U-turn on this Bill.

Faith communities who find themselves in a minority, locally or nationally, can feel under threat, and it is to the Government's credit that it is reaching out to them through regeneration schemes and educational programmes.

It is this patient investment that will sow the seeds of integrated diversity in Britain, rather than a quick-fix Bill that will stir up a bitter sediment of frustration.

Rowan Atkinson speech on hate Bill

From the BBC

My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen.

Those of us who have opposed this measure since its introduction in 2001 have never had a problem with its alleged intent, viz. to counter the expression of racial hatred under the disguise of religious hatred. Rather, our problem was always the legislation’s breathtaking scope and reach far beyond that intent.

The prime motivating energy for the Bill seemed to come not from communities seeking protection from bullying by the British National Party but from individuals with a more aggressive, fundamentalist agenda. Those who have sought, from the very day of the publication in 1989 of Salman Rushdie’s book The Satanic Verses, to immunise religions against criticism and ridicule – or at least to promote legislation that is so sinister and intimidating, it can provide that immunity without even the need to prosecute anyone. In other words, to impose self-censorship.

The starting point for my objections to this Bill is to argue with its supposedly inarguable premise: the ‘ooh Yes Religious Hatred, that sounds like a bad thing, let’s have a law against that’. As hatred is defined as intense dislike, what is wrong with inciting intense dislike of a religion, if the activities or teachings of that religion are so outrageous, irrational or abusive of human rights that they deserve to be intensely disliked?

The Government has often spoken of how under existing legislation, Jews and Sikhs are protected from religious hatred on the basis of their race and that this Bill seeks merely to extend that protection to others. The problem that that ignores is that race and religion are fundamentally different concepts – you cannot choose your race, you can choose your religion – and even if for many the line dividing their race from their religion is blurred in the eyes of the law. A sharp line can and should be drawn.

If Jews and Sikhs are protected from criticism of their religious beliefs or religious activities, then that is a wrong and the idea of extending that to other religions is also a wrong. To criticise people for their race is manifestly irrational but to criticise their religion, that is a right.

The freedom to criticise or ridicule ideas – even if they are sincerely held beliefs – is a fundamental freedom and a law which says that you can ridicule ideas as long as they are not religious ideas, is a very odd law indeed. It promotes the idea that there should be a right not to be offended, when I think that the right to offend is far more important than a right not to be offended.

The only moderating influence on this legislation will be the Attorney General, who can veto prosecutions. Yet how can the Office of the Attorney General, an instrument of government, be expected to take only a judicial view of cases brought before him and not be influenced by the political ambitions of his employer?

The ease with which one religious group or another could be favoured or disfavoured is clear. You many not know that there is an Anti-Vilification law in a state in Australia, where a Witch successfully brought a prosecution against a Christian pastor for vilification of her religion. Now the government has assured us that our Attorney General would veto such a frivolous prosecution.

However, you can imagine that if, one day, electoral research by the party in government revealed that there were a surprising number of witches living in a number of marginal constituencies whose votes could be of considerable benefit to the party at the next general election, then such a prosecution might suddenly seem a more attractive and less frivolous idea to the Attorney General than it had previously. The potential for abuse is manifest.

It is time for the Government to listen. It has made no attempt to address any of these concerns – other than to deflect the criticism with the most anodyne rebuttals.

The Government says you will continue to be able to criticise or ridicule religion. Where in the Bill does it say that? Where is the clause that even implies that kind of freedom of expression? How can such bland reassurances carry any authority when there is no wording in the bill to support them and the chief promoters and supporters of this legislation, in consultation with whom the thing was drafted, have always taken the opposite view. They don’t think that religions should be ridiculed. They don’t think that religions should be criticised or insulted. That is why they have lobbied for this legislation for so many years and unlike the government are not blind to its potential to achieve those aims.

The problem with this Bill is its imbalance. It represents the relentless pursuit of the interests of a tiny minority of the population with, so far, no consideration or quarter being given to the concerns of the baffled majority. This is not to belittle the concerns of the minority which can be and should be accommodated but good government is also about doing everything in your power to accommodate the concerns of those most affected by your legislative ambitions. And this is simply not happening.

That is what these amendments are about. They do not affect the essence of the Bill – they seek only to provide reassurance and above all to protect freedom of speech, from which not just a minority will benefit, nor just a majority, but every single one of us.

Rowan Atkinson speech on hate Bill

From the BBC

My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen.

Those of us who have opposed this measure since its introduction in 2001 have never had a problem with its alleged intent, viz. to counter the expression of racial hatred under the disguise of religious hatred. Rather, our problem was always the legislation’s breathtaking scope and reach far beyond that intent.

The prime motivating energy for the Bill seemed to come not from communities seeking protection from bullying by the British National Party but from individuals with a more aggressive, fundamentalist agenda. Those who have sought, from the very day of the publication in 1989 of Salman Rushdie’s book The Satanic Verses, to immunise religions against criticism and ridicule – or at least to promote legislation that is so sinister and intimidating, it can provide that immunity without even the need to prosecute anyone. In other words, to impose self-censorship.

