Posted: Thu, 27 May 2021 by Stephen Evans on the National Secular Society website
As an investigation into the Batley Grammar affair concludes, Stephen Evans says we should recognise the censorious precedent it has set.
Earlier this year a number of teachers were suspended after an image of the prophet Muhammad was used in a lesson to initiate a discussion about blasphemy at Batley Grammar School in West Yorkshire.
Pupils were forced out of school as angry protesters gathered at the gates demanding action against one of the teachers for 'offending' "the whole Muslim community". Some protesters accused him of stirring up anti-Muslim hatred.
The school's head teacher apologised "unequivocally" and sought to placate the protestors by saying the use of the image was "totally inappropriate". Meanwhile, one teacher and his family were forced into hiding after receiving threats.
An independent investigation launched by the academy trust behind the school has now concluded. It's found that the image was used for an "educational purpose" to benefit students and was not used with the intention of causing offence. The suspensions have been lifted – and rightly so.
Everyone's primary concern should be for the safety and wellbeing of the teacher at the centre of this and his family. We should hope they can now move on and rebuild their lives. I would be surprised if the teacher returns to the school.
But we should also recognise that the investigators have given the protesters what they craved by imposing a de facto blasphemy code on the school.
The executive summary of the investigation says: "It is not necessary for staff to use the material in question to deliver the learning outcomes on the subject of blasphemy; or any such images of the type used… in any trust RS lessons, or any other lessons."
Nobody claimed it was "necessary". But if you're teaching about blasphemy and freedom of expression, you may reasonably think the most effective way of exploring this subject involves using images that have caused controversy. You may also think that if you don't show them, pupils will look them up on the internet anyway, and the best environment for this learning is a teacher facilitated discussion. Teachers appreciate the diversity of their students and can foster civility to ensure students learn about sensitive topics in authentic, sensitive, engaging and meaningful ways.
On a fundamental point, the outcome of this investigation represents a capitulation to the mob. The reason this school and others won't use such resources again is not because they aren't educationally justified, but because they don't want to cause offence. Not because they aren't conducive to learning, but because of the threat of disruption and violence. This is how a de facto blasphemy law works.
Right from the start, the National Secular Society urged the government to take the lead on this issue. We warned that treating it as little more than a local dispute would leave the investigation more vulnerable to pressure from assertive, intolerant religious voices.
And that has now happened. The outcome of the investigation has been influenced by unreasonable religious demands and intimidation and threats from religious extremists.
In many ways, the trust's response is a clever fudge. It endeavours to conciliate between the various parties by offering them all something, while selling out on liberal, secularist principles. It says it's committed to "ensuring offence is not caused". This is a route to censorship that sets a very dangerous precedent.
And the outcome of this local investigation will inevitably affect teachers' ability to do their jobs across the country. One trainee teacher at Manchester Metropolitan University who expressed concern over the weak response to the Batley Grammar affair and said he would be willing to use images of religious figures in class has already been called to a 'fitness to practise' meeting.
Teachers have been given the message that they should censor themselves. And that message could be relevant on any other number of sensitive subjects where well-organised and vocal groups could take offence.
When the incident first happened the Department for Education said it was "never acceptable to threaten or intimidate teachers", adding that schools are "free to include a full range of issues, ideas and materials in their curriculum". With fundamental principles at stake, the government should now launch its own investigation into the handling of the affair and consider how we got ourselves into the position where religious extremists have a veto on which resources teachers can use in the classroom.
But instead the DfE has simply said "parents, families and the local community" should "recognise the findings of the investigation" and "welcome and support" the trust's plan to "strengthen its oversight of the curriculum".
Everyone will understandably want to move on from this now. But before we do, we should recognise that an Islamic blasphemy code has been quietly imposed. Teachers' and pupils' freedoms have been sacrificed to appease offence takers.
The outcome of the Batley affair is another damaging chip away at the fundamental right to free expression and inquiry.
Additional note - Friday 28 May
The NSS has today written to the DfE about this. The letter urged the department to investigate the handling of the protests outside Batley Grammar School.
It added that the investigation should consider the wider context of religious fundamentalism being imposed on schools through protests and intimidation, and ask what can be done to protect and support schools in such situations.
The candidates must stand up for the local teacher who has been hounded into hiding by Islamists.
by Paul Stott on the Spiked website
13th May 2021
How soon we forget. A schoolteacher and his young family are living away from their home in Batley, Yorkshire. It is entirely possible they are under armed guard. They have been in hiding for over six weeks after receiving threats from religious zealots. All because the teacher reportedly showed a cartoon of Muhammad in the course of his teaching.
The teacher is also under investigation by his employer, and he knows that the process is potentially stacked against him. The school’s headmaster has publicly criticised his actions, and the campaigners who demanded his sacking have requested to be part of the team conducting the inquiry. His trade union, the National Education Union, is known to have funded a local Islamic charity, Purpose of Life, which has circulated the teacher’s name and has even accused him of‘terrorism’. Should the investigation fail to result in his dismissal, it will undoubtedly be denounced as a whitewash and an example of institutional ‘Islamophobia’. The mob will likely return to the schoolgates. The teachers and pupils of Batley Grammar School deserve better.
In last week’s local elections, the Labour MP for Batley and Spen, Tracy Brabin, was elected as the first mayor of West Yorkshire. While some MPs insist they can juggle serving as an MP and a mayor (such as Dan Jarvis, Labour MP for Barnsley Central and mayor of the Sheffield City Region), Brabin is expected to step down as an MP, triggering a by-election.
Batley and Spen is another traditionally Labour-voting Red Wall seat which is looking vulnerable to a Tory challenge. Labour’s majority in Batley and Spen fell from 8,691 in 2017 to 3,525 in 2019. The even-worse news for arch-Remainer Sir Keir Starmer is that Batley and Spen voted 59.3 per cent to leave the EU in the 2016 referendum.
Tracy Brabin won Batley and Spen in a by-election in October 2016, following the murder of the Labour incumbent, Jo Cox, by far-right terrorist Thomas Mair. He shouted ‘Britain first!’ while shooting and stabbing her. A passer-by, Bernard Kenny, was also stabbed. He received the George Medal for attempting to save Cox’s life. When a by-election was called to elect a new MP, the main parties did not contest it out of respect for Cox, allowing Labour a clear run.
The ugly threat of violence has since returned to Batley and Spen, and will surely hang over the 2021 by-election. This time the aggressors are not from the far right, but from an Islamist scene that has an even greater propensity for violence than Britain’s neo-Nazis. In 2016, the main parties stood as one against the violence of the far right. In this by-election, they again need to step up. Each candidate needs to declare loudly and clearly that what is happening at Batley Grammar is unacceptable.
In a liberal democracy, schoolteachers must be free to teach children about contentious issues. That includes showing caricatures and images that some find offensive. A core function of education is preparing children for the real world, not protecting them from it. Education policy cannot be surrendered to any mob that can get enough people together at the school gates. If education can be influenced like this, what is the point of holding by-elections, or of political parties developing policies, if we simply go along with whoever shouts the loudest?
