Strange bedfellows
Tuesday, November 25, 2008 Last year I attended a dinner hosted by the Reform Club Media Group. Guest speaker was Shami Chakrabarti, the high profile director of the human rights group Liberty.
During Q&As, Chakrabarti was asked why Liberty didn't support Britain's beleaguered smokers. She wasn't unsympathetic but the gist of her reply was that smokers' rights are relatively trivial compared to other human rights issues and Liberty has to prioritise.
Now, in a letter to Talksport management, Chakrabarti has unexpectedly declared her support for presenter Jon Gaunt, sacked last week:
"We understand that the grounds given for summary termination are Mr Gaunt's on-air references to the 'health Nazis' he felt responsible for banning smokers from fostering children in Redbridge.
"This strikes us as the most bizarre and disproportionate approach to someone who was no doubt contracted to excite political debate amongst a whole host of listeners who might not normally engage with news and current affairs programmes.
"For present purposes, we make no comment on the substance of the childcare policy in question. However we would remind you that any court must read Mr Gaunt's contract in the light of his right to free expression under article 10 of the Human Rights Act.
"Whilst this is far from an absolute right (particularly in the context of broadcasting), to be meaningful it must extend to contentious as well as consensual speech and we find it hard to envisage how your actions could possibly constitute a proportionate and lawful response to the present facts."
Top marks to Chakrabarti, especially as Gaunt once called her "the most dangerous woman in the country". Full story HERE.
Reader Comments (6)
I agree. Any campaigner like Shami Chakrabarti must prioritise. We all probably have favoured causes to which we give more attention than we do to others. Repeatedly this lady's comments as we see them in the media have a ring of integrity about them. As does she herself. Good for her over this intervention. May her work prosper.
I can understand Liberty's stance wrt to the ban itself in relation to its other priorities, but when the campaign of demonisation used to justify it has engendered a culture in which smokers are verbally and physically assaulted and discriminated against, then Liberty might like to reconsider the importance of 'smokers' rights'. The right to be treated with respect seems, to me at least, to be as important as the right to free speech.
Shami may want to prioritise, but she could still show her disapproval.
I am pleased that Liberty is expressing support for Jon Gaunt and freedom of speech but I despair that Chakrabarti dismisses smokers rights as "trivial".
I do wonder about Liberty and what it's there for and exactly who it represents. I had occasion four years ago to contact the organisation after someone I knew was first assaulted and blinded by a gang of youths, then arrested by police and held in custody because the officers chose to believe the drunken yobs and ignore other evidence and witnesses.
Despite the fact that the case against this man was eventually dropped, because of a lack of evidence that he contributed to his own injury, he was denied compensation by the criminal injuries board because police still claimed he was reponsible. So much for innocent until proven guilty. He has never worked since this incident which most certainly was not of his own making.
It seems to me that we are as "innocent" or as "guilty" as the police say we are and we don't need courts when authoritarian minds are made up .. but does Liberty care..?.
Liberty wasn't keen to help this person with this massive injustice either so perhaps someone can tell me what the point of this obviously selective organisation is.
Oppression is oppression. To my mind it matters not whether it is an unjustly accused and confined alleged terrorist or a beleagured smoker.
If we start "prioritising" such issues as who has more right to freedom than others then we behave like the animals in George Orwell's Animal Farm where "all pigs are equal ... but some pigs are more equal than others."
If Chakrabarti could write in support of Jon Gaunt, she could have written to Govt in support of smokers who have been discriminated against in public, at work, and in society in general.
I'd also like to know Liberty's stance on the discrimination of smokers as foster parents and whether it backs the prejudicial stance of Coun Stark and others who claim smokers are not fit to be parents.
Surely there is a human rights issue here as well, Ms Chakrabarti...?
I dont know why people are getting their knickers in a knot over this Shami persons watery comment in regard to smokers.
Its about time that the human rights brigade stuck their heads above the parapit and spoke up for smokers disenfranchisement from society.
God knows we make a massive contribution to society with our taxes as it is, to be then thrown out on the street like beggars in atrocious weather conditions and made feel like criminals in our own country.
These human rights brigaders are far too concerned with the rights of people who have no connection with this country at all other than demanding safe harbour from countries that dont even know the meaning of the words human rights.
The human rights brigade should look after their own first and the rest will take care of itself. Or are they afraid they will be out of a job like the rest of the quangos that will be getting the chop in these "regrettable recessionery times".
It's always seemed to me that Liberty are there to limit the debate by being the token opposition, allowed by the media, to the authoritarian state. This, of course, shuts out anything that gets too close to the real agenda.