Politics

[Renton 21996]

Puts things in a bit of perspective that HF, good luck, it must be hard. Especially now with your own family to think of.

[Happy Face 29]

Cheers Chez, will pass on your regards. He's still a funny fucker with his chin up. He's currently over the moon to be the UK's number one Seinfeld expert on Quizup.

 

And thanks Renton. No need for well wishes though. Only posted it to see if CT would continue to justify the redistribution of wealth from the poor to the well off as a good thing.

[Christmas Tree 4825]

Only posted it to see if CT would continue to justify the redistribution of wealth from the poor to the well off as a good thing.

It's frankly a waste of time going any further as that's blatantly not what I was doing today at all.

 

I was pointing out the hypocrisy of Labour politicians throwing their arms around when they chose not to sort out these issues when they had the chance and money to do so, even though they knew it had to be addressed.

 

The same hypocrites who will grumble away publicly but privately be delighted it's been tackled. This will be confirmed when their next stint in office arrives and nothing is undone.

 

As for redistribution of wealth, I could mention the fact that me and your dad can now earn 10k before paying any tax rather than the 6k under Labour, or the millions who now don't have to pay any tax at all, or the pensioners who now have their pensions linked to the rpi or the money we have saved due to them dropping labourers automatic petrol hike tax or the rises in tax credits or the council tax freeze etc etc

 

Pretty poor show though to use personal situations on a small football board to try and "shame" people for having a different political outlook.

[NJS 4411]

How can you talk about "sorting things out" when HF's point was that his family's issues were dealt with and now aren't?

 

What you mean is that its worth destroying his family's lives because morons like you think there are too many fiddlers. We have the stats to prove there aren't and the stats to prove that people are suffering and dying but that doesn;t matter because like IDS you "believe" that people are fiddlers.

 

Lower than vermin.

[Kevin Carr's Gloves 3968]

It's frankly a waste of time going any further as that's blatantly not what I was doing today at all.

 

I was pointing out the hypocrisy of Labour politicians throwing their arms around when they chose not to sort out these issues when they had the chance and money to do so, even though they knew it had to be addressed.

 

The same hypocrites who will grumble away publicly but privately be delighted it's been tackled. This will be confirmed when their next stint in office arrives and nothing is undone.

 

As for redistribution of wealth, I could mention the fact that me and your dad can now earn 10k before paying any tax rather than the 6k under Labour, or the millions who now don't have to pay any tax at all, or the pensioners who now have their pensions linked to the rpi or the money we have saved due to them dropping labourers automatic petrol hike tax or the rises in tax credits or the council tax freeze etc etc

 

Pretty poor show though to use personal situations on a small football board to try and "shame" people for having a different political outlook.

Or that people earning over £31,000 now qualify for 40% tax so that multi millionaires dont have to pay 45%. Or how about IDS breaking the Code of Practice for Official statistics. Making it harder for sick and disabled people to claim benefit. Or the writing off of milkions of pounds due to computer errors?

[Dr Gloom 22147]

Rare for me to mention personal circumstances, but CT needs shaming.

 

My mam has had a pituitary gland disorder for 30 years. On steroids that whole time but previously managed and varied with regular specialist visits that monitored her chemical levels. She's been housebound for the last 6 years. Not blessed with any referral to see a specialist from the GP in that whole time, just more and more steroids. She's lost the home she owned as the condition worsens, and she has had her disability allowance stopped. She now has to accept my charity for a place to live and from the whole family for extra money to live on month to month.

 

My brother was born with Marfan syndrome. He worked from 16 years old to 30. But his health deteriorated then. He is almost entirely deaf now, no sense of taste or smell. Losing his sight so he can barely read. He is a single parent to a 7 year old son. They live together on the small pension left by his partner and son's mother, who died shortly after he was born. In council property, he gets no further benefit assistance, because of the pension. He (and the rest of us) have had to pay for our own sign language lessons to try and communicate with him in a small way. He had a brain hemmorage 3 years ago that put him in a wheelchair. He sees a specialist once every 6 months or so. The haematologist refers him to the brain surgeon, the brain surgeon to the geneticist, the geneticist to a physio etc. None of them, actually doing any tests or providing any care/assistance.

 

My Dad has worked his entire life. An ex navy man, he's a self employed taxi driver now, he has had 2 bouts of bowel cancer, both operated on, but went back to work within days of leaving hospital each time. Worked through chemo. He had to sell his house during the second course of treatment due to lost earnings. He moved into council property but has to pay full rent. He has a tiny colon now and can't be 5 minutes from a toilet, which inhibits his ability to work late which reduces earnings on the taxis. He's not entitled to help though. He's 64 and constantly knackered running round after my mam (his ex-wife) and my brother. His worry now is he will not be able to retire, he'll have to work to the grave to have enough to live on and support his ex and his handicapped son (grandchild).