The Batley Grammar School teacher needs to be able to return to his home and to his day job. Every candidate who stands in Batley needs to be asked how they will ensure this happens, and how this country can ensure such an outrage is never repeated again. Liberal democracy endured after an attack by a fascist in 2016. It should not roll over and accept defeat by Islamists in 2021.
A DOCTOR FOR imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is in the third week of a hunger strike, said his health is deteriorating rapidly and the Kremlin critic could be on the verge of death.
Physician Yaroslav Ashikhmin said that test results he received from the 44-year-old’s family show him with sharply elevated levels of potassium, which can bring on cardiac arrest, and heightened creatinine levels that indicate impaired kidneys.
“Our patient could die at any moment,” he said in a Facebook post.
Anastasia Vasilyeva, head of the Navalny-backed Alliance of Doctors union, said on Twitter that “action must be taken immediately”
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Navalny is Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most visible and adamant opponent.
His personal physicians have not been allowed to see him in prison. He went on hunger strike to protest the refusal to let them visit when he began experiencing severe back pain and a loss of feeling in his legs.
Russia’s state penitentiary service has said that Navalny is receiving all the medical help he needs.
Navalny was arrested on January 17 when he returned to Russia from Germany, where had spent five months recovering from Soviet nerve-agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin.
Russian officials have denied any involvement and even questioned whether he was poisoned, which was confirmed by several European laboratories.
Asked about Navalny’s worsening condition, US President Joe Biden told reporters: “It’s totally, totally unfair and totally inappropriate. On the basis of having the poison and then on a hunger strike.”
Navalny was ordered to serve two-and-a-half years in prison on the grounds that his long recovery in Germany violated a suspended sentence he had been given for a fraud conviction in a case that he says was politically motivated.
This Council strongly oppose the ill-conceived and dangerous Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill being proposed by the Home Secretary. To push through repressive legislation under the cover of the pandemic is awful politics and will make dreadful law. As it stands, the Bill seeks to:
· Erode fundamental rights of protest including vital trade union actions and activities that support working people
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Draw false links between violence and the Black Lives Matter and Extinction Rebellion protests
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Attack those marginalised from society, such as traveller communities and other minority groups
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Create a fake ‘culture war’ where moves to establish a more tolerant and diverse society is somehow destroying our history.
We are saddened by the violent scenes in our city. As a trade union movement, we believe in the right for workers to be able to protest without police harassment or violence. We condemn the police violence towards peaceful demonstrators and members of the press. Furthermore, we note with concern the reports of police intimidation towards journalists as they are trying to carry out their job, as well as preventing independent media coverage. These incidents need to be fully independently investigated and those responsible held to account.
by KILL THE BILL PROTESTER, Wednesday Mar 31, 2021
I’ve been working in various roles in the community, youth and social sectors for around a decade, including the last four years in Bristol.
I have worked with some of the most disproportionately criminalised and marginalised communities including addicts, the homeless and vulnerably homed, refugees, travellers, juvenile detainees, mental health patients, young people in care, deprived/low-income neighbourhoods and BAME young people.
Although on occasion the police, as the only system we have, have supported me in these roles, they are often at best incompetent or ineffective and at worst actively harmful and violent.
I have seen how the defunding of youth and social sectors (who work at the roots of these issues) leads to an increase in crime and social issues, and believe that reallocating these funds away from the police would begin to effect long term positive change in our communities, rather than perpetuating crime and incarcerating people away from society.
As a queer person, and as a Jewish person, my identity intersects across two communities with a history of persecution at the hands of the state. I, like many other queer people, know the violence that the LGBT+ community has faced at the hands of the state and how riots such as Stonewall have been integral to our freedom and human rights. As a Jewish person, I can understand, from a specific perspective, the very real fear that people feel when the state begins to use police power to persecute minorities and ethnic groups.
So these, among other reasons, are my personal and professional reasons for opposing the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill and criticising the police.
You can read sources from much more knowledgeable people about the rights this bill would infringe, not just in terms of protesting but to the cultural rights and rituals of some of the UK’s most marginalised communities.
I attended the initial march on Sunday. Contrary to statements from the mayor and the “Bristol city leaders group” (many of whom are ironically not based in Bristol themselves) that the protest was made up of violent hooligans from outside the city, I’ve seen a much larger demographic.
I’ve met doctors, nurses, paramedics, youth workers, community leaders and teachers at the protests, all who are important parts of Bristol’s infrastructure and all of whom oppose the bill and remain critical of the actions of the police.
People have been administering first aid and acting as legal observers – both essential for monitoring people’s safety, documenting injuries and unlawful behaviour and noting the actions of the police.
Despite being law abiding members of the public and essentially neutral bystanders at the protests, many of these people have been assaulted by police and remain in fear that they will be targeted or criminalised simply for monitoring legalities or tending to injuries (some very serious) inflicted by the police.
I had to work through part of the initial Sunday riots, but caught the end of the violence outside Bridewell. Contrary to the (now retracted) reports of police injuries, medics have confirmed multiple serious injuries inflicted by police on protestors that night, many of which are soon to be reported in an official capacity.
I had to leave again on Tuesday’s College Green occupation, but was surprised and disgusted to hear that the conscientious and peaceful, mainly sitting, protesters I had left had been assaulted once again.
Last Friday’s behaviour from the police was the most violent I have ever seen. I followed the back of the police line from a distance, checking behind them for fallen and injured protesters.
Countless people lay on the floor injured, ranging from concussions and bruises to serious head wounds, dog bites and pepper spray-induced temporary blindness. There were many more injuries I didn’t witness directly but most of us will have seen the many videos documenting these.
On one occasion I sat with an autistic man who had been trying to reason with the police and calm the crowd behind him. He had been hit in the chest with a shield, then hit again as he tried to stand up and get out of the way. He’d then fallen back and hit his head and arm on the ground. He was in a state of shock, with a possible serious head injury.
As I was administering first aid we were shouted at and threatened by police (who at this point were waiting idly by as the main group of protesters were in the distance). One police officer smirked when I asked him what he thought of the injured protestor on the floor as he walked past. I’m only speaking from my own experience and what I saw, but there is evidence mounting that suggests this was not an isolated incident.
As we move forward, we have now seen the police change tactics. They have realised (and proved) that without heavy police presence, and weaponised riot officers, protests remain largely peaceful.
This should not be misconstrued as an apology though – they haven’t apologised or acknowledged the violence caused on Friday, and will now be using their lack of action at Tuesday’s protest to uphold their claims that they are enforcers of peace and justice, not perpetrators of violence and institutional injustice.
Remain cynical, and stay wary on Saturday’s march.
This account comes from a Kill the Bill protester and first aider who wishes to stay anonymous.
Editorial comment: Mark Birkett has responded with the comment below and has tried to spell out the problems with regard to the Batley Grammar School dispute over the teacher who displayed the cartoon of the Muslim Prophet in his class on religous studies. Some of the Muslim parents took exception to this and are calling for the teacher's dismissal by gathering outside the school to protest.
