Civil liberties, justice, crime

Unequal States of America

Protests erupted across the USA after the Grand Jury investigation into the fatal shooting in St Louis, USA on 9 August of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown concluded on Monday 24 November. Darren Wilson, the police officer who killed Michael Brown, could have faced charges ranging from involuntary manslaughter to first-degree murder. However the jury (nine white and three black) decided that “no probable cause existed to indict Wilson.” An indictment required support from nine of the twelve jurors. St Louis Governor Jay Nixon has called in the National Guard and declared a state of...

Anti-ISIS passport ban won't work

Around Kobane, the Kurdish-majority Syrian city near the Turkish border besieged by ISIS ("Islamic State", Daesh), US airstrikes have significantly increased. Kurdish forces (Iraqi-Kurdish peshmerga, and the Syrian-Kurdish YPG, linked to the Turkish-Kurdish PKK) have now begun to retake territory. 1,200 people have now been killed in the siege. Fuad Hussein, chief of staff to the KRG (Iraq-Kurdish) president Massoud Barzani, says that the CIA’s figuree of 31,000 ISIS fighters is a big underestimate, and the Iraqi government National Security Adviser concurs. ISIS continues to recruit...

Police kill another black youth in St Louis

An off-duty police officer shot dead Vonderrit Myers Jr, an 18 year old black man, in St. Louis, Missouri on Wednesday 8 October. The unnamed police officer was wearing his police uniform while working for GCI, a private security firm. The practice of police officers taking second jobs as security guards is widespread. GCI alone employed 168 officers in 2012. The wearing of police uniform is permitted by the state police department. It appears that these security firms are often employed to patrol residential streets. St Louis metropolitan police chief, Sam Dotson, said three men including...

Tories pledge to scrap Human Rights Act

"We do not require instruction on this from judges in Strasbourg" claimed Cameron in his speech at Tory Party conference, as he promised to scrap the 1998 Human Rights Act and reform Britain's relationship with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Grayling, the Justice Secretary, has set out proposals that would see the Human Rights Act which enshrines the ECHR into UK law replaced with a "British bill of rights" but it is as yet unclear which rights the Tories feel we should and should not have. Grayling says "we can no longer tolerate this mission creep" referring to the idea that the...

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“Hands up! Don’t shoot!”

On 9 August Michael Brown was shot as he walked down the street in his home neighbourhood in Ferguson Missouri, USA. Michael, a black 18 year-old with no criminal record, was shot with his hands up by white police officer Darren Wilson. Dorian Johnson, a friend who was with Michael at the time, described how a police car pulled up and an officer asked them to move onto the pavement. The officer pulled his car around to block the road, and tried to pull Michael into the car, at no point stating he was being arrested or giving any grounds for arrest. When Michael tried to run away he was shot...

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