Hey Tiki

So it seems like a bad week for individual rights and freedoms, in the news has been the arrest of Tiki Tanne is a singer apparently of some renown, I say apparently as before he got arrested I had no idea he existed. I doubt he would be bothered by that as I don’t think I am his target demographic.

He was arrested for “disorderly behaviour likely to cause violence to start or continue” which is my first point, isn’t this a somewhat doubtful charge? The phrase “likely to cause” is a bit problematic for me as you appear to be arresting someone for something that might happen in the future. If the charge was “possessing a car likely to be driven above the speed limit” how would we feel about it. Should we be arresting someone for something they are “likely” to do.

The behaviour in question was singing a song which I believe is called and presumably has as part of the lyrics “F... the police”. Exercising what could only be termed as dubious judgement Tiki did this while some members of the police force were in the bar. Although unknown to me as I wasn’t there the likely sequence of events after that point is probably fairly obvious.

So what happened to Article 14 of the Bill or Rights? Which says, “Freedom of expression: Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form.” What happened to Tiki’s freedom of expression?

Now as with all things there are limits to your right to Freedom of expression and although I don’t like the phrase you can’t go around spewing forth “hate speech” which is where the above charge comes in, not withstanding my disquiet about its drafting.

However the song in total is not a pleasant one and not my taste however it is talking about the experience of black Americans dealing with police officers and implies racism within the American police force and the line in question is an openly rebellious retort to what the writer perceives as injustice. In context that doesn’t really sound like something to be to bothered about. It isn’t after all even talking about the NZ Police force.

But ignoring all of that a bigger question for me is how we have ended up with a society that finds this sort of material acceptable. No matter how you dress it up it is at the very least disrespectful or impolite to be singing such a song, but I suspect it represents at least to a part of our society a disenfranchisement from the main stream as represented by police officers and other society authority figures. Isn’t that the real problem, because if they don’t respect the police who have powers I will never have then what’s the chance that the rest of us will be respected by this group. And this disconnected group is growing and not simply represented by those that listen to Rap music. This is the social ill, societal fracture and it won’t be fixed by throwing Rap singers into Jail.

To prove that we are not the only ones looking at symptoms rather than causes, France has this week outlawed Muslim women covering their faces in public. Hands up any one who can thinking of something wrong with that idea. Anyone without a hand up, I don’t think you are paying attention.

First The Good News...

The courts have overturned Wanganui’s ill advised by-law banning “gang patches” from the CBD.

So firstly the usual disclaimers, I don’t agree with the illegal activities of gangs, nor do I find their generally life style attractive, however....

Like them or loathe them they are members of our society and should therefore be afforded the same protection under the law as the rest of us. More importantly an attack on the civil liberties of this group is an attack on the civil liberties of us all.

There is no particular difference between a gang member wearing his “colours” and me walking down the street in my team’s rugby jersey. They both indicate affiliation to a certain group and presumably identification with whatever that group represents. The only difference is that the council has decided they don’t “like” gangs.
Well over and over in history we have seen examples of groups deciding they don’t like other groups and it seldom works out well. This is why we tolerate others in society and among other things allow them to dress as they please. Admittedly there are limits to the dress as you please rule, not wearing enough could get you into trouble and wearing clothing that is regarded as offensive also but these laws apply to all not just to a select group. If you want to try and use these laws to pick on gang patches be my guest but passing a specific law targeting a minority group, no matter how much you might dislike them leaves me nervous.

The other thing that interests me is, How is this going to help? Nobody in their right mind would imagine that gangs will suddenly fade out because they aren’t allowed to wear their patches in Wanganui’s CBD. They are even unlikely to disappear from Wanganui. One of the reasons people join gangs is no doubt a sense of isolation or exclusion from society and this rule is going to reinforce this rather than change anything. There are now “youth gangs” in Auckland modelled on The Bloods and Crypts who do not have patches but they are still a gang.

If you don’t like gangs how about you work on youth employment or tackle family violence or whatever else drives gang membership. As I have opined before simply banning stuff doesn’t work.

The other sighted reason is that people find the patches intimidating? Really? Personally I find the people inside the patches intimidating and I am confident that they can be plenty violent and intimidating without the patch if they choose to be. This is another example of a silly idea up there with micro chipping dogs to stop them biting people, actually why don’t we just micro chip gang members that should sort them out.

So in words much sharper than mine

First They came.. - Pastor Martin Niemoller

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Now the bad news.
As I understand it the court said that the process in creating the by-law was flawed not that the council couldn’t do it. So stand by for a potential further attack on your civil liberties by the Wanganui Council. Or feel free to email them at wdc@wanganui.govt.nz and tell them you object.

Crime and Prejudice

What is up with this country and locking people up? We have the second highest incarceration rate (per head of population ) in the OECD. (second to the red necks in the good old US of A). Are we particularly bad or mad? Or is it more to do with our attitude to punishment, lets face it rehabilitation isn’t even in our zip code for discussion when it comes to criminals.

The reason for this outburst is that the news today seems dominated by rampant stupidity surrounding locking people up. We have the case of a guy convicted of manslaughter for the death of a four year old that he beat to death. For which he has served 12 years in jail, the total length of his sentence and is now to be released. The parole board has imposed a further 6 months restrictions on him as they have the power to do but after that he is once again a free man. Foul screams the mob, this guy is a monster and because the parole board has concerns that he may reoffend (presumably he has anger issues as a particular issue with children does not seem to be part of the commentary) we should keep him behind bars forever until the parole board is satisfied he will not offend.

Really? Am I the only one that is slightly perturbed by the idea that people could serve their sentence and then be arbitrarily detained by a committee with no recourse to due process or review? Where do I start with what is potentially wrong with this picture. For one thing presumably all prisoners who are released carry a high risk of reoffending. According to Corrections the recidivism rate after 4 years is 50%. So that is half of them that we shouldn’t let out.

Another burst of stupidity surrounds David Tamihere with calls for him to remain locked up until he reveals the site of Heidi Paakkonen’s grave. There are questions about the safety of this conviction which are not worth going in to but some facts are agreed, Tamihere has always maintained that he didn’t kill Heidi and her boyfriend. This ongoing position has cost him additional years in gaol already, so maybe just maybe he didn’t do it so how is he going to reveal the grave site if he doesn’t know where it is. And if you don’t like that one if he is stubborn enough to maintain his innocence for 22 years and cost himself additional gaol time already I think we are on a loser keeping him locked up.

And if these sort of calls from the mob aren’t enough to make me worry about my civil liberties, how about the government attempting to legislate away your right to silence by extending so called “examination orders” This is the situation where you are minding your own business as an accountant say and suddenly realise that you are doing the books for a dangerous mob boss. The government now wants the power to make you a criminal by extension if you don’t dob in your client, despite the fact that mob bosses don’t deal well (or fairly) with people who do that.

Not to mention additional unnotified surveillance powers etc, and please don’t tell me that you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide. Even in little old NZ people have come under surveillance for being members of the communist party or for being part of Halt All Racist Tours, both organisations and most of their activities being perfectly legal (ok so the HART guys stepped over the line sometimes). Neither organisation I support in any way, however I am not a big fan of organised religion and I am a bit concerned about masons and those guys that play with little plastic soldiers are a bit weird. None of which gives me or the government any rights to do anything to them provided they conduct themselves within the laws of the country.

And if they do break a law, just like when I get caught speeding, after they have done the time or paid the fine they should be free to start again.