The starting point for my objections to this Bill is to argue with its supposedly inarguable premise: the ‘ooh Yes Religious Hatred, that sounds like a bad thing, let’s have a law against that’. As hatred is defined as intense dislike, what is wrong with inciting intense dislike of a religion, if the activities or teachings of that religion are so outrageous, irrational or abusive of human rights that they deserve to be intensely disliked?

The Government has often spoken of how under existing legislation, Jews and Sikhs are protected from religious hatred on the basis of their race and that this Bill seeks merely to extend that protection to others. The problem that that ignores is that race and religion are fundamentally different concepts – you cannot choose your race, you can choose your religion – and even if for many the line dividing their race from their religion is blurred in the eyes of the law. A sharp line can and should be drawn.

If Jews and Sikhs are protected from criticism of their religious beliefs or religious activities, then that is a wrong and the idea of extending that to other religions is also a wrong. To criticise people for their race is manifestly irrational but to criticise their religion, that is a right.

The freedom to criticise or ridicule ideas – even if they are sincerely held beliefs – is a fundamental freedom and a law which says that you can ridicule ideas as long as they are not religious ideas, is a very odd law indeed. It promotes the idea that there should be a right not to be offended, when I think that the right to offend is far more important than a right not to be offended.

The only moderating influence on this legislation will be the Attorney General, who can veto prosecutions. Yet how can the Office of the Attorney General, an instrument of government, be expected to take only a judicial view of cases brought before him and not be influenced by the political ambitions of his employer?

The ease with which one religious group or another could be favoured or disfavoured is clear. You many not know that there is an Anti-Vilification law in a state in Australia, where a Witch successfully brought a prosecution against a Christian pastor for vilification of her religion. Now the government has assured us that our Attorney General would veto such a frivolous prosecution.

However, you can imagine that if, one day, electoral research by the party in government revealed that there were a surprising number of witches living in a number of marginal constituencies whose votes could be of considerable benefit to the party at the next general election, then such a prosecution might suddenly seem a more attractive and less frivolous idea to the Attorney General than it had previously. The potential for abuse is manifest.

It is time for the Government to listen. It has made no attempt to address any of these concerns – other than to deflect the criticism with the most anodyne rebuttals.

The Government says you will continue to be able to criticise or ridicule religion. Where in the Bill does it say that? Where is the clause that even implies that kind of freedom of expression? How can such bland reassurances carry any authority when there is no wording in the bill to support them and the chief promoters and supporters of this legislation, in consultation with whom the thing was drafted, have always taken the opposite view. They don’t think that religions should be ridiculed. They don’t think that religions should be criticised or insulted. That is why they have lobbied for this legislation for so many years and unlike the government are not blind to its potential to achieve those aims.

The problem with this Bill is its imbalance. It represents the relentless pursuit of the interests of a tiny minority of the population with, so far, no consideration or quarter being given to the concerns of the baffled majority. This is not to belittle the concerns of the minority which can be and should be accommodated but good government is also about doing everything in your power to accommodate the concerns of those most affected by your legislative ambitions. And this is simply not happening.

That is what these amendments are about. They do not affect the essence of the Bill – they seek only to provide reassurance and above all to protect freedom of speech, from which not just a minority will benefit, nor just a majority, but every single one of us.

From the BBC

Campaigners against new religious hatred laws have unveiled a compromise plan designed to ensure people can still ridicule and criticise religion.  Comic actor Rowan Atkinson and former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey joined forces with a cross-party group of peers to propose new safeguards. They say the government will not scrap the planned legislation and so are demanding changes.

The Racial and Religious Hatred Bill faces detailed scrutiny when it has its committee stage in the House of Lords next week. Opponents of the bill argue that people can choose their religion, unlike their race and so should not be protected against offence or criticism.

On Thursday, the alliance of writers, comedians, bishops and peers unveiled a series of amendments they want added to the bill. They want three safeguards would ensure the bill protects people, rather than beliefs:

• Nobody can be found guilty of new religious hate crimes unless it is proved they intended to stir up hatred
• Only threatening words should be banned by the bill, not those which are only abusive or insulting
• There should be a specific part of the bill saying the law should not restrict discussion, criticism of expressions of antipathy, dislike, ridicule, insult or abuse of particular religions or beliefs.

Liberal Democrat peer Lord Lester said: The purpose of these amendments is to take the rot out of a rotten bill. He said ministers were unlikely now to scrap a bill which they had promised both in Labour's manifesto and in a pre-election letter to every mosque. We think it would be a mistake to wreck the bill and then give the government the excuse that the unelected upper house was somehow thwarted the will of the elected representatives," he said.

Blackadder star Rowan Atkinson said campaigners against the law backed the government's alleged intentions. But he warned: The prime motivating energy for the bill seemed to come not from communities seeking protection from bullying by the British National Party but more from individuals with a more aggressive, fundamentalist agenda.