 

Touch wood, I am healthy. I've worked since graduating. My wife works. We own a home and rent 2 properties out. We've just had a son.

 

Of those 4 people, the Tories have cut the income/assistance and/or medical treatment for the 3 worst off. For me, they have increased my tax free earnings allowance (and that of my wife). They have started paying us child benefit and frozen my council tax. They've lowered the corporation tax for the company I work for, increased the amount I can put into an ISA tax free, increased my tax-free childcare support, cut the cost of a pint and will give me money to buy another house if I want. The bank of England rate remains just above zero to keep my mortgages down too.

 

They're fucking vermin endangering the wellbeing of the weakest in society for the benefit of the strongest. Anyone who thinks it's in anyway justified is a vile human themselves.

 

Jesus mate, That's terrible, and fair play to you for having such a happy outlook despite all this going on in the back ground.

 

This sort of thing makes my moaning and grumbling seem pretty trivial. Having health is the most important thing in life. I hope the outlook for all of your family improves.

[Dr Gloom 22147]

and yes, the tories are cunts.

[Kevin Carr's Gloves 3968]

Obviously a paedo cunt.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-28109891

[Howmanheyman 33837]

Just want to wish HF's family well. The constant referrals to and through rings a few bells in this household. My Missus is another DLA scrounger as well, the lazy cow.

[Happy Face 29]

Thanks Again for the well wishes folks.

 

It's frankly a waste of time going any further as that's blatantly not what I was doing today at all.

I was pointing out the hypocrisy of Labour politicians throwing their arms around when they chose not to sort out these issues when they had the chance and money to do so, even though they knew it had to be addressed.

The same hypocrites who will grumble away publicly but privately be delighted it's been tackled. This will be confirmed when their next stint in office arrives and nothing is undone.

As for redistribution of wealth, I could mention the fact that me and your dad can now earn 10k before paying any tax rather than the 6k under Labour, or the millions who now don't have to pay any tax at all, or the pensioners who now have their pensions linked to the rpi or the money we have saved due to them dropping labourers automatic petrol hike tax or the rises in tax credits or the council tax freeze etc etc

Pretty poor show though to use personal situations on a small football board to try and "shame" people for having a different political outlook.

 

NJS put you straight on this.

 

The lives of my family were immeasurably better with the help Labour provided. Their situations have deteriorated badly since the tories took over.

 

You seem to see "these issues" as government overspending, which you consider the root cause of the financial crash and the need for austerity. You're wrong about that.

 

"it's been tackled" would be true if the government had looked at the actual cause of the crash, introduced stronger regulation on the banks, the mortgage industry and other lenders. Resumed minimum standards for lending, outlawed the sale of toxic debts bundled into highly graded investments or the credit default swaps taken on toxic debts which saw companies like AIG brought to their knees.

 

But no, they've done none of that. They've extended help to buy to more people that can't afford it, with your full support I might add, perpetuating another property bubble. The opposite of tackling things. The bank's current (temporary) more stringent checks and terms before lending are largely by choice rather than mandatory and now come with a government guarantor providing a deposit to keep customers coming.

 

Labour did nothing whatsoever about that either of course, shamefully, but in a political class propped up by financial and private media baron's there's little chance of anyone getting into power or staying in power with an agenda of taking from them to give to the poor.

 

But at least Labour didn't pin the blame on the poorest in society for scrounging and cut their livlihoods to prop up the sham finacial industry. They just made a devils bargain with them, used the extra income to invest a great deal more in services for the poor while the bubble lasted.

 

The notion that Labour could have not spent any of that money, reduced the countries debt and deficit to zero* and then the tories would have cut nothing, not taxes or social care, is cloud cuckoo land stuff. For generations, labour have pushed social services because the tories have stripped them back as much as possible whenever they're in office.

 

None of the things you list help my brother or mother either.

 

*Read this on why government debt isn't the same as your personal debt and there's not necessarily a need to panic about running a nation at a deficit.

[Dr Gloom 22147]

CT has had it explained a million times but will never listen to the facts as he's a true blue tit.

 

Fact 1: The size of the welfare state was not the cause of the financial crisis. In fact it had nothing to do with it and slashing it now does little to address the state of the public finances.

 

Fact 2: If we cut the amount of money we spend on nuclear weapons, or really went after tax evaders, the deficit could be cut much more without going after the most vulnerable in society.

