UK News

Government moves to reduce the availability of suicide sites on the internet may herald a new era of online censorship in the UK.

Last week, Justice Minister Maria Eagle announced a review of the law on suicide. Citing the usual suspect – public concern – she said: Protecting vulnerable and young people must be a priority and a responsibility for us all.

There is no magic solution to protecting vulnerable people online. Updating the language of the Suicide Act, however, should help to reassure people that the internet is not a lawless environment and that we can meet the challenges of the digital world.

It is important, particularly in an area of such wide public interest and concern, for the law to be expressed in terms that everyone can understand.

We continue to work with the internet industry to look at long-term ways to keep people safe and without jeopardising our freedom of speech.

Or in plain English: We are finally going to do something about people who have the temerity to use the internet to talk openly about this subject. Freedom of speech is optional.

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Monty Python fans in the Devon resort of Torbay will be able to publicly watch The Life Of Brian for the first time after a 30-year-old ban on the film was lifted.

When the comedy was released in 1979, the local authority said its 15 rating should be upped to an 18. The film's distributors refused and the movie was effectively banned and never shown in the resort, reports The South Devon Herald Express.

The film recently won a vote to be shown at the English Riviera International Comedy Film Festival, forcing Torbay Council to seek legal advice on the ruling made three decades ago. It was subsequently decided that the 1979 decision is now redundant.

Torbay mayor Nick Bye said: The world has moved on. I haven't seen the film but I welcome its showing on Sunday.

When Glasgow Rangers fans sang the Famine Song at an Old Firm derby they never thought it would cause so much trouble:

I often wonder where they would have been
If we hadn't have taken them in
Fed them and washed them
Thousands in Glasgow alone
From Ireland they came
Brought us nothing but trouble and shame
Well the famine is over
Why don't they go home?
Now Athenry Mike was a thief
And Large John he was fully briefed
And that wee traitor from Castlemilk
Turned his back on his own
They've all their Papists in Rome
They have U2 and Bono
Well the famine is over
Why don't they go home?
Now they raped and fondled their kids
That's what those perverts from the dark side did
And they swept it under the carpet
And Large John he hid
Their evils seeds have been sown
Cause they're not of our own
Well the famine is over
Why don't you go home?
Now Timmy don't take it from me
Cause if you know your history
You've persecuted thousands of people
In Ireland alone
You turned on the lights
Fuelled U boats by night
That's how you repay us
It's time to go home.

But the song angered one fan so much he put in a complaint that led Irish diplomats to raise the concerns with the Scottish government.

Now anti-censorship campaigners have stepped into the row, claiming this weekend that any attempt to curb the fans from singing the lyrics would be a dangerous assault on freedom of speech. It is the Rangers fans' right, they say, to insult the Irish over the Great Famine if they choose.

Index on Censorship's Irish-born spokesperson, Padraig Reidy, said he was concerned about the state intervening: Considering we all know that there have been nasty, offensive songs at Old Firm games for years, making it into a national issue seems absurd and dangerous. It's trying to set a legal limit on speech that isn't incitement to violence. Rangers and Celtic have an agreement between themselves to sing what they want.

Reidy said that, while the song about the Famine is undoubtedly offensive, behaviour should be controlled by the two clubs rather than the state: It's different to anti-discrimination laws, which are a very good thing, but seeking to outlaw any kind of insulting or offensive speech/songs does become very problematic, because someone will always take offence .

Rangers FC said it has approached Strathclyde Police for guidance, a spokesman for the club said, adding fans had been actively discouraged from singing the song at games.

The theatre is a watchword for unfettered artistic licence. Or is it? Dramatists and producers still engage in battles with state censors — who can still determine what is fitting for public consumption. The official role of state censor, given to the Lord Chamberlain under the Licensing Act 1737, may well be dead — but censorship is alive and well in other guises.

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Early last Thursday, police in Market Harborough and Rugby arrested two forensics experts, Jim Bates and Chris Magee, on charges of conspiracy to possess indecent images of children . Jim Bates has frequently given testimony in computer forensic and child pornography cases, and had been working on a case along with Magee, who is a director of Cyber Forensics.

The arresting officers also seized large quantities of material, both hard copy and digital, from the two men. This included material that is claimed to be privileged within the meaning of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act.

Jim Bates is controversial. He has testified extensively and often in criminal cases, but is best known for his role in defending individuals accused of downloading child porn, and for his criticism of Operation Ore, which resulted in thousands of child pornography arrests in the UK.

Talking to The Register he made it clear that he sees the official investigation of many such cases as systematically flawed. He is scathing of police 'experts' in this area, arguing that most lack the expertise to carry out all but the most basic of analyses.

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Update: Raid Declared Unlawful by the High Court

9th May 2009. See article from teletext.co.uk

A porn raid on the home of a leading forensic computer analyst who was helping police in Bristol has been declared unlawful by the High Court.

Two judges quashed a warrant under which Avon and Somerset Police entered the home of Jim and Joan Bates.

The damages to be paid to the couple, of Market Harborough, Leicestershire, will be assessed at a later date.

Update: Who really defines 'public interest'?

19th May 2009. See article from theregister.co.uk by John Ozimek

A police chief would rather face the prospect of jail than obey a court order requiring his force to return computer hard drives to their owner. At issue is the big question of who ultimately makes the law in the UK: the police or the courts.