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Mark Birkett's view on the question of 'Blasphemy' & Islam:
'Yes, that's right. I'm curious as to the genuine motives of those parents who have called for the sacking of the teacher. I think that was clear in my comment below. But if not I'm happy to clarify it.
'I've been an anti-racist all my life. But the problem we seem to have, with this sort of reaction by some Muslim parents living in Britain, or indeed the murderous persecution of so-called 'blasphemers' in places like Pakistan or Saudi Arabia - is that challenging the Islamic faith gets conflated with racism. The two are not even remotely one and the same thing. Providing the intellectual space and the intellectual tools for all children to discuss these issues meaningfully is a major challenge for our society. We cannot keep pretending otherwise.
'The reasons for it being a challenge are many. For instance, we all know very well that there are many on the far right who delight in provoking Asians simply because it suits their racist beliefs. And many in such racist groups cynically use wider revulsion at some of the worst aspects of Islam (including its appalling attitude to women, homosexuals and apostates) to further that sort of racist agenda.
'Unfortunately, there are just as many within the Muslim community who completely fail to see how bigoted their religion is. Islam is by no means the only bigoted religion of course (if in doubt, read the Old Testament and / or the more blood-curdling threats in 'Revelations') but it is (in my view) the most murderous of all three Abrahamic faiths. It's certainly the only one that calls for murder in the case of apostasy (thou shalt believe in Allah .. or else).
'The other oft-confused element in this quagmire is the false notion that there is such a thing as a 'Muslim' child. No child is 'born' a Muslim, nor Christian, nor Satanist. nor voodoo-ist ... nor any other religion or cult for that matter. They are just children, each of whom needs to be taught how to think, not what. Every child subjected to any religion presented to them as factually true is by definition being brainwashed. And teachers in our schools have an absolute duty to call a dead halt to that. They need to encourage children to question all such evidence-free thinking. To discenr the welcome aspects of religion (Thou Shalt Not Kill etc) from the wholly unwelcome (women are second to men etc). They need to be taught how to question and value satire too. And they need to be able to do so without fear that some idiot will decide that they need to be sacked for doing so (or far worse).
'Imagine if a teacher was suspended for discussing the impact Monty Python's 'Life of Brian' in a classroom? We'd see it as utterly absurd. Yet far too many seem to think Islam should have a free card here. It absolutely shouldn't. Satire is a vital part of a free democracy. It doesn't mean I think showing the (so-called) 'Prophet' with a bomb under his turban is in good taste. Nor am I blind to the fear that such cartoons might even encourage some children to grow up seeing all Muslims as terrorists. But that's the point. Discussion of these ideas, and the reactions that flow from them, is an essential part of every child's education. Far too many Muslim parents refuse to see that point.
'Muslims who think it's OK to threaten teachers who try to encourage pupils to think clearly about religions - including (I'd hope) getting to children to discuss the bigotry inherent in all of them - cannot claim sanctuary behind terms such as 'Islamophobia' - a term without the slightest moral or intellectual currency. All who live in this country - a nominally 'free democracy' - need to accept that satire (esp. in the form of cartoons) does not automatically equate to racism. Nor do they have the right to claim that 'blasphemy' has any place in a modern democracy either.
'It's very difficult to get these things right of course, and I'd never want to give the slightest succour or comfort to racists, but teachers being suspended for openly discussing the satirising of religion need to be protected and defended at all costs. If parents wish to silence such teachings, let alone perhaps pretend that the Charlie Hebdo murders were even remotely justified, then they truly don't belong in our free democracy. Those of us who can see the difference between these two approaches to discussing the role of religions need to be ultra-clear whose side we're on.'
THE petition in support of a suspended teacher who showed students a caricature of the Prophet Mohammed has passed more than 50,000 signatures.
The Batley Grammar School teacher had apologised after showing the cartoon, widely reported as taken from the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, during a religious studies lesson earlier this week.
He was suspended on Thursday pending an investigation.
The school, in Batley, near Bradford West Yorkshire is facing calls to reinstate the teacher after a petition in support of him reached more than 50,000 signatures in two days, hitting the figure just after 2.00am on Sunday.
Protesters gathered outside the school gates on Thursday and Friday, claiming the school has not taken the issue seriously.
Thousands of people have signed a petition calling for a Batley school teacher to be reinstated after he allegedly showed derogatory caricatures of the Prophet Muhammed.
The unnamed teacher, who is now under police protection, has been suspended from his role with Batley Grammar School issuing an apology to parents who have been protesting outside the school gates.
Ricky Gervais has waded in on the row by condemning the protesters and there are calls for the teacher to be reinstated after a pupil started a petition.
It has been signed by thousands of people and is gathering momentum despite [other] protesters calling for the teacher to be sacked.
Other reports:
The organisers behind the online petition claim to be students at the West Yorkshire school.
They said the teacher "was trying to educate students about racism and blasphemy" and was "not racist and did not support the Islamophobic cartoons in any manner".
It added: "This has got out of hand and due to this, students have missed out on lessons because of 'peaceful' protestors" .
`Let a great Assembly be Of the fearless and the free On some spot of English ground Where the plains stretch wide around.'
The Masque of Anarchy
Percy Bysshe Shelley ( 1819 ) following the Peterloo Massacre of that year.
In his call for freedom, it is perhaps the first modern statement of the principle of nonviolent resistance.
Let a Great Assembly Be . . . ! | by Andrew Wastling
It's entirely understandable that a widespread national campaign is rapidly developing amongst campaign organisations , activists , academics and individuals. Patel might have inadvertently created a united front against this rogue government as an entirely unintended consequence.
It's heartening to read in yesterday's Independent that : More than 700 of the UK’s leading legal academics have signed a stinging open letter urging Boris Johnson to ditch draconian restrictions on the freedom to demonstrate, in one of the largest protests of its kind in decades. ( https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/police-bill-academics-letter-priti-patel-b1818695.html)
The attack on traditional Gypsy and Romany Travellers is straight out of the Tory Attack Handbook on New Age Travellers in the Public Order Bill of the 1980's which also generated a huge popular backlash. Some of us will also remember attending the huge and lively demonstration against the Criminal Justice Bill in the 1990's . The government is clearly expecting widespread expressions of popular discontent post Covid and are accordingly rigging the courts and legislature well in advance .
Murdoch of course has never forgiven Extinction Rebellion from preventing his newspapers being delivered and will no doubt have demanded an appropriate government response to ensure it won't happen again. Patel will as they say : Just be following ( Murdochs ) orders !
Unsurprisingly there are a large number of public petitions circulating on this huge attempt to marginalize and reduce the right to protest as follows:
House of Commons : Do Not Restrict our Rights to Peaceful Protest
ON Saturday, 13 March 2021 Andy Wastling wrote in a post entitled 'We ain't got no swing; Except for the ring of the truncheon thing':
'Local Public Space in Rochdale & the homeless: At the local level readers might want to ask their prospective ward councillors standing for public office in May what their personal views are on the anti-democratic measures lurking in the small print of Rochdale Councils Public Space Protection Order? ...' and he concluded 'It would be interesting to see how many councillors have actually even read the locally drafted legislation they voted for which can also be readily deployed against union members on a legitimate picket line or require campaigners to ask permission before handing out leaflets on a street stall or holding a demonstration in the town centre?'
