If it can happen Down Under

The following article by Hal G.P. Colebatch recently appeared in the American Spectator

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Australia is a nation where freedom of speech has appeared as solidly established as anywhere in the world.

Today, however, it is under a massive threat. This is all the more shocking because it is as head-on assault on Australia's entire political culture of liberty and democracy.

In the latest development, the governing alliance of the leftist Australian Labor Party and the extreme leftist Greens have received an official report into media regulation recommending draconian controls.

The 470-page report, commissioned as part of the government's vendetta against the Murdoch press, demands that the media be made more "accountable," and that the government have the power to impose "professional standards." The chairman of the inquiry that made the report, retired Federal Court Judge Roy Finkelstein, recommends a News Media Council be set up to license the press and to censor news reporting and political commentary.

Licensing the media has always been abhorrent in the English-speaking world. It was not contemplated even in Australia's first days as a penal colony.

It is recommended that the council -- presumably to be called the Ministry of Truth -- should have a judge or lawyer as its chairman, appointed by the government, and 20 members, a large portion of whom would be nominated by the Labor-affiliated journalists' union.

The council would have power to alter or permanently ban articles. Disobedience would result in a fine or imprisonment for contempt of court, and there would be no appeal. As well as having the power to ban articles, the council would have the power to compel media to publish responses to stories.

Now get this: its jurisdiction would extend not merely to newspapers -- which would be outrageous enough -- but also to any website. Perhaps even if it was visited by only one or two people a day. Finkelstein says its jurisdiction should cover websites which get more than 15,000 hits a year, or an average of 41 a day, that is, practically every website that could be described as publishing "news, information and opinion of current value."

It would also, it is recommended, cover every magazine with a print run of 3,000 copies -- it is uncertain by what process of obscene delicacy the figure of 3,000 copiers was arrived at, but plainly this would catch virtually the entire magazine-publishing industry. At a rough guess, 10,000 copies is a break-even point in terms of attracting advertising.

In paragraph 4.10 of the Finkelstein report it is stated that the council should control speech in Australia because the people are too stupid to be allowed free access to news.

When the representative of Murdoch's News Ltd. claimed readers were "capable of making up their own minds," Finkelstein stated: "Often, however, readers are not in a position to make a properly informed judgement." John Roskam, of the think tank the Institute for Public Affairs, has commented of this that:

This is intellectual arrogance at its most breath-taking. And it's a great argument against democracy. If, as Finkelstein claims, people aren't smart enough to decide for themselves the merits of what they see in the media, then they're certainly not smart enough to decide who to vote for.… Finkelstein and the Greens believe access to the media should be restricted to those who are "balanced and responsible."

To make matters worse, the opposition Liberal Party's media spokesman, Malcolm Turnbull, instead of rejecting the proposal out of hand, as he should have done, has been ambiguous and equivocal, claiming that "It has been said that the legal arrangements at present" (that is, ordinary freedom of speech) "do not adequately advance the public interest."

The report, says author Chris Berg, represents a reversal of the whole principle that it is not the role of the government to judge public debate, and that "The media inquiry was obviously political retribution against critical journalism."

Critiques of the government's and Greens' policy of a tax on carbon emissions are specifically mentioned in the report. Meanwhile, Government Senator Doug Cameron has attacked the Murdoch press -- "an absolute disgrace… we should absolutely be having a look at them" -- for having published news of a leadership struggle within the Labor Party that turned out to be true.

I said at the beginning that this was contrary to Australian traditions of freedom of expression.

In fact, in the last couple of years there have been ominous foreshadowings of press control.

Broadcaster Alan Jones was hauled before the Australian Communications and Media Authority because after one incident he described New South Wales bureaucrats as "scumbags that run around preying on productive people." In response to a complaint from Get Up, one of those murky foundations associated with George Soros. the "Authority" is holding a formal investigation into whether Jones interviews too many climate-change skeptics. In another particularly disgraceful episode, commentator Andrew Bolt was hauled before the court for questioning the Aboriginality of some light-skinned Aboriginal spokespeople.

Keith Windschuttle, editor of the conservative magazine Quadrant, has written defiantly:

If this oppressive scheme is ever implemented, we would feel compelled to defend the long tradition of press freedom by engaging in civil disobedience. While ever I am editor, Quadrant would not recognize the News Media Council's authority, we would not observe its restrictions, and we would not obey its instructions, whatever the price. We hope other publishers will take a similar stand.

Poet A. D. Hope once wrote of Australia: 

The men are independent but you would not call them free…

It seems that that may be about to be tested.

When the terror is the state

A young man was sent to prison yesterday. He has been locked away for eight weeks, not a lifetime in itself, but he now has a criminal record, which will blight his life for years to come.