 

Fact 3: The Tories are brainwashing people with the "our economic plan is working" bullshit to re-write the social contract. The tragedy is middle England is buying it.

 

Glenda was spot on. A bunch of Eton-educated toffs don't give a shit about the poorest people in society falling through the cracks. They want to preserve the status quo.

[Kevin Carr's Gloves 3968]

CT has had it explained a million times but will never listen to the facts as he's a true blue tit.

 

Fact 1: The size of the welfare state was not the cause of the financial crisis. In fact it had nothing to do with it and slashing it now does little to address the state of the public finances.

 

Fact 2: If we cut the amount of money we spend on nuclear weapons, or really went after tax evaders, the deficit could be cut much more without going after the most vulnerable in society.

 

Fact 3: The Tories are brainwashing people with the "our economic plan is working" bullshit to re-write the social contract. The tragedy is middle England is buying it.

 

Glenda was spot on. A bunch of Eton-educated toffs don't give a shit about the poorest people in society falling through the cracks. They want to preserve the status quo.

Part of the status quo being the Tories shielding their paedo kiddy fucking friends. Edited July 3, 2014 by Kevin Carr's Gloves

[PaddockLad 17649]

• Comment is free

Celebrate the strikers this week – they are fighting for us all

The case to walk out is unanswerable, but will be eclipsed by outrage from a media utterly opposed to trade unions

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• • Owen Jones
  • The Guardian, Sunday 6 July 2014 20.00 BST
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'Trade unions are Britain's biggest democratic movement, representing 6.5 million workers.' Photograph: Lennart Preiss/AP

If trade unions are not going to go on strike now, their leaders might as well clench their fists for the last time, bow solemnly before the sisters and brothers, and perform the last rites on their movement. The longest fall in wages for generations; pay packets for many public sector workers down by a fifth in real terms; and, despite politicians' deceitful mantra that work is the route out of poverty, most of Britain's poor consigned to low-wage jobs. An increasingly casualised, hire-and-fire workforce is being forged, manned by an army of zero-hour contract and self-employed (often "self-underemployed") workers lacking basic rights like paid leave; and the vast majority of new jobs in David Cameron's Britain in industries paying less than £7.95 an hour. Throw in cuts to in-work benefits, attacks on pensions and VAT rises, and the rationale for workers to fight back is surely unanswerable.

That will not be the case presented in most of the media when hundreds of thousands of workers take part in co-ordinated strike action on Thursday. This column will remain one of the very few pieces supportive of the strike to be published by the mainstream media. I don't write that as an act of self-congratulation, but simply to point out how ideologically charged and biased our media is. Trade unions are Britain's biggest democratic movement, representing 6.5 million workers – more than nine times the combined membership of the main political parties – and yet they are treated by the media as though they have almost no legitimate place in public life. On the rare occasions they are granted media coverage, their elected leaders are invariably described as "union barons". Surely it is only unelected, unaccountable figures like media owners who should be called barons.

Cover your ears for the screeches of outrage over a day of disruption by a media largely uninterested in the never-ending disruption caused by falling living standards. There will be non-stop complaints about strike ballot turnouts, stoked by the likes of Boris Johnson – narrowly elected London mayor on a 38% turnout – and Tory politicians who championed police crime commissioners elected with an average turnout of 15%. If our rulers were really interested in boosting turnout they would allow workplace-based balloting, but they are not.

Another key plank of anti-strike propaganda will be the politics of envy. Struggling people are relentlessly encouraged to envy each other rather than to be angry at those with power, who are responsible for their ever-deteriorating plight. Private sector workers are worse off, goes this line of argument, but you don't see them downing tools en masse, unlike those pampered public sector workers with their cushy perks. This is the logic of the "race to the bottom". It is all based on myth, given that the public sector has a higher ratio of professional workers like judges, university lecturers and senior civil servants, and the pay figures are also distorted by high wages in bailed-out banks like the Royal Bank of Scotland, which have been reclassified as public sector institutions. A quarter of local authority workers, for example, languish on poverty wages.

Labour is often demonised, sometimes with the complicity of its own leaders, for being in the "pocket of the unions". This is odd given Labour leaders' commitment to the Tories' public sector pay freeze, their acceptance of cuts and their timidity even when it comes to popular policies like public ownership of rail. Labour should speak of its pride in being backed by a movement of dinner ladies, supermarket shelf-stackers and care assistants – union funding is, after all, the cleanest money in politics. But where is the never-ending scrutiny of a Tory party bankrolled by bankers, hedge funds, legal loan sharks, and secretive private interests?

