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Taking Liberties (film)
''Taking Liberties'' (also known as ''Taking Liberties Since 1997'') is a British documentary film about the erosion of civil liberties in the United Kingdom and increase of surveillance under the government of Tony Blair. It was released in the UK on 8 June 2007. The director, Chris Atkins, said on 1 May that he wanted to expose "the Orwellian state" that now threatened Britain as a result of Mr Blair's policies. There is also an accompanying book. Synopsis The film starts with three coaches of peace protesters on the way to the RAF Base in Fairford, Gloucestershire on 22 March 2003 held for two hours by 100 riot police and escorted back to London denied the right to protest. An animated sequence profiles the key events of WWII; Reichstag fire, Kristallnacht, the invasion of Poland, allied victory and the subsequent European convention on Human rights designed to ensure it never happened again. Archive footage of Tony Blair defends New Labour laws which undo this convention ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chris Atkins (filmmaker)
Chris Atkins (born Christopher Walsh Atkins) is a British journalist, documentary film maker and best-selling author. He has made several fiction feature films, feature length documentaries and television documentaries, which have received three BAFTA nominations. His work is noted for causing controversy and has faced legal action as a result of his films. He gave evidence to the Leveson Inquiry into the ethics of the British press. In 2016 he was sentenced to five years in prison for tax fraud. He published a book about his time in jail entitled ''A Bit of a Stretch'' which became a bestseller in the UK. Early life and career Atkins was educated at Bromsgrove School from 1989–1994. His early career involved making low-budget dramas with director Richard Jobson, including Jobson's debut feature film, ''16 Years of Alcohol'', which was nominated for five British Independent Film Awards in 2003, winning two. He also produced ''The Purifiers'' with Jobson in 2004, a ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walter Wolfgang
Walter Jakob Wolfgang (23 June 1923 – 28 May 2019) was a German-born British socialist and peace activist. Up to the time of his death, he was Vice-President of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Vice Chair oLabour CND a caucus of CND members who are also members of the Labour Party. He was also a supporter of the Stop the War Coalition. Walter became better known to the general public after cameras recorded him being forcibly ejected from the annual Labour Party Conference in Brighton on 28 September 2005, aged 82, for shouting "nonsense" during Jack Straw's speech in which the then Foreign Secretary extoled the virtues of the government's role in the Iraq War. The eviction of Walter Wolfgang provoked much media comment and embarrassed the Labour leadership. The following morning he was re-admitted to conference to a stand up ovation and an apology from the chair of the session. In August 2006, Wolfgang succeeded in his bid to become a member of Labour's National Execut ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Habeas Corpus
''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, to bring the prisoner to court, to determine whether the detention is lawful. The writ of ''habeas corpus'' was described in the eighteenth century by William Blackstone as a "great and efficacious writ in all manner of illegal confinement". It is a summons with the force of a court order; it is addressed to the custodian (a prison official, for example) and demands that a prisoner be brought before the court, and that the custodian present proof of authority, allowing the court to determine whether the custodian has lawful authority to detain the prisoner. If the custodian is acting beyond their authority, then the prisoner must be released. Any prisoner, or another person acting on their behalf, may petition the court, or a judge, for a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magna Carta
(Medieval Latin for "Great Charter of Freedoms"), commonly called (also ''Magna Charta''; "Great Charter"), is a royal charter of rights agreed to by King John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor, Berkshire, Windsor, on 15 June 1215. First drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal Stephen Langton, to make peace between the unpopular king and a group of rebel barons, it promised the protection of church rights, protection for the barons from illegal imprisonment, access to swift justice, and limitations on feudal payments to the Crown, to be implemented through a council of 25 barons. Neither side stood behind their commitments, and the charter was annulled by Pope Innocent III, leading to the First Barons' War. After John's death, the regency government of his young son, Henry III of England, Henry III, reissued the document in 1216, stripped of some of its more radical content, in an unsuccessful bid to build political support for their cause. At the end of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mohammed Abdul Kahar
The Forest Gate raid was a Metropolitan Police operation on 2 June 2006. It resulted in the arrest of two men at their east London homes in Forest Gate by police acting on what they described as "specific intelligence" that they might be terrorists in possession of a chemical bomb. One of the men was shot during the raid. No explosive devices were found during the raid, nor was there any evidence of terrorist activity. The men were released without charge. Mohammed Abdul Kahar was again cleared, after 44 indecent images of children had been found on a computer's hard drive, an external hard drive, and a mobile phone recovered during the raid. No charges were filed, as: "The prosecution was not satisfied that Mr Kahar had the necessary computer expertise to enable him ... to transfer the images to the Nokia phone." Subsequent inquiries cleared the officers involved of any "criminal or disciplinary offence". Metropolitan Police apologised for the raid. The apology was welcomed by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2 June 2006 Forest Gate Raid
The Forest Gate raid was a Metropolitan Police operation on 2 June 2006. It resulted in the arrest of two men at their east London homes in Forest Gate by police acting on what they described as "specific intelligence" that they might be terrorists in possession of a chemical bomb. One of the men was shot during the raid. No explosive devices were found during the raid, nor was there any evidence of terrorist activity. The men were released without charge. Mohammed Abdul Kahar was again cleared, after 44 indecent images of children had been found on a computer's hard drive, an external hard drive, and a mobile phone recovered during the raid. No charges were filed, as: "The prosecution was not satisfied that Mr Kahar had the necessary computer expertise to enable him ... to transfer the images to the Nokia phone." Subsequent inquiries cleared the officers involved of any "criminal or disciplinary offence". Metropolitan Police apologised for the raid. The apology was welcomed by t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stasi