The unforgiving zealots at the university where he had been studying have kicked him out, so his career plans are wrecked so probably his life is too, after all his picture, and his name were published in every national newspaper and on every TV news bulletin in the nation.

He was not a hero, but a broken boy who cried as he was led away into state incarceration where he will spend the next two month. But let us not judge his tears, would the strongest of us be able to withstand the bile and venom poured upon him by a morally outraged media and the blood baying Twitter nazis who now dictate how people are to think.

And what was his crime? He did not steal, he did not defraud anyone, he did not rape or kill, he did not draw blood, he did not bruise, he did not lay a finger on anyone. His only crime was to say things which we are not supposed to say, and which offended those who passionately seek offence.

For that he must be punished, shamed, humiliated and held up weeping before the nation as an example of what will happen to those who, even when drunk, as he was, dare to misspeak.

Elsewhere as young mother awaits trial for the transgression of daring to say “You're not British, you're black!”

There was a time when what we found most frightening about states such as those beneath the totalitarian fist of Soviet Russia or which were tin pot dictatorships, run by brutal despots, was that people could be locked away because of what they said.

We now live under such terror.

More chilling still are the shrill cheers of those who support the prosecution. To merely read the approving comments beneath the news report of the young man's trial is to hear echoes from another darker place we once thought had disappeared long ago.

“Finally the sentence fits the crime!” Snarls brain dead Olivia from Swindon

“hahahahhahahahhahaha i love it..... u vile rascist little pig ” crowed Arshad from Worster – (clearly enjoying seeing a white man brought low)

“Good, scum like this should have the book thrown at them. ….. He made racist comments” squeaked Anthony from London, the sort of person who, in another life would have sold his mother to the Stasi for misspeaking.

As would Denise from Chelmsford who shrieked with the pride of a Khmer Rouge guerrilla with a baby on her bayonet “The racial comments were disgusting. I'm glad that I was one of the many people who reported him to the police.”

How low has out country sunk that the likes of Olivia, Arshad, Denise and Anthony now tell us how to think.

We are told that this is a free country, that is a joke, we are becoming the terrorist state of which others once warned us, and most frightening is the fact that there are many who welcome it.
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Postscript:  It is ironic that one of those who reported the offending speech was black footballer Stan Collymore, who said there must be “zero tolerance for racism”, luckily for Stan it appears that intolerance does not extend to black footballers who beat up their girlfriends or go dogging on Cannock Chase.  I guess Stan thinks that doing stuff is not as bad as saying it.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-38874/Ulrika-Ill-forgive-Stan.html

http://news.sky.com/home/article/13005260    

When the truth becomes the crime

Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff and Geert Wilders

Last Thursday a court in Vienna found lecturer and human rights activist Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff guilty of one count of “denigration of religious beliefs of a legally recognized religion” and she was fined the sum of €480. A relatively small sum, but she now has a hate crime conviction against her name.

Sabaditsch-Wolff's crime was to state, at a series of seminars about political Islam, that the Prophet Mohamed had sex with a child, his nine year old wife Aisha. Although acquitted of the more serious charge of inciting racial hatred, she was also convicted of being a “serial offender” despite this being her first offence.

Elizabeth is a regular writer at the Gates of Vienna who have written extensively about her case, links to their various articles can be found here, meanwhile American writer Diana West who runs the Death of the Grown Up blog has addressed the case in a recent posting “Willkomen to the Caliphate”, where she effectively argues that the conviction was in fact on the basis of Sharia law, not European law or what still passes for Austrian law.

It is interesting to note that the court did not find that the defendant had lied, at one point the judge stated that Aisha was 18 but later acknowledged that she had in fact attained that age at the time of Mohamed's death. Indeed the fact that Mohamed married Aisha while she was a child is largely undisputed and accepted as fact by most Islamic scholars. Marriage between an older man and a pre-pubescent girl was not unusual in Islamic culture during the prophet's life and remains so today in some Islamic countries.

The truth of the claim was irrelevant to the court. To convict Sabaditsch-Wolff, it was not necessary to demonstrate her claims were untrue, they were true, but merely to prove, as the court did, that she told a truth which some Muslims found offensive.

This was by no means an isolated case. Also last week French journalist Éric Zemmour was found guilty of incitement to racial hatred after telling a TV chat show that drug dealers were mostly "blacks and Arabs".

Once again, the truth or otherwise of Zemmour's claim was irrelevant to his conviction for he spoke a truth which French law bars him from speaking. It is illegal in France to reveal the race of criminal offenders, or to report rates of ethnic offending, presumably because to do so would be to reveal the truth of Monsieur Zemmour's illegal words.

