Couldn't give ATOS

Carer Watch's 'forum' seems to have been taken down after threats by ATOS to the site host:

The increasing problems that ATOS and the DWP are causing with their drive to remove ESA from claimants are well documented.

• Patients who are seriously ill are being told to work
• Evidence of false assessments is mounting
• Doctors making those assessments are being referred to the GMC
• MPs have strongly crticised ATOS and said that their name triggers "fear and loathing".
• A variety of e-petitions have sprung up, e.g. here and here.
• Around 40% of appeals are upheld, but the stress and pain that claimants are put through is proving very difficult for them.
• ATOS have threatened to sue a disabled man who set up a website exposing them.

According to 2 year old statistics produced by the DWP:
There have been 189,800 WCA assessments up to the end of August 2009. Of these assessments:
 • 10% have been assessed as Support Group
 • 22% have been assessed as Work Related Activity
 • 69% have been deemed Fit for Work

Call me old fashioned and boring, but I just don't believe that only 10% of ESA claimants are fit to work. It just doesn't feel right. The report suggests that 69% of claimants should look for a job now.  Sorry, that doesn't stack up... the assessments must be politically motivated.

The latest move by ATOS to silence people is appalling. Threatening a disabled man last week and then removing a support forum for ATOS sufferers (can't think of what else to call them...) is despicable.

It is difficult to know where to go with this though. The BBC have published on it, some MPs aren't happy. Perhaps an investigation by Panorama might not go amiss?

Save our social media! Stop cut offs and close downs

Prime Minister David Cameron announced that social media could "be used for good or ill" and therefore would "look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality”.

We know this is a knee-jerk reaction. If it involved suspension of services, it would be unworkable, and would hit people trying to stop disorder or protect themselves. Targeting individuals would need to be supervised by the courts: but the UK usually leaves decisions like this to the Police, rather than courts, as in RIPA.

The Government is focusing on entirely the wrong problem in trying to increase their powers to ban, block or monitor people's communications. Social networks like Twitter are used for a huge array of positive purposes such as warnings of danger and organising clean up projects. Blanket surveillance measures of private communications or increased powers to mine users data would undermine people's freedom to communicate in very damaging ways, and would in no way address the problems at hand. Making laws in haste, with limited analysis and information, to deal with an exceptional problem is likely to create unbalanced laws and abuses of our rights.

Sign the ORG petition here.

Maidstone McDonald's Mosquito in the Independent

Looks like the mosquito story has gone national with coverage in the Independent.

According to a report from local newspaper Kent News, a McDonald's outlet in Maidstone installed the devices following complaints from customers and staff about the number of young people congregating idly by the restaurant entrance. 

The high-pitched frequency can only be heard by people under the age of 25. A McDonald's spokesperson, meanwhile, told the publication that theirs isn't the only restaurant to be outfitted with the mosquito alarms, but further details were unavailable.

Assange may be guilty but...

Assange may be guilty but it couldn't look more like a fix if it tried!

I'm with Peter Tatchell (see below) and probably the rest of the sane world when he says that the charges against Julian Assange look like a stitch up. Even if they are true, which should be for courts to decide not uninformed bloggers, they need to be considered aside from the good work that Wikileaks has done. Laurie Penny suggests: "If global justice movements had to rely solely on people of impeccable character to further their cause, we would probably still be trying to end slavery."

Avaaz have a petition to support Wikileaks: WikiLeaks: Stop the crackdown

This is from Peter Tatchell:

London - 9 December 2010

By Peter Tatchell, human rights campaigner

Contrary to what the US government keeps claiming, the WikiLeaks revelations have not put anyone's life in danger. They have, however, exposed two-faced, dirty diplomacy by the US and US support for human rights abuses - a good and honourable thing to do. Hands off WikiLeaks!

The sex charges against Julian Assange came after WikiLeaks earlier this year embarrassed the US by exposing its war crimes and cover-ups in Iraq. Mere coincidence? I doubt it.

Julian Assange is accused of rape. These allegations must be taken seriously. He might be guilty of sex crimes. If so, he should face prosecution, just like anyone else. But the charges look like a fix to silence and discredit him. What is beyond question is that some top people in the US are out for revenge. They want to destroy Assange and WikiLeaks.