George Carey, the former archbishop of Canterbury, said the changes were designed to help the government protect people from religious minorities while keeping free speech: It is good for religions to be knocked, to be challenged because we have done a lot of damage in the past.

Carey also said that the blasphemy laws should be axed and he believed the Church of England would not seriously oppose such a move. Carey said he would back an amendment tabled by Lord Avebury, a Liberal Democrat peer, to scrap the existing blasphemy law. I don't think within the Church of England there will be much opposition. It seems to be that the time has come to look at it very critically and say it's redundant. Then we even out the playing field. It needs to be removed and maybe if it had been then we would have had a better bill before us now.

A Home Office spokesman said: We have seen and will consider the proposals and respond to them in due course.

Editorial from The Times

A rotten bill

Freedom of speech, as Franklin D Roosevelt observed, is the first of the four essential human freedoms. It is perhaps more fragile than his desire for freedom from want, fear and for religious expression. In times of war on terror, the risk is that free speech will be the first casualty. The tension between free speech and the safety of the population is a genuine one. Charles Clarke, the home secretary, has just modified part of the Terrorism Bill which dealt with “glorifying” terrorism. Imams and others will now be prosecuted only if their remarks are seen as as inducements to further terrorist acts. Most people will have little problem with such a law. The fact that certain people, mainly radical Muslims, have abused our tolerance to incite acts of terror has rightly provoked anger.

Where there is a problem, however, is with another government assault on free speech that has no direct connection with terrorism — the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill. If it becomes law, anybody who publishes or says anything “likely to be heard or seen by any person in whom it is likely to stir up racial or religious hatred” will be committing an offence that could make them liable to a seven-year prison term.

This bill has so far attracted most attention because of the efforts of comedians such as Rowan Atkinson. They have argued that it would prevent them poking even gentle fun at any religion. It also featured during the election campaign when Mr Clarke — billing himself as “Labour’s home secretary” — wrote to every mosque in the country highlighting Conservative and Liberal Democrat opposition to the proposals. There was a clear implication that the government was trying to secure the Muslim vote.

However, the issue goes beyond the freedom of comedians to tell jokes and it should concern us all. This misguided and unnecessary bill has already passed through the House of Commons, winning a third reading in July by 301 votes to 229. Not for the first time, the task of preserving our ancient freedoms falls to the House of Lords.

The bill, according to one lord, “is the most illiberal measure that has been brought before your lordships in the 18 years I have been privileged to serve here . . . It is also irrational in that it is neither directed at, nor will it solve, the problems that gave rise to it. What it does is reduce freedom of expression — there is no doubt about that at all”. The author of those comments was Lord Peston of Mile End, one of Labour’s peers.

If that does not make the government pause for thought, other objections should. Lord Lester of Herne Hill, the Liberal Democrat peer and a noted expert on free speech and human rights, points out that the powers in the bill are “sweepingly broad”, they apply to words spoken in private as well as in public, and unlike most other serious offences they require no specific criminal intent. Lord Hunt of Wirral points out that similar proposals were rejected by parliament in 1936, 1965 and 1981 and that no generation of politicians has the right to play fast and loose with our fundamental freedoms.

Most devastatingly of all, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, the former lord chancellor, notes that the bill carries with it the worst of unintended consequences. It could, he argues, mean that anybody criticising radical imams for poisoning the minds of impressionable young men could find themselves subject to prosecution. The Terrorism Bill and the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill are pulling in opposite directions.

Overseeing all this in the House of Lords is Lord Falconer, Tony Blair’s former flatmate. As lord chancellor he has shown a sloppy disregard for ancient traditions and freedoms. This bill will achieve nothing that cannot be done under existing laws while representing a dangerous attack on free speech. It is opposed by most religious leaders. It must be stopped.

From National Secular Society

As expected, the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill received a less than enthusiastic reception in the House of Lords this week. The Second Reading of the Bill took place on Tuesday and was accompanied outside on Parliament Green by a rowdy demonstration of hysterical fundamentalist Christians – and a rather more restrained and rational one from the National Secular Society.

Attention was drawn by several peers during the debate to the fact that the NSS was “standing outside, shoulder-to-shoulder” with evangelical Christians – a prime illustration of the breadth of opposition to the proposals.

Commenting on the demo, Terry Sanderson, the vice president of the National Secular Society, said: It was something of a surreal experience to find ourselves surrounded by hymn-singing, tambourine-playing, speaking-in-tongues Christians, but it was necessary in order to show the parliamentarians the diversity of the people who think this Bill is a very bad, dangerous and unnecessary idea.

During the Lords debate, the Bill was roundly attacked from all sides, with even the bishops warning the government that it threatened civil liberties. The former archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey of Clifton, gave a particularly strong speech against, saying that while admiring the government’s aim of ending hatred and strengthening social cohesion, he was: troubled by the Bill before us and feel it would weaken the social fabric of our society. It has the potential to drive a wedge between Muslim communities and the rest of us.