This post allows us to recall what Neil Smith and Amahl Smith observed intheir easay entitled 'Reflections on Chomsky's "The Responsibility of Intellectuals".': 'In "The Responsibility of Intellectuals" Chomsky focused on the responsibility of individual intellectuals to speak the truth and expose lies. But if they they are to be able to do that in a way that has impact, there are perhaps prior responsibilities that need exploring.' In particular they refer to ' "CIVIL SPACE" and the infringement of liberties".' and they point out that 'Above we touched on changes to the academic environment that may discourage at least one set of intellectuals from speaking out', but they conclude that '"Civic space" is the set of conditions that enable citizens to organise, participate and communicate without hinderance' and that 'Civic space is only secure when a state protects its citizens and "respects and facilitates their fundemental rights to associate, assemble peacefully and freely express views and opitions".'
At the time of publication of the essay in 2019 by University College London the authors remind us: 'As the organisation Civicus demonstrates, there is ample evidence that civic space is under attack around the world, and that vulnerable groups are discouraged from speaking out, often under the pretect that this is a necessary part of the counter-terrorism agenda.'
'To take a simple example' the authors say: 'as part of its attempt to stop "radicalisation", the UK government instituted the "Prevebt" strategy. Among provision requires that social services, faith leaders, teachers, doctors and others refer those at risk of radicalisation to a local Prevent body, which then decides what to do.. Among the signs that someone may warrant referral is "having a sense of grievance that is triggered by personal experience or discrimination or aspects of government policy".'
To conclude the authors write: 'The changes in the powers of the UK government [already] touched on above reflect ideologically motivated infringement of liberties more generally. This can be illustrated with a motion brought at the 2017 annual general meeting of the civil liberties and human rights charity Liberty, attcking aspects of the UK government's regressive legislation.'
(We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang [1] by Andrew Wastling
THREE days after International Women's Day and the night before Mothers Day his police are directed to brutally attack peaceful female protestors. Johnson's actions seem to be totally out of step with his alleged aspirations or intentions?
This week parliament will vote on Priti Patel's new policing law, effectively destroying the right to protest.Our democracy ( such that it is !) is being gradually eroded as this rogue and toxic Westminster cabal drives towards an increasingly neo-fascist and authoritarian state. This is an existential struggle between the forces of progress and the sinister forces of reaction. One the British working class seem destined to lose if we do not rise from our political torpor and apathy. In Greece , Spain , Italy , Germany and France the workers have been on the streets in force for many months. Governments should be afraid of their people not the other way round.
A peaceful vigil in Manchester by the Emmeline Pankhurst statue passed entirely without incident (despite the background presence of two police vans full of overtime eager GMP officers). The women behind Right To Walk MCR had originally also hoped to hold a covid safe vigil but following conversations with Manchester City Council and GMP were told that they would also receive fines if it went ahead. Despite GMP's dicktact telling protestors that they were unable to proceed with a vigil for Sarah Everard and #ReclaimTheseStreets as well as a virtual online event .The restricted and entirely peaceful , disciplined and socially distanced vigil took place as indeed also happened in Nottingham, and Birmingham, as they did elsewhere outside of the capital with no police harassment or intimidation whatsoever.Right to Walk Manchester have published an Open Letter online demanding an : Everard's Law. From stricter punishments for harassment and catcalling, to better lighting and increased security cameras, our ambition is to create safer communities so that women are more protected. Can be signed at : Petition · An Open Letter for Everard's Law · Change.org
A demonstration has been called at 5pm, tomorrow ( 15 March ), Parliament Square , London
And no doubt further national and local vigils and protests are being organised this weekend
Cressida Dick, speaking about Sarah’s murder days ago, expressed her shock and said our job is to patrol the streets and to protect people. But at this vigil, her officers did the exact opposite. A petition calling for her to go can be signed below.
https://r.ippl.es/cressida-dick-resign/
APPENDIX:
(1). (We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang was written by Heaven 17 members Martyn Ware, Ian Craig Marsh and Glenn Gregory and included on their 1981 debut album Penthouse and Pavement. It was the first single released by the band. In the lyrics fascism and racism are described in an ironic fashion, using the lexicon of funk music.
THE coronavirus pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on our ability to take to the streets. Now the Home Office is busy preparing, in readiness for when public health restrictions start to ease, to make sweeping changes to public order legislation that will give the police extra powers to restrict future protests.
The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill announced today includes plans to “strengthen police powers to tackle non-violent protests that have a significant disruptive effect on the public or on access to Parliament”.
Home Secretary Priti Patel’s anger is aimed in particular at Extinction Rebellion and the rejuvenated Black Lives Matter movement. Last year she attacked Extinction Rebellion as “so-called eco-crusaders turned criminals” and denounced their direct action and civil disobedience tactics as “a shameful attack on our way of life, our economy and the livelihoods of the hard-working majority”.
Patel has also condemned Black Lives Matter demonstrations in 2020 – some of the biggest seen in recent years. Although protesters took to streets that were largely empty because of the pandemic to demand racial justice and most protests passed without incident, Patel characterised them as “dreadful” and demonised those who took part in them “hooligans and thugs”. The new Bill will increase the maximum penalty for criminal damage of a memorial – like the statue to Bristol slave trader Edward Colston toppled in June last year – from 3 months to 10 years.
Netpol’s report last year highlighted, however, how it was Black-led demonstrations that were more likely to experience aggressive, more confrontational policing.
In the aftermath of a summer of demonstrations in 2020, Patel requested a review by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary, Fire and Rescue (HMICFR) to look at the way protests are policed and whether police forces should have new public order laws to protect “the rights of others to go about their daily business”
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In the course of its consultation for the review, HMICFR indicated to Netpol that the government wants to challenge the perceived legitimacy of certain protest tactics by groups like Extinction Rebellion, as well as to give the police the power to more widely interpret whether protests like Black Lives Matter constitute “significant disruption” and are therefore likely to justify arrests.
Even before protests by Extinction Rebellion and Black Lives Matter, the police seemed to believe that rights to freedom of assembly are “abused” by even minor breaches of the law, such as blocking roads. A much-delayed draft ‘Protest Operational Advice’ for local forces, produced by the National Police Chiefs Council in 2018 and based largely on the policing of five years of opposition to fracking, relied heavily on the notion that human rights protections for protests should not extend to activities that negate the rights of others, including companies.
As Netpol’s Lawyers Group said in a submission at the time, there is absolutely no legal basis for such a claim, which would “constitute a doctrinal leap of massive proportions on current case-law principles”. Nevertheless, there is ample evidence that the police have continued to lobby hard for tougher new laws.
The Home Secretary’s plans look, on the face of it, like a combination of defending business interests and petty vengeance against political and social movements she dislikes. However, they are unlikely to frighten off many campaign groups from returning to the streets once the current restrictions end. With institutional racism and climate change still acutely critical issues, more arrests and more criminalisation therefore seems inevitable.