Update: Jim Bates Speaks Out

1st June 2009. See article from inquisition21.com

The Google-owned video sharing website YouTube has moved to counter criticism that it helps fuel gang violence by introducing new rules to ban submissions that glamorise guns and knives.

The UK-specific rule will ban videos showing weapons with the aim of intimidation after criticism that fierce battles were being fuelled by rival members posting videos.

A Google spokesman said: There has been particular concern over videos in the UK that involve showing weapons with the aim of intimidation, and this is one of the areas we are addressing.

The move comes days after YouTube also introduced new global guidelines to outlaw content that directly incites violence .

But the new rules will not change the internet giant's stance on the way content is regulated. It is committed to a policy of user-moderation, arguing it is impractical for it to vet every video before it is posted. Once a video is flagged up as potentially inappropriate YouTube's staff examine it and remove it if it breaks the guidelines.

The Press Complaints Commission has censured the Daily Sport for a gratuitous article that glamourised suicide after the tabloid published a Top yourself tourism list.

The Daily Sport published a list of the UK's top 10 suicide hotspots using information released by the British transport police that showed 25 people had died on one stretch of railway line over three years.

Choose Life, a government-backed education project working to reduce the numbers of suicides in Scotland, complained to the PCC that the piece had provided unnecessary detail which might encourage vulnerable people to visit the places shown and take their own lives and said the piece was highly irresponsible.

The PCC upheld the complaint and said it breached clause 5 its code of practice, introduced in 2006 following discussions with the Samaritans to try and reduce the risk of imitative suicide. It was the watchdog's second censure of a complaint under the new rules.

Clause 5 states that care should be taken to avoid excessive details about the method used when reporting suicides.

The PCC ruled that the article was simply a gratuitous guide to how and where individuals have killed themselves. It treated a serious subject in a light-hearted manner and may have glamorised suicide in the eyes of some readers.

Notes from Another Country - the book about the fascism behind Operation Ore is to published on the Inquisition 21st Century website

The Introduction and Chapters 1-3 have already been posted, the remainder will follow.

Notes from Another Country is a book by a suppressed author, which may be amongst the most important works of our times.

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A teen has attacked four women supposedly in an imitation of violent computer game Grand Theft Auto , a court heard.

Ryan Chinnery, 19, prowled streets in his car targeting females he thought were prostitutes after 'becoming obsessed' with the game.

He assaulted his victims, none of them hookers, by night in a two-month period.

And the court was told he may have been influenced by the virtual reality game, in which a character drives around on “missions” — including approaching prostitutes who can be beaten up.
Dragged

A copy of Grand Theft Auto was found at his home by police. Yesterday Chinnery was told he faces a long prison sentence after he admitted two sex attacks. Two similar offences were left on file.

Prosecutor Eleanor Laws said Chinnery's love of Grand Theft Auto may go some way to explaining his attitude towards women. Prostitutes in it can be subjected to violence. There may be some connection with the defendant admitting spending a lot of time playing that game.

Judge Philip Statman adjourned sentencing until October 22 pending probation and psychiatric reports. The case will fuel debate on the effects on youngsters of violent computer games.

Britain's biggest exam board has been accused of censorship after it removed a poem containing references to knife crime from the GCSE syllabus.

Officials at the AQA board said their request that schools destroy the anthology containing the Carol Ann Duffy poem Education for Leisure had been triggered by concerns in two schools about references to knives. A spokeswoman confirmed the decision had been made in the context of the current spate of knife-related murders.

But poets yesterday condemned the move, saying such "censorship" fundamentally missed the point of the poem, which they said could help children debate the causes of street violence.

The poem starts:

Today I am going to kill something.
Anything.
I have had enough of being ignored and today
I am going to play God.

It describes a youth's yearning for attention and a journey to sign on for the dole, and makes references to the killing of a goldfish. It ends ominously with the youth walking the streets armed with a bread knife.

Duffy's literary agent, Peter Strauss, said: It's a pro-education, anti-violence poem written in the mid-1980s when Thatcher was in power and there were rising social problems and crime. It was written as a plea for education. How, 20 years later, it had been turned on itself and presented to mean the opposite I don't know. You can't say that it celebrates knife crime. What it does is the opposite.

A spokeswoman for AQA confirmed there had been three complaints, two referring to knife crime and a third about the description of a goldfish being flushed down the toilet.

The AQA spokeswoman said: The decision to withdraw the poem was not taken lightly and only after due consideration of the issues involved. We believe the decision underlines the often difficult balance that exists between encouraging and facilitating young people to think critically about difficult but important topics and the need to do this in a way which is sensitive to social issues and public concern.

Singer Sandi Thom has had the video for her latest single banned from YouTube because of scenes of drug-taking.

The Scottish singer-songwriter told The Scotsman that the video, which featured a compilation of images sent in by fans of their Saturday nights, was discovered to have contained inappropriate scenes, including one of a man with what appeared to be four lines of cocaine in front of him. The images also featured a man with his hands down his trousers, she said.

I thought it was hilarious in a way when I found out they'd banned it, but I also felt bad for my fans who had sent in their pictures in good faith who won't get to see them now, said Thom.