After identifying herself as a member of the National Secular Society, Baroness Turner of Camden quoted from an NSS briefing paper when she said The Government have, in my view, failed to identify any activity which would be illegal under the Bill and is not already illegal under existing law. It is also draconian: the maximum penalty is seven years in prison, with prosecution thresholds very low. Most importantly, it could severely limit freedom of expression – both directly and through self-censorship, as people become increasingly worried about speaking their minds. She feared that women’s rights could be set back if the Bill resulted in the suppression of open debate on religious grounds.

Keith Porteous Wood has been lobbying peers for the last few weeks and spent most of the day of the debate in Parliament. He told Newsline: Conservative and LibDem front bench spokespersons had NSS briefings, as did Honorary Associates and other supportive peers, Christian peers, and even a bishop. It was gratifying to see them take so many of our points up. The Government is now under huge pressure to radically amend the Bill.

The Bill now goes to committee for more detailed examination.

On Wednesday at Prime Minister’s Question Time in the House of Commons, Tony Blair defended the measure. He was challenged by Conservative MP John Baron to define the term “religion” and provide an example of an act which could be caught by the new law but not by existing legislation. Blair said that while incitement to racial hatred is already a crime, a victim can sometimes be abused on the grounds of their religion without any protection from the law. So if, for example, hatred is incited against Muslims it may not be against their ethnic grouping but against their religious grouping,” he said. John Baron said afterwards he was disappointed that the prime minister had been “unable to either define religion or provide an example.

I do believe this dangerous legislation is unnecessary, will stifle freedom of speech and can only harm community relations, Baron said.

Another argument raised this week came from Lord Mackay of Clashfern, who is a former Chancellor. He told the Today programme on Tuesday that the proposed law may end up providing legal protection to the very type of extremist sentiment the government was most concerned about at present. Mackay, a senior lawyer, noted that Blair blamed the July 7 bombings by Muslim terrorists on “a perverted and poisonous misinterpretation of the religion of Islam.”

But, he asserted, that perversion of Islam which Blair had referred to was as much a religion, of course, as Islam itself. The proposed law would provide legal protection to what the government regards as one of the most dangerous threats to our security and peace at the present time, Mackay said.

From Index on Censorship

By passing an act to outlaw incitement to religious hatred, the British government will create a quasi-legal forum for extremists ready to use one law while breaking others – to silence critics of their faith and punish apostates.

“If you build it, they will come…” Novelist W.P. Kinsella’s fictional Iowa farmer Ray built a makeshift baseball diamond to bring the faithful to him. Britain’s government is orchestrating a plan to build a different kind of playground to attract the spiritually driven.

But this is no Field of Dreams – more a place of nightmares. It’s the quasi-legal gladiator pit for religious extremists that will be created by the government’s Racial & Religious Hatred bill.

This is the bill that is supposed to protect the country’s religious faithful from hateful words. More specifically it’s supposed to win back Muslim votes lost since the Labour government began its war in Iraq, by granting imans the same medieval defence against blasphemy allowed Christian bishops.

The government thinks this trade off is a good deal, as it also provides a legal tool to use against radical Islamists preaching hate from the country’s mosques.

It also thinks it comes cheap. The Home Office expects to see fewer than two or three cases of incitement to religious hatred brought before the courts a year. Only 67 people have been tried, and 44 convicted, under 19-year-old legislation banning incitement of racial hatred in Britain. The government expects a sister law covering religious hate to be equally lightly applied.

But this calculation underestimates the religiously driven in Britain, their organisation, the focus for protest provided by the court option and the political fallout from a refusal to prosecute, let alone a failure to convict defendants in high profile cases.

Calls to prosecute the blasphemous will become rallying cries. Religious extremists will lead, fired not by fear of violence or threat of crime, but by the desire to bring their apostates and critics to court to be punished and silenced.

It's a known condition. Former Indian Attorney-General Soli Sorabjee SC cites the experience of his own country and warns that criminal laws prohibiting hate speech and expression encourages intolerance, divisiveness and unreasonable interference with freedom of expression: Fundamentalist Christians, religious Muslims and devout Hindus would then seek to invoke the criminal machinery against each other’s religion, tenets or practices. That is what is increasingly happening today in India. We need not more repressive laws but more free speech to combat bigotry and to promote tolerance.”

To stave off confrontations a new addition to the bill opened for a second reading by the House of Lords on 11 October explicitly prohibits citizen's arrest under the proposed legislation. There had been fears that critics of a particular faith would monitor gatherings and then seek to ‘arrest’ the speaker.

In fact as the government official empowered to approve prosecutions under the proposed law and the new arbiter of legally permitted religious free expression in Britain, that will be the choice of Attorney General Lord Goldsmith QC.

But though he may have to start spending time perusing Bollywood films for slights against Sikhs and paintings for offences against Greek Orthodox sensibilities, Goldsmith won’t be allowed to take his role as Britain’s new cultural commissar lightly.

The government says that the proposed act could not be used to silence or prosecute Salman Rushdie, or Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti, author of a play about moral corruption in a Sikh gurdwara, or the BBC producers of a TV showing of Jerry Springer – The Opera, supposedly blasphemous to Christians.