Resisting attacks on the freedom to protest
We are opposing planned changes to the law that threaten our right to protest and are calling on other organisations and individuals to join us.
However, in responding to these latest challenges, Netpol argues that unless we advocate for positive demands, the government will simply keep chipping away at our rights.
This is why we are also launching a new “Charter for Freedom of Assembly Rights”, which calls on the government and the police to accept greater transparency and accountability for the way protests are policed. We are demanding police respect existing international human rights standards – or explain why they refuse to do so.
Amongst its eleven points, the Charter calls for:
Proper protections – not more restrictions – for the right to protest. This includes an end to treating direct action and civil disobedience as an excuse to shut down protests completely.
An end to routine surveillance of protesters. This includes strict limitations on the use of police video recording, use of facial recognition, and surveillance of social media sites used by campaigners.
An end to discriminatory policing of Black-led protests, which in particular disproportionately face excessive and violent interventions.
An end to targeting the most vulnerable. The police have a particular duty to protect the rights of young people, vulnerable and disabled people wishing to exercise their rights to freedom of assembly.
Next week, we are formally launching the Charter for Freedom of Assembly Rights. Please ask your organisation to add its name in support of the Charter.
“Stop the genocide. Stop using lethal weapons," said protester Min Htet Naing.
Feb. 21, 2021, 10:46 AM GMT
By The Associated Press
YANGON, Myanmar — Protesters gathered again Sunday all over Myanmar, a day after security forces shot dead two people at a demonstration in the country’s second biggest city. A funeral was also held for a young woman killed earlier by police.
Mya Thwet Thwet Khine was the first confirmed death among the many thousands who have taken to the streets to protest the Feb. 1 coup that toppled the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. The woman was shot on Feb. 9, two days before her 20th birthday, at a protest in the capital Nayptitaw, and died Friday
.
About 1,000 people in cars and bikes gathered Sunday morning at the hospital where her body was held amid tight security, with even the victim’s grandparents who had traveled from Yangon, five hours away, denied entry. When her body was released, a long motorized procession began a drive to the cemetery.
In Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city, about 1,000 demonstrators honored the woman under an elevated roadway.
“I want to say through the media to the dictator and his associates, we are peaceful demonstrators,” said protester Min Htet Naing. “Stop the genocide. Stop using lethal weapons.”
Another large protest took place in Mandalay, where police shot dead two people on Saturday near a dockyard as security forces were trying to force workers to load a boat. The workers, like railway workers and truckers and many civil servants, have been taking part in a civil disobedience campaign against the junta.
Shooting broke out after neighborhood residents rushed to the Yadanabon dock to try to assist the workers in their resistance. One of the victims, described as a teenage boy, was shot in the head and died immediately, while another was shot in the chest and died en route to a hospital.
Several other serious injuries were also reported. Witness accounts and photos of bullet casings indicated that the security forces used live ammunition, in addition to rubber bullets, water cannons and slingshots.
The new deaths drew quick and strong reaction from the international community.
“The shooting of peaceful protesters in is beyond the pale,” said British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab on Twitter. “We will consider further action, with our international partners, against those crushing democracy & choking dissent.”
Britain last week froze assets of and imposed travel bans on three top Myanmar generals, adding to already existing targeted sanctions.
Singapore, which together with Myanmar is part of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, issued a statement condemning the use of lethal force as “inexcusable.”
Urging “utmost restraint” on the part of security forces, it warned that “if the situation continues to escalate, there will be serious adverse consequences for Myanmar and the region.”
Another shooting death took place Saturday night in Yangon in unclear circumstances. According to several accounts on social media, including a live broadcast that showed the body, the victim was a man who was acting as a volunteer guard for a neighborhood watch group. Such groups were established because of fears that authorities were using criminals released from prison to spread panic and fear by setting fires and committing violent acts.
The junta took power after detaining Suu Kyi and preventing Parliament from convening, saying elections last November were tainted by voting irregularities. The election outcome, in which Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party won by a landslide, was affirmed by an election commission that has since been replaced by the military. The junta says it will hold new elections in a year’s time.
The coup was a major setback to Myanmar’s transition to democracy after 50 years of army rule that began with a 1962 coup. Suu Kyi came to power after her party won a 2015 election, but the generals retained substantial power under the constitution, which was adopted under a military regime.
by Tom Balmforth and Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber 5 hrs ago Reuters
Police detained more than 450 people at rallies in Siberia and Russia's Far East on Sunday as supporters of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny took to the streets to protest his jailing, despite biting cold and the threat of arrest.
The rallies, also set to take place in Moscow and other cities later on Sunday, follow large protests last weekend and are part of a campaign to pressure the Kremlin into freeing President Vladimir Putin's most prominent opponent.
The opposition politician was arrested on Jan. 17 after returning to Moscow from Germany where he had been recovering from a nerve agent poisoning in Russia last summer. He accuses Putin of ordering his murder, which the Kremlin denies.
Police have said the protests have not been authorised and will be broken up, as they were last weekend. Over 4,000 people were detained at those rallies, according to OVD-Info, a protest monitoring group.
In the far eastern city of Vladivostok, where a protest began at 0200 GMT, police prevented protesters from accessing the centre, forcing them to relocate to the waterfront and the frozen waters of the Amur Bay.
Video footage showed protesters chanting "Putin is a thief" as they linked hands and marched on the ice in temperatures of around -13 Celsius (8.6 Fahrenheit).
In Tomsk, the Siberian city that Navalny visited before suddenly collapsing on a domestic flight last August, demonstrators gathered in front of a concert hall and chanted "Let him go!" and held up Russian flags.
OVD-Info said police had so far detained 465 people, including 108 in Vladivostok.
Dozens of people in the east Siberian city of Yakutsk turned out in temperatures of -42 C (-44 F).
"This is the first time I've come to a protest. I'm just fed up with the total lawlessness of the authorities," said Ivan, a protester who declined to give his surname.
The protest is a test of Navalny's support after many of his prominent allies were targeted in a crackdown this week. Several, including his brother Oleg, are under house arrest.
"If we stay quiet, then they could come for any of us tomorrow," Yulia Navalnaya, the Kremlin critic's wife, wrote on Instagram.
METRO STATIONS IN MOSCOW
There was an eerie quiet in central Moscow under falling snow after police took highly unusual steps to seal off the planned protest location to pedestrians and closed some metro stations. Officers could be seen turning people away.
Police deployed in force before the rally due to start at 0900 GMT. The measures prompted Navalny ally Leonid Volkov, who is outside Russia, to move the protest location to a site on the Garden Ring road that circles the city centre.
Protesters had planned to gather near the Kremlin administration and the headquarters of the FSB, the KGB's successor, where during the Soviet breakup protesters in 1991 famously pulled down a statue of the secret police's founder.
Navalny, 44, is accused of parole violations which he says are trumped up. A court is due to meet next week to consider handing him a jail term of up to three and a half years.
