Labels: "Suffolk ripper", Ipswich, prostitution, Suffolk murders
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The Express front page also hints that the farce has continued, suggesting as it does that someone wearing the niqab was able to get on board a plane without first having her identity checked. They present no evidence of this, and clearly haven't tested whether someone wearing a niqab would now have their identity checked, presumably because this would a: cost money that Richard "Dirty" Desmond would rather be paying himself (having made £52 million last year) and b: it's easier just to pretend that the same old system is carrying on as normal, even though the adverse publicity would suggest that airlines would be extra vigilant as a result; and with the number of flights being canceled due to the fog enveloping many parts of Britain, staff not dealing with keeping passengers informed would be more free to make extra checks on the reduced number of those actually boarding flights.THE Sun today launches a campaign to close the veil loophole making a mockery of Britain’s airport security.
We told yesterday how a member of the gang which killed WPC Sharon Beshenivsky sneaked out of Heathrow by donning a Muslim niqab, with just a slit for eyes.
Now we are calling on Home Secretary John Reid to turn passport control at every airport in the country into a veil-free zone.
MPs too are urging action after it emerged that hard-pressed staff carry out only RANDOM passport checks on passengers leaving Britain.
We want these checks to be COMPULSORY with veils lifted in a private area.
If more resources are needed they must be found. Otherwise criminals — and terrorists — are sure to exploit the weakness in future.
Both Mr Davis and Mr Malik called for an inquiry into how gang member Mustaf Jama, 26, an asylum seeker, fled disguised as a Muslim woman with a stolen passport.
Absurdly, they are allowed to stay because it would breach their human rights to send them home.
Fellow Tory David Davies said the manner of Jama’s escape furthered his belief that the Government must begin examining ways to discourage or even outlaw the wearing of the full veil in public.Davies is echoing previous arguments made by the Express itself, but let's take them apart again anyway.
“Many European countries, and indeed Muslim countries, have taken steps to ban the wearing of the veil in public,” said the Monmouth MP.
“One example is Tunisia. They take the view that the wearing of the veil is not stipulated by the Koran, it is a political act.
Tunisia is a republic with a strong presidential system dominated by a single political party. President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has been in office since 1987, the year he deposed Habib Bourguiba in a bloodless coup. The constitution has been changed twice to allow Ben Ali to remain in power: initially from two to three terms, then from three to five. The ruling party, the Democratic Constitutional Rally (RCD), was the sole legal party for 25 years, known previously as the Socialist Destourian Party (PSD). The RCD still dominates political life.
Facing virtually no opposition, the President is elected to 5-year terms. He appoints a Prime Minister and cabinet, who play a strong role in the execution of policy. Regional governors and local administrators also are appointed by the central government. Largely consultative mayors and municipal councils are elected. There is a unicameral legislative body, the Chamber of Deputies, which has 182 seats, 20% of which are reserved for the opposition parties. It plays a growing role as an arena for debate on national policy but never originates legislation. The Chamber virtually always passes bills presented by the executive with only one minor change. The judiciary is nominally independent but responds to executive direction, especially in political cases. The military is professional and does not play a role in politics.
Tunisia is noteworthy for its lack of public political discourse. Tunisia's precise political situation is hard to determine due to a strong level of silence and lack of transparency maintained by the government. There is compelling evidence that dissidents are routinely arrested, for crimes as minor as viewing banned web sites. There are currently six legal opposition parties all with their own newspapers. However, the Committee to Protect Journalists, in its 2005 country report on Tunisia, details a persistent record of harassment, persecution, imprisonment, and physical harm perpetrated on journalists critical of the government. Even Western journalists, when writing on Tunisian soil, are not spared this fate[1].
Labels: Express-watch, media response to Suffolk killings, Mustaf Jama, niqab, Scum-watch, Sharon Beshenivsky, Suffolk murders, Sun-watch
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Suffolk Constabulary has written to editors asking them not to identify any individuals involved in its investigation into the murder of five women in Ipswich, despite nearly every major news outlet naming the first arrested man.
The Suffolk chief constable, Alastair McWhirter, wrote to editors reminding them that legal proceedings were now active in its investigation.
"We would ask that the media do not publish any material that may hinder the investigation, especially where identification might be an issue, or may prejudice the right of anyone to a fair trial at a future date," he wrote.
"The editor who chooses to make public any material that prejudices the right of any potential defendant to a fair trial will carry a heavy burden, should that person be acquitted as a consequence of that prejudice.
"I put you on notice that Suffolk Constabulary will take all necessary legal steps to ensure the integrity of all future legal proceedings.
"We strongly advise you to take legal advice before naming any individual or individuals."
For comparison's sake, today's Mirror also publishes a photo of the suspect on its front page, but blocks out his face, which is more sensible, but do we really need to see a photograph of the man at all until he's charged? He was arrested without resisting, and was not a fugitive or wanted for questioning before he entered the police's inquiries, which would be the two defenses for publishing the photographs of those suspected of criminal activity. Most of the rest of the media has given the suspect's name, and I don't think there's much wrong with that, although the police request is reasonable and should be taken seriously by all."We have taken down the profile and preserved the data should it be useful for law enforcement in their investigation," said Hemanshu Nigam, chief security officer at MySpace.This isn't exactly convincing. Only those who were on Stephens' friend list could have altered the page in any way, unless there was someone else who had access to Stephens' account. Considering that he lived alone, and that his house is being apparently taken apart by the police, no one was that likely to. Anyway, doesn't MySpace have caches of pages themselves? Mirrors of the page also exist in the Google archive, so there were plenty of potential other available copies for the police, should any of the information on the profile be of any relevance, which seems doubtful itself. Unless MySpace were directly asked by the police to remove the page, then the embarrassment factor still seems to be the most rational reason for why his profile was hastily removed.