It won’t stop their enemies trying though. Rushdie lived under a death sentence for years; Kaur’s play was pulled after a Sikh mob attacked the Birmingham theatre that put it on; BBC executives’ families came under threat from angry Christians who hadn’t even seen the musical.

There are thousands ready to make the case for religious offence, marshalled by religious leaders from the pulpit, or nowadays, via the internet. Nearly 50,000 people were rallied against the BBC in this way to protest Jerry Springer – The Opera.

Goldsmith will become ringmaster of a medieval circus that the government wants nothing to do with, but is facilitating anyway for its own political advantage.

But if they build it they will come. The damage to inter-faith relations – and the safety and free speech rights of those artists and thinkers who offend the extremists - will be done. And it will happen regardless of whether Goldsmith lets a judge and jury rule on the substance of their allegations at the end of their campaigns.

The furore surrounding Goldsmith’s 2003 legal opinion on the legality of the war on Iraq, allegedly under government pressure, tarnished his independence. More of that – accusations of partiality, no doubt some couched in anti-semitic abuse - will follow when Goldsmith issues his first refusal to prosecute under the act.

Or whatever decision he makes, in whatever circumstance. For Goldsmith will have to rule on allegations raised by people not known for their tolerance.

From The Guardian

Whitehall is investigating new rules to stop senior civil servants and Downing Street special advisers making money out of selling their memoirs, Sir Gus O'Donnell, the new cabinet secretary, told MPs yesterday. His announcement follows the controversy over the publication of the former No 10 press officer Lance Price's memoirs, which both Sir Gus and his predecessor, Sir Andrew Turnbull, unsuccessfully tried to censor.

One of the most recent controversial memoirs came from the Downing Street adviser Derek Scott, who revealed the rows between Blair and Gordon Brown over running the economy and Brown's anger over his failure to get the leadership.

Price, a former Downing Street spin doctor, caused a furore by suggesting that Blair relished the Iraq war and made up policy on the hoof before going into press conferences. He was said to have made £150,000 after the memoir's serialisation in the Daily Mail.

Sir Gus's disclosure and comments came as he was being questioned by Gordon Prentice, Labour MP for Pendle, during his first appearance as cabinet secretary before the Commons public administration committee. He told Prentice he had asked officials to explore whether writing up private conversations in memoirs should be covered by crown copyright - in effect meaning that the state rather than the author would get the cash and blocking the opportunity for former civil servants and special advisers to make money from them.

Sir Gus made clear to MPs his distaste for advisers who indulged in such exercises. He said: I have been lucky enough to have worked in No 10, the Treasury and now the Cabinet Office and would never have thought of writing up private conversations ... Making money out of private conversations is wrong.

He was asked specifically by Prentice about the failure of the vetting process over Price's book, where civil servants succeeded in getting some parts of the book changed only to find the original version appearing alongside the vetted version in papers such as the Daily Mail and the Guardian.

He admitted the process had broken down. He also said that preventing some details from being published meant the value of a book often rose, because it encouraged people to believe they were reading accounts that had been banned. But he added: I still feel that memoirs should be submitted, if only to ensure that matters affecting national security are not breached.

Religion has thousands of years of experience of inciting hatred of others and has many times proven itself to be worthy of hatred.

From The Guardian

A Protestant evangelical pressure group has warned that it will try to use the government's racial and religious hatred law to prosecute bookshops selling the Qur'an for inciting religious hatred.

Christian Voice, a fringe fundamentalist group which first came to public prominence this year when it campaigned against the BBC's broadcasting of Jerry Springer The Opera, was among the evangelical organisations taking part in a 1,000-strong demonstration against the bill outside parliament yesterday as the House of Lords held a second reading debate on the measure.

Its director, Stephen Green, said the organisation would consider taking out prosecutions against shops selling the Islamic holy book. He told the Guardian: If the Qur'an is not hate speech, I don't know what is. We will report staff who sell it. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that unbelievers must be killed.

The sectarian organisation's tactics have regularly appalled other Christian groups. Its website proclaims its right to protect its own freedom of speech in attacking other religious groups: MPs have no right to try to stifle our freedom to preach the gospel. It is not just Islam which is the problem. If a preacher is explaining the horrors of Hinduism ... a charge of stirring up religious hatred would be almost inevitable. Preaching against sin in general, or adultery or homosexuality in particular, may also land a preacher in court.

The bill has seen a wide range of Christian groups making common cause with secularists. Yesterday the Catholic church, while welcoming the measure in principle, expressed doubts about the drafting of the legislation, as have Church of England bishops. A Church of England spokesman said: We regard the test of stirring up hatred to be a strong one which would be unlikely to penalise preachers or comedians going about their normal business. However, we wish to be reassured that the formulation of the offence will distinguish clearly between words and actions which incite hatred and expressions of opinion which are merely controversial or offensive.