Has the US framed Julian Assange? In the 1970s, they tried to discredit the heroic Vietnam war whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg. A plan was hatched to portray him as mentally unstable. Are the charges against Assange a re-run of what they tried to do to Ellsberg? Maybe.

The decision by a British judge to deny bail to Julian Assange is vindictive and disgraceful. Assange is not a dangerous, hardened criminal. He should have got bail. People charged with robberies, assaults and sexual crimes are often bailed. Why the hardline denial of bail in Assange's case?

Is the judge an establishment stooge? Was he pressured to detain Assange in prison or did he feel, of his own free will, that it was his duty to support his vengeful establishment friends by refusing to bail Assange?

Perhaps the judge truly and sincerely believes that Assange is a grave threat to public order and national security - and to the safety of women - who cannot be allowed his freedom until he is extradited and put on trial? If so, the judge has lost not only his moral bearings but his sense of reality and proportion.

Major war criminals and human rights abusers roam free. No judges dare touch them. But a non-violent campaigner like Assange feels the full force of the law. Double standards or what?

The attacks on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange are a freedom of expression and freedom of information issue. It's all about the lack of government accountability, honesty and transparency. This is a battle between state secrecy and misinformation on the one hand, and the public's right to know on the other hand.

Stop the witch-hunt and censorship of WikiLeaks. The US-inspired blocking of donations to Wikileaks and the attempts to deny WikiLeaks internet access are outrageous.

Congratulations to Operation Payback and the Anonymous hacktivists. They are right to hit back at the people who have attempted to drive WikiLeaks off the internet, cut its funding and who have frozen Assange's bank account. This suppression and censorship have to be resisted, by any non-violent means necessary.

We, the people, have a right to know what governments are secretly saying and doing, often in our name and allegedly in our interests. The government, police, security services and judges are our servants. We are not their minions to be manipulated and hoodwinked by the US government or by anyone else.

All power to WikiLeaks for shining a light on the duplicity of the US government. Thanks to WikiLeaks we now have clear evidence that the US frequently says one thing in public and something different in private - and that it cosies up to tyrants, and ignores or acquiesces in human rights abuses. Bravo WikiLeaks and Julian Assange!

· Protest against the witch-hunt of WikiLeaks and Julain Assange to your MP and MEPs via this website: www.writetothem.com

· Sign the AVAAZ online petition: http://www.avaaz.org/en/wikileaks_petition/?vl

See also Index on Censorship: http://www.indexoncensorship.org/

ENDS

Human Trafficking: why don't Tories and Lib Dems want to crack down?

It is an appalling indictment of the coalition that they are content to see the UK become the trafficking capital of Europe. Do they want a return to 18th century levels of human rights? If not why are they opting out of the EU directive?

Please sign the 38 degrees petition.

This is from last Sunday's Independent:


William Wilberforce said future generations of Britons would see slavery as "a disgrace and dishonour to this country", yet, more than 200 years since its abolition, the shaming trade and exploitation of human beings still thrives.

Screw Human Rights say police...

More evidence of the police state in the Guardian - as if we needed more evidence - as the Association of Chief Police Officers tell their forces to resist calls to remove innocent people's DNA from their database. Clearly the police want as much evidence as they can lay their hands on, whether a crime has been committed or not.

Holding 5.8 million DNA samples and 1 in three profiles of young black men is simply wrong by any standard. Defying a EU Human Rights ruling is not only bizarre, but illegal - but then no one polices the police in this country.

Welcome to the database state and yes, you are being watched.

Global Index of Human Rights (GloHRI)

Naming and shaming is a vital part of getting improvement in most systems. Given the wealth of information about countries around the world, what could be more obvious than a Global Index of Human Rights. The the 60th anniversary of UDHR here, my friend Richard has launched a campaign to get an index run by the UN.

The report is here and there is good coverage in the Guardian. This is the opening paragraph:

"Sixty years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was drawn up, it is time for the United Nations (UN) to initiate new mechanisms to encourage member states to improve their human rights (HR) record.

"The Green Party of England and Wales is proposing that the UN establish a Global Human Rights Index (GloHRI), which would measure and rank each country according to its conformity with international human rights standards.

"Using an objective points system, GloHRI would measure every country, based on its compliance with a check-list of agreed human rights norms, such as whether or not it has the death penalty, detention without trial, freedom of the media, the right to protest, equal rights for women and minorities and so on."