The West has told Moscow to let Navalny go and his allies have appealed to U.S. President Joe Biden to impose sanctions on 35 people who they say are Putin's close allies.
Seeking to galvanise supporters at home, Navalny put out an online video this month that has been viewed over 100 million times, accusing Putin of being the ultimate owner of a sumptuous Black Sea palace. The Kremlin leader has denied this.
On the eve of the protests, Arkady Rotenberg, a businessman and Putin's former judo sparring partner, said he owns the property.
(Reporting by Tom Balmforth, Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber, Anton Zverev, Polina Ivanova, Maria Tsvetkova and Polina Nikolskaya; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan, Frances Kerry and Raissa Kasolowsky)
MOSCOW (AP) — A top ally of Alexei Navalny vowed Tuesday to keep up the fight to free the jailed Russian opposition leader and his battle to influence this year’s parliamentary election despite a government crackdown on nationwide protests and its attempts to create a climate of fear.
U.S. officials said President Joe Biden raised concerns about Navalny’s arrest in his call Tuesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the G7 foreign ministers also criticized the jailing of Navalny and the demonstrators demanding his release.
Lawyer and politician Lyubov Sobol told a news conference that Navalny’s Foundation for Fighting Corruption and his team’s regional offices will continue to operate even amid the “arrests of our followers and allies, open criminal probes (and) criminal probes that are yet to come.”
Sobol, herself under investigation on criminal charges of trespassing that she insists are bogus, said she is not afraid of being arrested and doesn’t plan to leave the country.
“It would be hard to say that I’m prepared for it, but silence, fear and indifference are more dangerous,” she told reporters.
Navalny, President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critic, was arrested and jailed earlier this month after returning to Russia from Germany, where he had spent nearly five months recovering from a poisoning with a deadly nerve agent that he blames on the Kremlin. Russian authorities deny the accusations.
The politician faces a prison term, with authorities accusing him of violating the terms of a 2014 conviction for fraud, a prosecution that he says was politically motivated.
On Saturday, nearly 4,000 people were detained across Russia during nationwide protests that drew tens of thousands demanding Navalny’s release, according to OVD-Info, a human rights group that monitors political arrests.
Authorities launched 20 criminal investigations in different regions in the aftermath of the protests, mostly on the charges of violence against police, Russia’s Investigative Committee said.
Dozens of Navalny associates in various cities were detained before the protests, including Sobol, his spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh and longtime ally Georgy Alburov. Sobol was released within hours and ordered to pay a fine, while Yarmysh and Alburov were jailed for nine and 10 days each.
“Putin is trying to stop people from protesting and fighting for their rights through fear and criminal probes,” Sobol said. “We can only continue our work in these circumstance"
The crackdown continued to bring international outrage. The top diplomats of the United States, Britain, Canada, France Germany, Italy and Japan, as well as the high representative of the European Union, condemned the “politically motivated arrest and detention” of Navalny and said they were “deeply concerned by the detention of thousands of peaceful protesters and journalists.”
The Kremlin had earlier dismissed Western criticism as interfering with Russia’s internal affairs.
Navalny’s team has called for more demonstrations on Jan. 31 and Feb. 2, when a court is scheduled to consider motions to convert his suspended sentence into a real prison term.
Even if he is sent to prison, his supporters won’t be deterred, Sobol said, citing the political goals of stopping the Kremlin’s party, United Russia, in the upcoming parliamentary balloting.
“There are lots of plans and tasks for the nearest future, (as well as) midterm and longterm (ones), and everyone understands what needs to be done both tomorrow, and a month from now, and half a year from now,” Sobol said. “One of the main goals is to ... destroy the monopoly of United Russia in the parliamentary election that will take place this September.”
Navalny has launched a campaign known as “Smart Voting” that is designed to promote candidates who are most likely to defeat those from the dominant ruling party.
In 2019, the project helped candidates backed by Navalny win 20 of 45 seats on the Moscow city council, and regional elections last year saw United Russia lose its majority in legislatures in three cities.
Analysts believe Navalny is capable of influencing the parliamentary vote, a key for the Kremlin as it will determine who controls the State Duma in 2024. That’s when Putin’s current term expires and he is expected to seek reelection, thanks to constitutional reforms last year.
On Thursday, a court is scheduled to hear an appeal on the ruling to jail Navalny. When asked about a possible outcome, Sobol said that “we do live in an unpredictable country; what will happen next and tomorrow is literally unknown.”
She cited an example of police officers unexpectedly showing up at her home 10 minutes before the news conference.
Almost proving her point, an official interrupted the event minutes later, trying to serve a subpoena to a Navalny ally who wasn’t there.
“I (didn’t do it) on purpose, they come on their own,” Sobol said with a chuckle.
Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed claims by opposition leader Alexei Navalny that he owns a luxury property on the Black Sea worth US$1.35 billion, as the opposition urged fresh nationwide demonstrations. Courts around Russia started handing down short jail sentences to demonstrators arrested during nationwide opposition rallies last weekend, while the foreign ministry accused US diplomats of encouraging Russians to join the protests.
Navalny’s aides urged his supporters to take to the streets again next Sunday ahead of a court case that could see Russia’s most prominent Kremlin critic put behind bars for more than three years.
The 44-year-old campaigner was detained just over a week ago when he returned to Moscow from Germany, where he had been recuperating from exposure to a Soviet-designed toxin.
He called on his supporters in dozens of cities to rally last weekend and released a two-hour investigation into the palatial seaside property to spur allies to demonstrate.
The rallies saw a record number of arrests, and Putin on Monday denied having anything to do with the property in Navalny’s video, which has now been watched 86 million times.
“Nothing that is listed there as my property belongs to me or my close relatives, and never did,” Putin said during a video call with Russian students.
Navalny’s report - his most-watched anti-corruption probe by far - claims the property is worth US$1.35 billion and features everything from an underground ice rink to a casino.
Leonid Volkov, a key aide to the Kremlin critic, urged Russians to take to the streets again on January 31 “or fNavalny’s freedom, for freedom for all, and for justice”.
Saturday’s rallies saw clashes between police and protesters, 3,700 of whom were detained according to the OVD-Info monitoring group.
Putin said on Monday that Russian citizens have the right to express themselves but that they must do so “within the framework of the law”.
Putin also said minors should not be encouraged to join the rallies, referring to a claim repeated by authorities that the opposition had encouraged young people to protest.
“That’s what terrorists do. They put women and children in front of themselves,” Putin said.
Political analyst Alexei Zakharov, who cited polls conducted at Moscow’s rally, said on Facebook that demonstrators were on average 31-years-old, while only 10 per cent of participants were 18 or younger.
The Russian foreign ministry on Monday repeated claims that US diplomats had encouraged Russians to participate in the rallies, and said it had lodged a “strong protest” with the American ambassador.
That allegation followed earlier claims by the Kremlin that the US embassy was interfering in Russian affairs by publishing protest routes ahead of the rallies.
An embassy spokeswoman said that it was “routine practice” for diplomatic missions to issue safety messages to their citizens abroad.