During yesterday's Lords debate the former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey said that it threatens civil liberties. I am troubled by the bill before us and feel that rather than strengthening the social fabric of our society it would weaken it. It has the potential to drive a wedge between the Muslim community and the rest of us.

He was joined in opposing the measure by the Bishop of Winchester and the former Lord Chancellor Lord Mackay, who questioned its failure to define religious belief.

From The Stage

Peers in the House of Lords are being urged by the National Campaign for the Arts to block the government’s controversial Racial and Religious Hatred Bill when it receives its second reading in the House this week.

NCA director Victoria Todd has become the latest figure in the arts industry to oppose the Government’s Racial and Religious Hatred Bill, warning it will infringe an artist’s right to challenge, to stimulate and to provoke. The organisation has been lobbying members of the House of Lords and has sent them a briefing paper, explaining why it believes the legislation should be scrapped.

Todd commented: This bill must not be allowed to proceed in its current form. We have serious worries that protest groups and troublemakers will use it as a justification for infringing an artist’s right to challenge, to stimulate and to provoke. The NCA will lobby hard to ensure that freedom of speech remains inviolable by this and future governments.

The document sent out by the campaigning group claims that censorship will be an “unintended consequence” of the proposed legislation, that the bill is unclear and will be open to abuse by religious pressure groups such as those that tried to stop the national tour of Jerry Springer - the Opera. It continues: NCA members feel that this bill sets a dangerous precedent, enshrining legislation that could be misinterpreted or re-interpreted by a less liberal government.

The move follows recent attempts by Arts Council England to obtain clarification from the Home Office that artistic freedom will be protected under any new legislation. At the time, a spokesperson for ACE warned of a “climate of anxiety” and said that the arts council was seeking assurances that artists would not be at risk of prosecution under the proposed act.

The Writers’ Guild of Great Britain has also expressed its opposition to the bill. At the recent Trade Union Congress, Lydia Rivlin, chair of the union’s newly established anti-censorship committee, attacked the bill as “a Frankenstein monster of legislation”.

She added: Gurpreet Bhatti wrote a play [Behzti] which observed that sometimes men in religious authority abuse the trust of their congregants. A mob of Sikh militants decided to take violent exception to this and, in the atmosphere being created by discussions about the current legislation, I think they probably had half an idea they would get away with riot and death threats

Nine months after the riot there have been no arrests, no charges and Gurpreet is still in hiding for fear of her life. So, we have a playwright in this country who has been incarcerated for what she has written. The Racial and Religious Hatred Bill is already being applied, by proxy.

From the Margaret Howard Memorial Lecture by David Pannick QC. 19 May 2005

It is bad enough that the blasphemy law survives in this country. The Government is proposing to amend
the law to introduce a new offence of incitement to religious hatred. That would make matters worse by adding to the restrictions on freedom of expression in relation to religious sensibilities and by encouraging religious
communities to believe that it is the function of the legal system to protect them against offence to their religious feelings.

Mindful, no doubt, of Jonathan Swift's aphorism that "we have just enough religion to make us hate, but
not enough to make us love one another"19, the Government asked Parliament earlier this year to make it a criminal offence to provoke religious hatred.

Offending religious convictions is no basis for imposing criminal convictions.

The Government will seek to amend the Public Order Act 1986 which already makes incitement to racial hatred a criminal offence. The Government want to apply the same scheme to hatred against persons on religious grounds. So it would be a criminal offence to use threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour if you "intend to stir up religious hatred", or if your conduct is "likely to stir up" religious hatred. Prosecutions could only be brought by the Attorney-General. A convicted person would face up to seven years in prison.

The proposal starts from the false premiss that race and religion should be treated in the same way. But there are important differences. To make hostile comments about my race is to criticise me for what I am, for innate characteristics that I have not chosen and which say nothing (other than to the racist) about how I act. Because such comments insult my common humanity and cannot be justified, it is right and proper that the law should impose limits on your freedom of speech when it insults my race.

But to comment on my religion is to criticise the conduct of an organisation to which I choose to belong. And religions, unlike racial groups, usually make claims about how society should be organised. By reference to those views, religions seek to attract new members. Religious beliefs have a significant impact on the way its adherents treat each other and strongly influence how society is organised. Critical comments on religious beliefs may serve a valuable function in identifying and remedying abuse of power. It may be difficult to draw a distinction between criticism of those beliefs and criticism of the people who propagate those beliefs. Such criticism is not reduced in value by the tendency of the religious to react with extreme sensitivity when their beliefs are subjected to analysis.

If the Government's proposal were to be enacted, novelists, playwrights, and comedians would need to seek legal advice before strongly criticising members of the Catholic Church for failing to take adequate steps against paedophile priests; or Jews for Judaism's treatment of women (and their children) whose husbands refuse to give them a religious divorce; or Moslems for Islam's intolerance of "infidels" and its discrimination against women and homosexuals. The Bill offers no definition of "religion", so an author may be inviting prosecution by making harsh comments about the Reverend Moon or the Satanist beliefs recognised last year by the Royal Navy.

