campaigning against bad law
Hi,
I know of your human rights campaigns and thought I’d write to you and see if you take a position on a matter dear to my heart…
I have been one of the many respondents to the government’s consultation on their proposed legislation to ban the possession of ‘extreme’ pornography…
So far I never responded to any consultation and political activism is not my thing, yet I was stirred into action when I first saw a report on it in 2005 on BBC’s newsnight… it appeared so utterly wrong to me that I felt myself forced to take an interest…
The consultation process revealed that a majority of respondents were against this new law. Some of the respondents in opposition were quite heavyweight; professors in both law and media, even a QC speaking on behalf of the Spanner Trust…
It is worth stating that during the government broke its own rules on procedure for consultations. Something the Spanner Trust complained about bitterly. The responses have never been published by the Home Office and the consultation document itself was incredibly biased in its wording.
On 30 August 2006 the government then announced its go-ahead with this legislation, having amended some aspects due to the strong opposition. Yet the basic premise remains that they are seeking to have people arrested for possessing an image. They are still drawing dangerous parallels between consensually made adult pornography and child pornography..
Legal experts are advising that the introduction of this law might mean the introduction of the concept of ‘thought crime’ into UK law… this being due to it depending on if an accused can be said to be aroused by a violent image in his possession… if not, he will be not guilty… if so, he will be guilty…
Meanwhile, just as previous governments did with homosexuals the style of debate employed by this government is one of abhorrence and disgust at the sexual subject matter, tarring any opposition as sympathisers of perversion… I believe, due to your experience as a gay rights campaigner, you will be familiar with that tactic…
Prosecuting possession of consensually produced adult material in practice would mean a big step towards monitoring people’s internet activity, not to protect children as with child pornography, but to enforce a government approved standard of sexual normality…
I hope you can see why I believe this to be a nightmare scenario…
The human rights issues on this matter are profound… there are other legal issues that arise, such as incompatibility with existing legislation etc… but it is fair to say that these concerns are apparently being ignored as government presses on regardless…
this no doubt due to pressure from the Liz Longhurst campaign and the tabloid sympathies for this cause…
however, it is worth pointing out that the Graham Coutts case has been sent for retrial and that the link between his access to internet pornography and his alleged murder of Jane Longhurst have since been called into question (due to his having had such sexual interests prior to having any internet access at all)…
so why do I write to you? you, Peter, are a man with a voice… the media pays you some attention… meanwhile our efforts aren’t gaining much attention…
on the day of the government announcement that they were going ahead with the law minister Vernon Coaker gave a live interview on the radio and, when under pressure from the presenter, he simply lied about the consultation result, stating that the majority had backed the government, implying there was really no significant opposition…
several of those opposed have since tried to highlight that this was a blatant untruth… yet no-one seems interested… so fearful of the embarrassment factor this subject might hold, no media (not the BBC, nor the newspapers, not even the Tories, or LibDems!) wish to venture that a minister knowingly misled the public live on air…
so you see, we can’t even get public attention when a minister is caught lying on air… so someone with a public voice might help bring attention to the wrongs of a law which would represent an abuse of several human rights and the discrimination and criminalisation of a sexual minority just for the sake of it..
the campaign in opposition of this law is being organised by an group called Backlash at http://www.backlash-uk.org.uk
I hope receipt of this email hasn’t in any way inconvenienced you…
Regards,
Franco Cavazzi