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Moscow would probe American tech companies over “interference” related to the demonstrations.
Ahead of the rallies, Russia’s media watchdog Roskomnadzor ordered social media platforms including YouTube and Instagram to delete calls for demonstrations posted on their platforms.
Navalny’s arrest was met with widespread condemnation in the West, with the European Union saying it was considering new sanctions on Russia - although EU ministers decided at a meeting Monday that this was “premature”, according to one European diplomat.
That allegation followed earlier claims by the Kremlin that the US embassy was interfering in Russian affairs by publishing protest routes ahead of the rallies.
An embassy spokeswoman said that it was “routine practice” for diplomatic missions to issue safety messages to their citizens abroad.
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Moscow would probe American tech companies over “interference” related to the demonstrations.
Ahead of the rallies, Russia’s media watchdog Roskomnadzor ordered social media platforms including YouTube and Instagram to delete calls for demonstrations posted on their platforms.
Navalny’s arrest was met with widespread condemnation in the West, with the European Union saying it was considering new sanctions on Russia - although EU ministers decided at a meeting Monday that this was “premature”, according to one European diplomat.
In Moscow, last Saturday, an estimated 15,000 demonstrators gathered in and around Pushkin Square in the city centre, where clashes with police broke out and demonstrators were roughly dragged off by helmeted riot officers to police buses and detention trucks. Some were beaten with batons.
Navalny’s wife Yulia was among those arrested. Police eventually pushed demonstrators out of the square. Thousands then regrouped along a wide boulevard about a kilometer (half-mile) away, many of them throwing snowballs at the police before dispersing.
Some later went to protest near the jail where Navalny is held. Police made an undetermined number of arrests there.
Perhaps it would bee helpful if we compare what is happening now under Vladimir Putin today with what took place in Pushkin Square in 1967 in the Soviet Communist Era when a demo took place in protesting the arrests of some then political dissidents and the use of Article 70 of the then Criminal Code with regard to its use conflicting with the constitution.
**********************************
OVER 50 years ago on the 22nd, January, 1967 at 6p.m., a group of twenty to thirty young people gathhered in Pushkin Square carrying banners calling for the release of four prisoners and calling for the revision of Article 70 of the Criminal Code. As they unfolded their banners men in plain clothes rushed up from all sides of the square, seized the banners and arrested several people. Most of the others scattered, and among the small group remaining one shouted 'Down with the dictatorship! Release Dobrovolsky!' All the prisoners were taken to the HQ of the Komsomol. After some hours' questioning, two were released (Gabay and Delaunay) and two others (Kushev and Khaustov) taken to the KGB investigation centre* at Lefortovo prison.
Later on the 25th and 26th of January 1967, Gabay and Delaunay were re-arrested and another demonstrator was taken into custody. The houses of all the prisoners were carefully searched; the police were particularly interested in samizdat manuscipts** and confistcated most of them. Some hundred witnesses were questioned by the Prosecutor's Office and the KGB.
SPEECH FOR THE PROSECUTION ***
'Comrade Judges! This year is a great date for us - it is the 50th year of the Soviet Regime. The struggle for the maintenance of public order continues throughout the country. In Moscow, the maintenance of public order is particularly important. We have largely been sussessful in this respect. Imagine, in the circumstances, the astonishment and indignation of the citizens who witnessed what occurred in Pushkin Square on the 22nd, of January 1967. The place which these self-syled demonstrators chose for their activities - the vicinity of a great poet's monument - is a placewhich everyon holds sacred. Their gathering might have attracted large crowds - not, of course, of like-minded citizen but of curious onlookers. Had the Druzhinniki not put a stop to it straight away, it might have led to a large disturbance.'
* * KGB: translated in English as the Committee for State Security, was the secret police force that was the main security agency for the Soviet Union from 1954 until 6 November 1991, when it split into the Federal Security Service and the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation.
** samizdat manuscipts: The remarkably viable underground press in the Soviet Union is called samizdat: The word is a play on Gosizdat, which is a telescoping of Gosudarstvennoye Izdatelstvo, the name of the monopoly‐wielding State Publish ing House. The sam part of the new word means “self.” The whole samizdat—translates as: “We publish ourselves”—that is, not the state, but we, the people.
*** The Demonstration in Pushkin Square by Pavel Litvinov (1968).
Protests erupted in over 60 Russian cities on Saturday to demand the release of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, the Kremlin’s most prominent foe. Russian police arrested more than 850 protesters, some of whom took to the streets in temperatures as frigid as minus-50 Celsuis (minus-58 Fahrenheit)
.
In Moscow, about 5,000 demonstrators filled Pushkin Square in the city center, where clashes with police broke out and demonstrators were roughly dragged off by helmeted riot officers to police buses and detention trucks. Navalny’s wife Yulia was among those arrested.
The protests stretched across Russia’s vast territory, from the island city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk north of Japan and the eastern Siberian city of Yakutsk, where temperatures plunged to minus-50 Celsius, to the Russia’s more populous European cities. The range demonstrated how Navalny and his anti-corruption campaign have built an extensive network of support despite official government repression and being routinely ignored by state media.
The OVD-Info group that monitors political arrests said at least 191 people were detained in Moscow on Saturday and more than 100 at another large demonstration in St. Petersburg. Overall, it said 863 people had been arrested by late afternoon in Moscow.
Navalny was arrested on Jan. 17 when he returned to Moscow from Germany, where he had spent five months recovering from a severe nerve-agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin and which Russian authorities deny. Authorities say his stay in Germany violated terms of a suspended sentence in a 2014 criminal conviction, while Navalny says the conviction was for made-up charges.
The 44-year-old activist is well known nationally for his reports on the corruption that has flourished under President Vladimir Putin’s government.
His wide support puts the Kremlin in a strategic bind — risking more protests and criticism from the West if it keeps him in custody but apparently unwilling to back down by letting him go free.
Navalny faces a court hearing in early February to determine whether his sentence in the criminal case for fraud and money-laundering — which Navalny says was politically motivated — is converted to 3 1/2 years behind bars.
Moscow police on Thursday arrested three top Navalny associates, two of whom were later jailed for periods of nine and 10 days.
Navalny fell into a coma while aboard a domestic flight from Siberia to Moscow on Aug. 20. He was transferred from a hospital in Siberia to a Berlin hospital two days later. Labs in Germany, France and Sweden, and tests by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, established that he was exposed to a Soviet-era Novichok nerve agent.
Russian authorities insisted that the doctors who treated Navalny in Siberia before he was airlifted to Germany found no traces of poison and have challenged German officials to provide proof of his poisoning. Russia refused to open a full-fledged criminal inquiry, citing a lack of evidence that Navalny was poisoned.
Last month, Navalny released the recording of a phone call he said he made to a man he described as an alleged member of a group of officers of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, who purportedly poisoned him in August and then tried to cover it up. The FSB dismissed the recording as fake.
Navalny has been a thorn in the Kremlin’s side for a decade, unusually durable in an opposition movement often demoralized by repressions.