Irreverently critical comment on religious topics, particularly by a comedian or a novelist, might well be regarded as "abusive or insulting". Even if the author's intention is to provoke debate on an issue of public importance, prosecutors might be able to establish that "hatred" (the quality and quantity of which is not specified in the legislation) is likely to be "stirred up" (an inelegant phrase that should lead to prosecution of the Parliamentary draftsman). Indeed, the more powerful the work, the greater the risk of legal action. That you may have good reason for making insulting comments which provoke hatred of a particular religious doctrine would be no defence. Nor would it be a defence that you did not intend to stir up hatred. Because of the uncertainty inherent in so vague a criminal law, it would inevitably have a chilling effect on freedom of expression about religious beliefs and practices. At a time when religion is becoming both more powerful a force in our society and more intolerant of criticism, the law should be protecting those who wish to speak out on such matters, not threatening to impose further penalties.

The very existence of such a law on the statute book would serve to inflame religious passions, encouraging religious groups to believe that the law will provide a remedy when a novelist or a film director creates a work which criticises their religion or their prophet.

Religions already have strong protection both spiritual (blasphemers will, no doubt, spend much longer than 7 years paying the price of eternal damnation) and temporal. The law punishes (and rightly so) breaches of the peace, harassment and assault. In 2001, Parliament created new offences of religiously aggravated assaults, criminal damage, harassment and public order crimes, where the defendant acts out of hostility towards a person's religion. Discrimination on grounds of religion or belief in employment is unlawful.

The Government's defence of its proposal is that a new law is needed because the existing laws on incitement to race hatred cover offences against Sikhs and Jews, as they are each regarded as a race, but the race hatred laws do not protect Moslems. There are two answers.

The first is that if the current law offers inadequate protection, a narrow amendment to redefine race hatred laws would suffice. The objection to the proposed new law is the breadth of the interference with freedom of speech on religious matters which it would introduce. A much more tolerable solution is that proposed by the Liberal Democrats earlier this year: race hatred would be redefined to include hatred against a person's membership, or presumed membership, of a religious group as a pretext for stirring up racial hatred. Such a law would not inhibit freedom of expression on religious beliefs and practices.

The second answer to the Government's concern is that it is very doubtful that existing law fails to offer sufficient protection. At the end of 2001, Mark Norwood, a Regional Organiser for the British National Party, displayed in the window of his flat in Shropshire, a large poster with a photograph of New York's Twin Towers
in flames on September 11, 2001, with the slogan "Islam out of Britain – Protect the British People". He was prosecuted under section 5 of the Public Order Act for displaying a poster which was threatening, abusive or insulting, and likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress, in circumstances where his offence was aggravated by being motivated by hostility towards a racial or religious group. He was convicted and fined. The Divisional Court dismissed his appeal. The European Court of Human Rights rejected his complaint that this was a breach of his right to freedom of expression. There is no evidence of a need for a new law to provide broader restrictions on freedom of expression.

The Government's proposal to amend the law to impose further restrictions on freedom of speech which offends religious feelings offends the strong secular beliefs of many of us that such additional restrictions are
wrong in principle. On this occasion, the devil is not in the detail. Intolerant religious groups pose one of the gravest threats to freedom of expression in our tolerant society.

The laws against race hatred are based on a principle of common humanity. But if all men and women are created equal, their religions are not always a force for equal good. Religious doctrines and religious practices may be foolish, dangerous or sometimes evil. Because adherents may believe such doctrines and practices to be required by divine will, rational debate is in any event difficult to promote. The law should be encouraging freedom of expression in relation to such powerful forces.

No one would seriously suggest that the law should penalise words or behaviour which have the intention or effect of stirring up hatred of a political group. Such a law would be objectionable because critical comment on matters of public interest should not be further inhibited. Religion is as powerful a force (indeed, often much more powerful) than political affiliations.

Sometimes, the law has to recognise that it cannot sensibly resolve religious disputes.

Strange that the Government seem to think that Trading Standards help the people. Trading Standards seem to me to be simply a jobsworth branch of the police putting the Government's priorities above those of the people.

From The Telegraph

The Government is planning to take control of policing big companies, ending years of local authority responsibility for the inspection and enforcement of trading standards.

It wants to be the first port of call for members of the public who feel they are being ripped off by businesses, large or small. The Government plans to use this information to ramp up its efforts to identify scams and better co-ordinate raids.

The dramatic centralisation of trading standards powers is detailed in the Department of Trade and Industry's consultation on the creation of the new Consumer and Trading Standards Agency, which closes tomorrow.

The Institute of Directors has labelled the plans "a classic Yes Minister move". Philip Hampton, chairman of J Sainsbury's, recommended that the new body be set up after his review of how government regulations are inspected and enforced, which he presented to the Treasury in March.  One of his conclusions was that local authority-run trading standards were inconsistent and uncoordinated.

But IoD director general Miles Templeman fears the deregulatory thrust of the Hampton Review has been "diverted" into the creation of a "major new bureaucracy". Far from being the business community's regulation-busting friend, the new body now threatens to be the worst kind of busy-body inspectorate, he said.

