A 15-year-old in London is being
prosecuted for
holding a sign calling Scientology a "cult", during a
peaceful demonstration (0:55-1:40).
The teenager refused to back down, quoting a 1984 high court ruling from Mr Justice Latey, in which he described the Church of Scientology as a "cult" ... The City of London police came under fire two years ago when it emerged that more than 20 officers, ranging from constable to chief superintendent, had accepted gifts worth thousands of pounds from the Church of Scientology. The City of London Chief Superintendent, Kevin Hurley, praised Scientology for "raising the spiritual wealth of society" during the opening of its headquarters in 2006. Last year a video praising Scientology emerged featuring Ken Stewart, another of the City of London's chief superintendents via
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94
on May 21, 2008 -
128 comments
Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal by Joel Salatin. This Saturday will mark this article's four year anniversary. Frankly, I was mildly surprised not to have found it mentioned before in MeFi. It's a good read about a sad state of affairs; how our government is turning its own people into outlaws, because freedom has been traded in for an illusion of security.
...but then we already knew that. Don't we?
posted by ZachsMind
on Aug 29, 2007 -
110 comments
Eighth grader Anthony Soltero shot himself on Thursday, March 30, after the assistant principal at De Anza Middle School told him that
he was going to prison for three years because of his involvement as an organizer of the April 28 school walk-outs to protest the anti-immigrant legislation in Washington. The vice principal also forbade Anthony from attending graduation activities and threatened to fine his mother for Anthony's truancy and participation in the student protests."
Anthony was learning about the importance of civic duties and rights in his eighth grade class. Ironically, he died because the vice principal at his school threatened him for speaking out and exercising those rights," ...
posted by amberglow
on Apr 7, 2006 -
206 comments
Lost Liberties? Salon has an interesting two part series on the tensions between antiwar protesters and law enforcement.
Part 1: "Outlawing dissent: Spying on peace meetings, cracking down on protesters, keeping secret files on innocent people -- how Bush's war on terror has become a war on freedom."
Part 2: "A thousand J. Edgar Hoovers: State and local police are taking it upon themselves to investigate antiwar activists -- and in the computer age, the threat to our civil liberties is even greater than it was in Hoover's day." Does
Protester = Criminal?
posted by homunculus
on Feb 20, 2004 -
2 comments
The obvious next step has been taken: An Oregon state senator
introduces a bill that will expand the definition of hate crimes to include ecoterrorism and illegal actions motivated by anticapitalism. Block a street, go to jail?
posted by aaron
on Feb 13, 2001 -
48 comments