He has been jailed repeatedly in connection with protests and twice was convicted of financial misdeeds in cases that he said were politically motivated. He suffered significant eye damage when an assailant threw disinfectant into his face. He was taken from jail to a hospital in 2019 with an illness that authorities said was an allergic reaction but which many suspected was a poisoning.
Time for Beijing to rethink Hong Kong script after pan-democrat landslide, Chinese analysts say
The
results of the district council elections will boost the power of the
non-establishment camp and possibly influence the race for the city’s
leader, observers say
A central government official agreed that Beijing was surprised by the landslide win for the pan-democrats
on Sunday were worse than expected and Beijing should start considering
how the outcome will affect the 2022 race for the city’s chief
executive, mainland specialists on Hong Kong affairs have warned.
“Beijing
was psychologically prepared, but it did not expect [that the
pro-establishment camp] would suffer such a severe defeat,” Wuhan
University law professor Qin Qianhong said.
A central government official agreed that Beijing was surprised by the landslide win for the pan-democrats.
“We
know it was going to be a tough fight as some pro-establishment
candidates said they faced verbal abuse when they walked the district,
but the number of seats [the pro-establishment camp] won was below our
expectation,” he said.
A
record 2.9 million voters, representing 71.2 per cent of the registered
electorate, cast their ballots in the weekend polls, up from 47 per
cent in the 2015 district council election and 58.3 per cent in the 2016
Legislative Council election.
The pan-democrat camp won 392 of the 452 seats to control 17 out of the city’s 18 district councils.
The
results mean the pan-democrats look set to take up all the 117 seats
for district councillors in the 1,200-member Election Committee that
selects the chief executive.
Tian
Feilong, an associate professor at Beihang University’s law school in
Beijing, said that as a last resort Beijing could exercise its right to
refuse the appointment of an “unacceptable” chief executive candidate.
“[The results] will boost the direct or indirect political power of those not in the pro-establishment camp,” Tian said.
“[But] if a candidate that is not acceptable to Beijing has emerged, Beijing would not appoint them.”
Qin agreed that the Basic Law gave Beijing the power to turn down undesirable candidates, but that there were risks.
“The result could be another massive street movement,” he said.
Li
Xiaobing, a Nankai University academic specialising in Hong Kong
politics, said it would be a concern if pan-democrats allied with
different sectors in the Legco and chief executive races over the next
few years.
“If it was just a few people, then it is easy to handle. But now they have formed a group and become a power,” Li said.
“If
they join hands not only among themselves but with different sectors,
then it would have … an impact on the Legco and chief executive
elections. Beijing would have to address it with countermeasures.”
The
pro-establishment bloc ended up with about 40 per cent of the votes on
Sunday but an additional 800,000 voters turned out on the weekend,
compared to the 2016 Legislative Council elections, and more than half
of them voted for the pan-democrats.
“The
election has polarised politics in Hong Kong. It has forced those in
the middle to take sides. I think most of these people opted to take the
extreme side [of pan-democrats who did not denounce the radical
protesters]. It is a big political lesson,” Tian said.
In
their campaigns, the pro-establishment bloc promoted the need for
stability and a return to social order after more than five months of
protests in the city but the strategy appeared to have little impact on
the new voters.
“Hundreds
of thousands of young people were new registered voters … These people
were those affected the most by what happened in the past five months,”
Nanjing University law professor Gu Su said.
Gu said Beijing might now have to agree to chief executive nominations that were acceptable to both camps.
Song
Sio-chong, a professor at the Centre for Basic Laws of Hong Kong and
Macau at Shenzhen University, said many middle-class people who did not
vote in the past also came out to support the pan-democrats this time.
“This
election is entirely politicised and there was no mention of community
affairs. It prompted the middle class, who were sympathetic to the
democrats, to vote. The extensive work by the pro-establishment camp at
the community level in the past has become ineffective. What should we
do next? It is a big question,” Song said.
He said Beijing should reconsider its strategy and give the pro-establishment parties more flexibility.
“A
major reason for the defeat of the pro-establishment is that it was
tied to the Hong Kong government in the anti-extradition bill campaign.
There was not enough room for the pro-establishment camp to have its
narrative and to respond. They could only respond passively in line with
the government’s position.”
Gu
agreed. “The way the pro-establishment camp supported the government
was too direct. Some changes are expected in their relations with the
Hong Kong government.”
Hong
Kong’s district council elections are traditionally low-key events to
choose representatives for community office, but Sunday’s poll was seen
as a de facto referendum on more than five months of
The
pro-democracy camp, defined by their general support for the protests,
won control of 17 out of the 18 district councils, all of which
previously had a pro-establishment majority.
Beijing
has accused the West, especially the United States and “opposition
parties and politicians” in Hong Kong, of fuelling protests triggered by
a now withdrawn extradition bill that have since developed into calls
for democratic reforms and an investigation into police use of force
against the protesters.
Mei
Xinyu, an economist affiliated with the Ministry of Commerce, said on
Monday morning that “the landslide defeat in the Hong Kong district
council elections could be a good thing if it resulted in deep
reflection”.
“The
mess in Hong Kong and a big defeat in the district council elections
will hopefully kick-start rumination on its own Zunyi Conference,” Mei
said in an online post, referring to a meeting of Communist Party
leaders in 1935 that resulted in a personnel reshuffle and endorsed Mao
Zedong’s leadership of the party and military.
In an opinion piece published after the election results, state tabloid Global Times said the outcome should not be understood as a sign of support for “mobs”.
“It
is both inconceivable and totally impossible that most Hongkongers
would encourage violence, support political confrontation against the
mainland, and back the city to become a bridgehead for US political
forces to pressure China,” the article said.
But it also accused “Western forces” of backing the opposition in the elections.
“It
must be pointed out that the West has been helping the Hong Kong
opposition in district council elections in the past week,” it said.
The article cited various overseas media reports last week as evidence of that help, including reports that
,
a former employee of the British consulate in Hong Kong, claimed to
have been tortured during 15 days of detention on the mainland amid the
protests.
It also referred to Australian media reports about
urged pro-Beijing supporters not to be discouraged by the results,
saying they should see them “as a foundation for the country to face the
practical issues in Hong Kong and a focus to improve future work”.
“With
the country so strong, the happenings in Hong Kong will not turn things
upside down … staying united is most important,” Hu said.
As the ballot count continued into Monday morning, influential mainland commentator
compared the elections in Hong Kong to a “referendum”, calling it “the only credible opinion poll”.
“Both
the pro-establishment and pro-democracy camps have been politicising
the elections, asking people to vote to have their voice heard on the
political unrest … All parties [in Hong Kong] are driving people to vote
in the ‘referendum’,” Ren wrote on his Chairman Rabbit WeChat account.
Ren, who has more than a million followers on Weibo, is regarded as very influential among Chinese officials.
“Hong
Kong has been lacking a credible opinion poll, there has not even been a
credible exit poll, so presumably both camps have no clear
understanding of the election results and need to understand public
opinion through this election,” he said, adding it would be necessary to
study the demography of voting results.
Ren has published frequently on Hong Kong with a hawkish view towards the protesters.
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