Day: July 5, 2002

Activists Convicted of Burglary in Great Britain

The Earth Liberation Prisoners Support Network sent out an e-mail late last week claiming that three animal rights activist in Great Britain have been convicted of burglarizing a Roche facility and sentenced to one year in jail. According to the ELP,

ELP has just learnt that British animal rights activists Kate Simpson (who is already listed in the ELP Newsletter as a Remand prisoner), Sarah Gibson (who is a former prisoner) and Madeline Butler have all been found guilty of burglary at Roche, a company which is connected with Huntingdon Life Sciences. Having been found guilty, all three were each sentenced yesterday to one year imprisonment.

A Vegan Prisoners Support Network item on the trio adds that,

The theft was regarding some paperwork Roche wasn’t aware had gone missing until it appeared on the Internet.
Lynn Sawyer was acquitted from this charge. However, she is awaiting a court date for extracting electricity from HLS under the Data Protection Act.

Unfortunately, neither an Internet nor a Lexis/Nexis search turns up any information on these three individuals nor any burglary at a Roche facility.

So, once in awhile animal rights activists do in fact offer up good news.

Source:

Urgent ELP! Bulletin. 28th June 2002.

Arrests and Trials. Vegan Prisoners Support Network, July 4, 2002.

Jonah Goldberg on Executing Retarded People

Unlike Jonah Goldberg, I do not support capital punishment, but Goldberg is absolutely right when he argues that the recent Supreme Court decision forbidding the execution of low IQ individuals is inconsistent with the fact that we regularly grant both rights and responsibilities to such individuals. Attacking a New York Times editorial in favor of the ruling, Goldberg writes,

If liberal editorialists want to say that retarded people cannot be held accountable for their actions, fine. But let’s be consistent about this standard. The retarded have voting rights. They can marry, have children and in some cases drive cars.

. . .How can we on the one hand applaud giving major responsibilities to the retarded but on the other hand recoil in horror at the suggestion we hold them responsible when they fail?

Where was the FBI on 9/11? Undercover Staking out a Prostitution Ring

The Libertarian Party put out a press release a few weeks ago with an interesting claim about the FBI’s pre- and post- 9/11 priorities,

In an unusual federal prostitution case that has set New Orleans abuzz, the FBI is prosecuting a mother-daughter team who ran a bordello out of a white-columned, Victorian mansion in the French Quarter. …

The agency revealed last week that an FBI undercover team had eavesdropped on more than 5,000 phone calls to the brothel over the past year, and as a result it has indicted the two women and 12 prostitutes on conspiracy and racketeering charges. The most shocking bit of information to emerge: On September 11, the day terrorists commandeered four airliners and crashed them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, FBI agents were conducting an “investigation” by eavesdropping as hookers arranged sexual liaisons, according to the Washington Post. Even worse, agents continued monitoring the brothel after the 9/11 attacks, Dasbach noted.

Just a classic example of who the distinction between state and federal crimes has almost disappeared. I’m assuming here that the FBI used the fact that money used in this criminal venture crossed state lines, but surely even without the 9/11 attacks the FBI had better things to do than protect some ex-football star from paying $300 an hour to get laid.

South African Education Minister Calls for Women Only Train Cars

South African Education Minister Kader Asmal this week suggested that female-only train cars need to be created in order to reduce the level of violence directed at women on South Africa’s public transportation system.

Since the end of apartheid, South Africa has experienced a massive crime wave that has seen it lead the world in most violent crime statistics. The high crime rate has in turn led to vigilantism and other problems.

The BBC cites figures claiming that a woman in South Africa today is more likely to be raped than she is to learn to read. Officially, there were almost 25,000 rapes reported to police last year in South Africa, or one for approximately every 850 females.

To put these numbers in perspective, in the United States there are about 72 reported rapes per 100,000 females. In South Africa, that rate is almost 120 reported rapes per 100,000 females.

Several private rail companies in South Africa have already started running female-only train cars, and Asmal suggested that more are needed to protect women.

Source:

Female only trains for SA. The BBC, July 2, 2002.