Meanwhile in Holland it has been announced that the trial against PVV leader Gerrt Wilders for discrimination and inciting hatred will recommence on March 14th. As in the other cases mentioned, the truth or otherwise of Mr Wilders' words will have no bearing on his prosecution, all that matters is that they have offended Muslims and questioned the state dogma of multiculturalism.

Like Sabaditsch-Wolff and Zemmour, Wilders could join the growing group of people convicted of, and punished for, telling the truth.

In Britain, as we all know BNP leader Nick Griffin was subjected to a politically motivated criminal prosecution for making statements which have since been proven to be true. Mr. Griffin's claims that gangs of Muslim paedophiles have been grooming white girls for sex, have been echoed by ex-Justice secretary Jack Straw, and confirmed by various journalists and leading police officers. However, as Judge Norman Jones informed Nick Griffin at his trial, that he was telling the truth was no defence against race hate charges.

Indeed, had it not been for the wisdom of a jury, who acquitted Griffin against the judge's advice, he would have gone to prison for the New World Order offence of telling the truth.

In fact the situation is worse than the judge implied, Judge Jones understated the truth, for we in Europe have gone beyond the point where the truth is merely no defence against race hate charges, the truth itself is now the crime.

The mad Orwellian creed of multiculturalism, which our rulers have imposed upon us has produced a reality where, when addressing the subject of race and religion the only act left to us, which is legal and permissible, is to lie.

The Death of Free Speech in Europe? - More disturbing news from Finland

Entrance to Finland - the iconic main railway station in Helsinki

NOTE: The following article was posted to me, I have checked it out and it appears to be accurate. It should be noted that the author Henrik Holappa is an alleged neo-Nazi who recently unsuccessfully sought political asylum in the USA. However, as I say, from my own research the facts he describes appear to be accurate. I am, therefore, publishing the article because of its implications in relation to Free Speech.

Sarah: Maid of Albion does not necessarily endorse all views expressed in the following article.

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Finland Continues to Suppress the Freedom of Speech

By Henrik Holappa

19.01.2010

The Finnish Department of Justice is planning on suppressing the freedom of speech in Finland – now even more. The special legal group of the Department of Justice is now planning the new blueprints of the law that would especially focus on so called “Internet Racism”.

The major newspaper in Finland, Helsingin Sanomat, reported of the suggested plan on their websites w3hich can be read by clicking here. (Ed: as the article is in Finnish, a rough Google translation has been posted here . Sarah)

According to the new law suggestion, just clicking yourself on the alleged “racist” or “white supremacist” website (whether it is David Duke's, the Resistance Movement's websites or any other prominent white's civil rights movement's website) that would be enough to sentence a Finnish citizen to 4 years in prison. I emphasize – just visiting a racist website would be enough to sentence someone to 4 years in prison.

According to the Department of Justice – this new law would tremendously prevent racism in Finland, as it was mentioned, especially on Internet.

Probably one reason behind the new law suggestion leads to the shooting rampage in Espoo, a city near Helsinki, that took place on the New Year's eve. The suspected shooter, Ibrahim Shkupolli, - originated from Kosovo, shot 4 at the shopping mall and later on that day Shkupolli shot himself. Before the shooting took place at the shopping mall, he had shot his former Finnish girlfriend. The event stimulated among the Finnish citizens the discussion about the uncontrolled mass-immigration, which the Finnish government considered racist.

The special legal group of the Finnish government's Department of Justice would like to add a new paragraph to the law in their struggle against the racism. The law would carry a name of “Aggravated incitement for Racial Hatred”, and the maximum sentence of the crime would be 4 years in prison. The law could be used in various cases – as an additional charge – such as; “incitement for mass-destruction” and for a slaying made on a terrorist purpose.

One can only guess what “incitement for mass-destruction” may really mean. In Spain, for example, just denying the Holocaust – or simply questioning it – it is considered as “incitement for mass-destruction.” The Holocaust denial law does not exist in Finland, but several other existing anti-racist laws could be used in a way that an individual could be sentenced of an alleged Holocaust denial.*

The current law of incitement for racial hatred allows a person to be sentenced to maximum of 2 years in prison. Of course the government and the legal system may use both legal paragraphs – incitement for racial hatred and aggravated incitement for racial hatred – to sentence an individual to a maximum sentence of 6 years in prison, including using several other legal paragraphs – such as violation of freedom of speech and in some cases even aggravated defamation - combined together in one sentence.

However, if the law is being executed as such, it would literally mean the following; an individual visits on a racist website and leaves a comment on the discussion board – he has already committed two serious crimes; incitement for racial hatred and possibly violation of freedom
of speech.

However, always when a foreigner is being a victim of any crime, the police investigation leaves from the allegation it was racially motivated crime. This explains the statistical growth of the racist crimes in Finland, but it does not prove that all crimes in which a foreign individual has been a victim of a crime would have been committed on a racist purpose.