"While we cannot go into detail about the case because it is an ongoing investigation, we can say that since the site's inception, MySpace has met with law enforcement officials around the globe to solicit their viewpoints on how we can enhance our cooperation with law enforcement and increase user security," Mr Nigam added.
"In this particular case, we have taken action to preserve the account for law enforcement purposes and in order to provide information to investigators through the appropriate legal channels."
Asked whether Mustaf Jama had used a full Muslim veil to evade checks, a spokesman for West Yorkshire police said: "It's a possibility. He could have been wearing a pantomime horse outfit as well. But until we get him, we won't know for sure."
Labels: contempt of court, media response to Suffolk killings, MySpace, Rebekah Wade, Scum-watch, Suffolk murders, Sun-watch, Tom Stephens
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Fisking Littlejohn is even less rigorous than taking on a Sun-article, but by God if today's piece isn't the most despicable little rant from a little man that I've read in a long time:Let's get the caveat out of the way from the off. The five women murdered in Ipswich were tragic, lost souls who met a grisly end. I sincerely hope whoever killed them is caught, charged and convicted.
And I know this might sound frightfully callous in the current hysterical, emotional climate, but we're not all guilty.
We do not share in the responsibility for either their grubby little existences or their murders. Society isn't to blame.
It might not be fashionable, or even acceptable in some quarters, to say so, but in their chosen field of "work'=", death by strangulation is an occupational hazard.
That doesn't make it justifiable homicide, but in the scheme of things the deaths of these five women is no great loss.
They weren't going to discover a cure for cancer or embark on missionary work in Darfur. The only kind of missionary position they undertook was in the back seat of a car.
Of course their friends and families are grieving. That's what friends and families do. But they should also be asking themselves if there was anything they could have done to prevent what happened.
If you discovered your daughter had gone on the game to feed her heroin habit, wouldn't you move heaven and earth to get her off it?
Frankly, I'm tired of the lame excuses about how they all fell victim to ruthless pimps who plied them with drugs. These women were on the streets because they wanted to be.
We are all capable of free will. At any time, one or all of them could have sought help from the police, or the church, or a charity, or a government agency specifically established to deal with heroin addicts. They chose not to.
The tortuous twistings of the sisterhood over the past week have been a joy to behold. The 30-yearold Spare Rib T-shirts have been brought out of mothballs and we've been treated to the All Men Are Bastards/Rapists/Murderers mantra from assorted Glendas who ought to be old enough to know better.
We've heard the well-rehearsed arguments for legalised and regulated prostitution, as if we were living under the Taliban. The fact is, we've already got de facto legal brothels on every High Street.
They're call saunas or massage parlours.
As I remarked when the Labour MP Joe Ashton was once caught in a Siamese "sauna" in Northampton, he must have been the only man in Britain ever to go to a massage parlour for a massage. It doesn't get much more glamorous than that.
These five women were on the streets because even the filthiest, most disreputable back-alley "sauna" above a kebab shop wouldn't give them house room.
The men who used them were either too mean to fork out whatever a massage parlour charges, or simply weren't fussy. Some men are actually turned on by disgusting, drug-addled street whores. Where there's demand, there'll always be supply.
This wasn't a case of women going on the game to put bread on the table, or to look after their "babies". That's what the welfare state is for. They did it for drugs.
The gormless Guardianistas simply refuse to confront this blindingly obvious reality. They would rather deify celebrity druggies such as Kate Moss and Will Self than face the truth that hard drugs wreck lives.
What I find most objectionable about all this is the attempt to make us all feel responsible for the murders. There is a nasty whiff of Lady Di about the enforced mood of mourning, with even the Old Bill coming across like hand-wringing archbishops.
At Ipswich Town's home game on Saturday, there was a minute's silence. We were supposed to believe that this was a true reflection of the community's sympathy.
I don't buy it. Most people went along with it in the spirit of emotional correctness and through fear of getting their heads kicked in if they didn't.
There was only one thing missing, but don't bet against it.
When Blair gets back from saving the Middle East, don't be surprised if he turns up at the funeral of one of these unfortunate women to deliver a lip-trembling, tear-stained eulogy: "She was the People's Prostitute".
Labels: prostitution, Richard Littlejohn, Suffolk murders
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Tom Stephens MySpace page before it was deleted, taken from the Google archive.Stephens, a Tesco trolley attendant, kept a profile page on the website myspace.com. On it, he called himself The Bishop after a cartoon character and listed his interests as keep fit and 80s music. He said he was 5ft 11ins and athletic.
The page and his entry on Friends Reunited were last night deleted after hate messages poured in.
Labels: MyDeathSpace.com, MySpace, Rupert Murdoch, Suffolk murders, Tom Stephens
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