The Ministry for State Security, commonly known as the (),An abbreviation of . was the state security service of the East Germany from 1950 to 1990. The Stasi's function was similar to the KGB, serving as a means of maintaining state authority, i.e., the "Sword and Shield of the Party" (). This was accomplished primarily through the use of a network of civilian informants. This organization contributed to the arrest of approximately 250,000 people in East Germany. The Stasi also conducted espionage and other clandestine operations abroad through its subordinate foreign intelligence service, the Office of Enlightenment, or Head Office A (german: Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung). They also maintained contacts and occasionally cooperated with West German terrorists. The Stasi was headquartered in East Berlin, with an extensive complex in Berlin-Lichtenberg and several smaller facilities throughout the city. Erich Mielke was the Stasi's longest-serving chief, in power for 32 of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rwanda Genocide
The Rwandan genocide occurred between 7 April and 15 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War. During this period of around 100 days, members of the Tutsi minority ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and Twa, were killed by armed Hutu militias. The most widely accepted scholarly estimates are around 500,000 to 662,000 Tutsi deaths. In 1990, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a rebel group composed mostly of Tutsi refugees, invaded northern Rwanda from their base in Uganda, initiating the Rwandan Civil War. Over the course of the next three years, neither side was able to gain a decisive advantage. In an effort to bring the war to a peaceful end, the Rwandan government led by Hutu president, Juvénal Habyarimana signed the Arusha Accords with the RPF on 4 August 1993. The catalyst became Habyarimana's assassination on 6 April 1994, creating a power vacuum and ending peace accords. Genocidal killings began the following day when majority Hutu soldiers, police, and mil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harry Willcock
Clarence Harry Willcock (23 January 1896 – 12 December 1952) was a British Liberal activist and the last person in the United Kingdom to be prosecuted for refusing to produce an identity card. Life Willcock was born in Alverthorpe, Wakefield, Yorkshire, the illegitimate son of Harry Cruickshank, a native of Leeds who worked in the textile trade, and Ella Brooke, whose family were wholesalers to tailors. He was adopted by a widow, Mary Willcock, whose surname he adopted. During World War I he served with the Northumberland Fusiliers, but was not sent overseas. He was active in Liberal politics – a councillor and magistrate in Horsforth – then stood for Parliament as candidate in Barking in 1945 and 1950, coming third – last (at the first exceeding 12.5% of the vote, at which his deposit was refunded). At the time of the events which gave rise to ''Willcock v. Muckle'', he was the manager of a successful dry cleaning firm in London. ''Willcock v. Muckle'' Compulsory ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Panopticon
The panopticon is a type of institutional building and a system of control designed by the English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in the 18th century. The concept of the design is to allow all prisoners of an institution to be observed by a single security guard, without the inmates being able to tell whether they are being watched. Although it is physically impossible for the single guard to observe all the inmates' cells at once, the fact that the inmates cannot know when they are being watched means that they are motivated to act as though they are being watched at all times. Thus, the inmates are effectively compelled to regulate their own behaviour. The architecture consists of a Rotunda (architecture), rotunda with an inspection house at its centre. From the centre, the manager or staff of the institution are able to watch the inmates. Bentham conceived the basic plan as being equally applicable to hospitals, schools, Sanitorium, sanatoriums, and psychiatr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anti-war Movement
An anti-war movement (also ''antiwar'') is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term anti-war can also refer to pacifism, which is the opposition to all use of military force during conflicts, or to anti-war books, paintings, and other works of art. Some activists distinguish between anti-war movements and peace movements. Anti-war activists work through protest and other grassroots means to attempt to pressure a government (or governments) to put an end to a particular war or conflict or to prevent it in advance. History American Revolutionary War Substantial opposition to British war intervention in America led the British House of Commons on 27 February 1783 to vote against further war in America, paving the way for the Second Rockingham ministry and the Peace of Paris. Antebellum United States Substantial antiwar sentiment developed in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Milan Rai
Milan Rai (born 1965) is a British writer and anti-war activist from Hastings. He is co-editor with anti-war artist Emily Johns of the magazine ''Peace News''. Along with fellow activist Maya Evans, he was arrested on 25 October 2005 next to the Cenotaph war memorial in London, for refusing to cease reading aloud the names of civilians by then killed in Iraq in the course of the Iraq war. Rai was convicted under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 (SOCPA) for organising an illegal demonstration in the vicinity of Parliament. Political views Rai first became politically active in the campaign against Pershing II and Ground Launched Cruise Missiles - nuclear weapons scheduled to be deployed in Western Europe in the late 1980s. In December 2006, Rai and Evans lost an appeal against their convictions. For refusing to pay a fine of £350 (and £150 court costs), Rai was sent to Wandsworth prison in south London for 14 days on 23 August 2007. This was his fourth pri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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