The new law would also make it possible to punish certain groups of individuals that may share a common racialist view, whether they share it publicly or in different discussion forums on Internet. If the law would be taken in use in that way, it may possibly mean the arrests and convictions of hundreds or even thousands of Finns in the near future.

The Freedom of Speech in Finland would be tremendously restricted, just in a next few months. This would force the Finnish nationals to be silent about the harms of the multicultural society. That what will be the new definition of racism, may only be guessed, but the every-day racism, violence and even deaths committed against the Finns will not probably be recognized by the new law exchange.

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Hat Tip Soloman

* The views of this blog in relation to prosecution of Holocaust denial can be read by clicking here

Jailed for writing stuff

Simon Sheppard was today Jailed for Four Years and 10 months, whilst Stephen Whittle received a two year four month sentence following convictions for inciting Racial hatred online. The two men fell foul of the British state on account of a series of online articles and pamphlets containing illegal free speech which they had written and distributed.

They writings can be viewed on their website heretical.com which remains freely available and totally legal in America where it is based.

As readers will recall, Sheppard and Whittle, the so called Heretical Two, originally fled to America in the mistaken belief that US asylum laws, and free speech protection extended to white Christian people, but were soon disabused of such foolishness and swiftly returned to Britain (or New World Sector 44x).

Adil Khan, head of Humberside Police's diversity and community cohesion Unit, (Yes , there actually is such a police unit!!) could hardly disguise his glee as he sneered "This case is groundbreaking!" And there are certainly many who would agree that a once great nation, respected internationally for its defence of freedom, has reached a point few would have once thought possible.

Thought criminals returned to New World Sector 44x (formerly known as Great Britain) for punishment

Simon Sheppard and Stephen Whittle, two Britons, who foolishly imagined that the USA still believed in the first amendment to its constitution, and more foolishly still assumed that American asylum laws would ever, under any circumstances, be extended to White Europeans, have been returned to the oppressive Orwellian state, which holds both thought and the written word to subject to criminal sanction, from which they had fled in search of sanctury.

Let no white man ever assume that, unless he he follows to the letter the doctrine of the New Order, he, his words or thoughts will ever find protection in this world.

In Memory of the ol' First Ammendment

Free Speech? #1

The US company touting itself as the "world's largest out-of-home media" enterprise has banned a national billboard campaign that asks one simple question: "Where's the birth certificate?"

CBS Outdoor, a division of CBS Corp. that sells more outdoor advertising than any other billboard company in North America, refuses to accept purchases of space on any of its 550,000 displays
nationwide.

The billboard campaign was begun last month by Joseph Farah, editor and chief executive officer of World Net Daily, due to his frustration with media colleagues not giving attention to what he sees as critical questions about Barack Obama's constitutional eligibility to serve as president.

"Here we have one of the largest media companies in the U.S. now not only refusing to allow news coverage of a vitally important national question being asked by millions of Americans, but one that won't even permit the purchase of space to raise the question," said Farah. "What is the value of a First Amendment in a country when this kind of self-censorship is at work – self-censorship specifically geared to stifle inquiry and debate about the most powerful person in the country."

A spokesperson for CBS stated that the billboards were "misleading", but failed to say how.

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Free Speech? #2

In a separate story, it is likely that, withing days the US government is expected to deport Englishmen Stephen Whittle and Simon Sheppard (otherwise known as The Heretical 2) back to Englanistan-obogo, formally known as Great Britain, where they face up to seven years in prison for thought crimes. Mr Whittle and Mr Sheppard, didn't kill anyone, they didn't steal anything, they didn't rape or attack anyone, what they did was write stuff, an activity which can now be a serious criminal offence in the Orwellian state of Englanistan-obogo.

Following their political show trial these two convicted writers fled to the United States and claimed political Asylum, in the belief that America still believed in its First Amendment protection of free speech. Some chance!!!

As Nicholas Stix explains here not only were Whittle and Sheppard the wrong colour, but what they were saying was not the sort of free speech which is protected in Obama's America.

So what do the two stories tell us about the state of the once much revered first amendment to the US constitution? why not ask this guy!

(it seems the First Amendment has gone the same way as Article 2 Clause 5)

Why Britain banned Savage

Anyone wondering why one of America's most popular radio "jocks" Michael Savage appeared, together with assorted Islamic fanatics and homophobic preachers, on a list of people banned from entry into the UK on account of their views, might benefit from listening to the audio clix excerpt from Savage's radio show.

Savage may not be everyone's cup of tea, and her certainly expresses himself strongly, but what he says is a little bit to close to the truth, and to what is happening in Britain, as well as America for our current government's comfort. That is the real reason he was banned, and why we should all be lobbying for that ban to be lifted.

Click here to listen to Michael Savage on YouTube