The Government favours the creation of a standalone agency, possibly based outside London and bringing together the company regulatory role of the DTI with the existing consumer protection responsibilities of the Office of Fair Trading. It was also open to alternatives, like simply expanding the existing consumer team at the OFT. Both the IoD and the OFT favour this latter option.

It would set the Trading Standards Service's strategy, performance targets and priorities, ironing out the mishmash of strategies that the DTI sees as preventing the Trading Standards Service from being as consistently effective as it might be. It would have the power to over-rule local authority enforcement actions if it believed the local authority was "failing in its duty".

Large companies will no longer have their chains of shops and premises inspected by the local authority where their head office is based. Instead the Government wants the CTSA to take charge, either employing their own inspectors or sub-contracting with local authority teams as and when required.

From The Guardian

An organisation representing nearly 2,000 lawyers will demonstrate outside parliament today in protest against the government's racial and religious hatred bill.

Members of the Lawyers' Christian Fellowship claim that the bill, which is due to be debated in the Lords today, is in contravention of the European convention on human rights.

If the bill is passed, it is likely to have the opposite effect to that intended by setting one faith community against another in court, spokesperson Andrea Williams said. It would seriously affect the rights of religions to criticise each other.

From The Guardian

Internet companies are being urged by the Home Office to make so-called suicide websites and chatrooms more difficult to access. The move comes after two strangers forged Britain's first internet suicide pact, dying side by side two days after making contact for the first time on a chatroom dedicated to discussions about suicide.

Following a spate of online suicide pacts in Japan and elsewhere, psychiatrists are warning that Britain may be about to witness a disturbing new trend, with young people in particular using the chatrooms to make contact with other depressed individuals.

Ministers have considered outlawing sites which appears to encourage suicide, but were warned that new legislation could also criminalise fictional depictions of suicide and hinder academics and counsellors writing about the subject.

Talks are taking place with a number of service providers, including Yahoo! and AOL, and search engine companies, in an attempt to reprioritise the results that are thrown up during a trawl on the internet. When somebody keys in 'suicide' and 'UK', we would like them to be offered a link to the Samaritans long before they find a website showing them what they can do with a car exhaust and a hosepipe, one official said.

The drive for internet reform was given extra impetus by the deaths of Christopher Aston, 25, and Maria Williams,42, who killed themselves in a shopping centre car park near the Millenium Dome in south-east London. They used a method which is highly unusual in the UK, but which is frequently discussed in suicide chatrooms.

All they had in common, before making contact on one of the most frequently-visited suicide chatrooms, was their interest in computers, and their history of depression. They had had very little contact before their deaths, police told the inquest, but an examination of their computers showed how they had made contact, and revealed that both had been reading internet suicide websites.

Writing in the British Medical Journal before the deaths of Aston and Williams, Sundararajan Rajagopal, a consultant psychiatrist at the Maudsley hospital in London, warned that the internet could fuel a rise in such pacts. He said the Japanese experience might herald a new disturbing trend in suicide pacts, with more such incidents, involving strangers meeting over the internet, becoming increasingly common.

The Home Office says it considered amending the 1961 Suicide Act, which prohibits the aiding and abetting of suicide, but which could rarely be used to prosecute people posting chatroom messages. Eventually, a spokesman says, ministers and officials concluded that: we can't erase them from existence using legislation.

The 1961 Suicide Act made it a crime to aid, abet, counsel or procure another to kill themselves or to try. The Home Office says people making postings to suicide chatrooms are not breaking the law unless they know that a suicide is being planned, and there is a direct link between their posting and the subsequent death.

In Australia, the federal authorities have drawn up legislation which will impose heavy fines on individuals or companies involved in the online promotion of suicide.

Perhaps surprisingly, one of the voices in defence of suicide chatrooms yesterday was that of a close relative of Williams, who believes that parental control may be needed, but not legislation. The web is there as a source of information for all of us, and it's better that these discussions aren't driven underground, he said. Building high-rise blocks didn't increase the suicide rate, and I don't think the internet will either.

The Samaritans can be contacted at www.samaritans.org.uk or by telephoning 08457 909090

From Christian Today

The Evangelical Alliance along with the Christian Lawyers Fellowship as well as numerous other Christian organisations gathered recently in Hyde Park's Speakers' Corner in a prayer rally against the proposed Racial and Religious Hatred legislation.

The event drew speakers and prayers from various organisations. Each lead the large crowd gathered, in prayer and praise, calling for the legislation to be rejected by the House of Lords next week.

The Alliances have also urged their members to take time off work this coming week as part of the protest, and are calling for huge numbers of people to gather outside the Houses of Parliament on 11 October, the date that the Bill’s first full debate is scheduled to take place at the House of Lords.

More than 100 Christian groups, churches and denominations started a full weekend of prayer and protests against the legislation today, which has been seen by many critics as a threat to freedom of speech as well as a threat to evangelism for