When it comes to unions, there is a chasm between the elite and popular attitudes. How it must rile politicians that, while only 18% of the public believe them to tell the truth, and just 34% of us believe business leaders, trade union officials are trusted by 41%. Those who relentlessly dismiss unions as outdated vested interests must be frustrated to learn that 78% believe trade unions are essential to protect workers' interests; and those portraying unions as being run by extremists and militants may huff as they find just 23% of Britons agreeing and 60% disagreeing. Despite the media's best efforts, 49% of us believe that big business poses a greater threat to the public than trade unions, with just 13% dissenting.

In truth, we all suffer because of trade union weakness. The great squeeze in wages long predates the financial crash: from 2004 onwards, the bottom half of workers found that their pay had stopped growing, and for the bottom third pay in real terms began to fall. That increased the burden on the taxpayer as billions more were spent on tax credits to compensate. Many workers relied on cheap credit to maintain their living standards, helping to win Britain the dubious honour of being one of the world's most indebted nations. Wages began sliding even as corporations posted record profits – but there were no strong unions to compel them to share the wealth.

As a 2011 US study found, the decline of unions is behind a fifth to a third of the growth in wage inequality across the Atlantic. Last week, Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson, co-authors of The Spirit Level, published research for the Class thinktank that fleshed out the link between a weakened labour movement and growing inequality.

That doesn't mean our hunted unions are beyond scrutiny. While most public sector workers are unionised, just 14% of private sector workers are members. All too many supermarkets and call centres are virtually union-free zones. Yes, it is hard to organise because of a law tilted in favour of bosses, and because insecurity leaves workers less likely to remain in the same job. But as early 20th-century unions adapted their organising model to recruit unskilled workers, today's unions must focus their efforts on the ever-expanding service sector. Private sector union membership has grown from a low base for three years running, but unions must expand their efforts to organise in the community as well as the workplace, as the likes of Unite have done.

Come Thursday, hundreds of thousands will sacrifice a day's pay to take a stand. They will be ignored or demonised as they do so. But they should remember that they are not just speaking for themselves, but for the millions expected to pay for a crisis caused by the vested interests who fund the Tories. Who knows – they may give courage and inspiration to others to get off their knees, too.

[Park Life 71]

CT has had it explained a million times but will never listen to the facts as he's a true blue tit.

 

Fact 1: The size of the welfare state was not the cause of the financial crisis. In fact it had nothing to do with it and slashing it now does little to address the state of the public finances.

 

Fact 2: If we cut the amount of money we spend on nuclear weapons, or really went after tax evaders, the deficit could be cut much more without going after the most vulnerable in society.

 

Fact 3: The Tories are brainwashing people with the "our economic plan is working" bullshit to re-write the social contract. The tragedy is middle England is buying it.

 

Glenda was spot on. A bunch of Eton-educated toffs don't give a shit about the poorest people in society falling through the cracks. They want to preserve the status quo.

Labour aren't any better.

[ewerk 31199]

Owen Jones is simply the other side of the coin from the Tories. Extremism on either side of the spectrum doesn't work.

 

Actually Jones is probably even more extreme than the Tories.

Edited July 7, 2014 by ewerk

[PaddockLad 17649]

Owen Jones is simply the other side of the coin from the Tories. Extremism on either side of the spectrum doesn't work.

 

Actually Jones is probably even more extreme than the Tories.

 

Hes a journo, not a politician though.And I doubt that "Red Ed" is happy about the public service unions standing up for themselves.

[ohhh_yeah 2991]

"Stop FGM. Stop Female Genital Mutilaion." at the Tour de France.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 9, 2014 by ohhh_yeah

[Happy Face 29]

Oh yeah!

 

[/Andy Zaltzman]

[ohhh_yeah 2991]

Tory child abuse whistleblower: 'I supplied underage rent boys for Margaret Thatcher's cabinet ministers'

Senior Tory cabinet ministers were supplied with underage boys for sex parties, it is sensationally claimed.

Former Conservative activist Anthony Gilberthorpe said he told Margaret Thatcher 25 years ago about what he had witnessed and gave her names of those involved.

His allegations that he saw top Tories having sex with boys comes after David Cameron launched a Government inquiry into claims of a cover-up.

Anthony, 52, said: “I am prepared to speak to the inquiry. I believe I am a key witness.”

Trawling seedy streets during a Tory conference, Gilberthorpe says he was asked to find underage rent boys for a private sex party at a top hotel.

Today, more than three decades later, he claims he was acting on the orders of some of the most senior figures of Margaret Thatcher’s government.

Anthony says he was a ­full-time ­political activist when he helped procure the “youngest and prettiest” boys for several cabinet ministers after being told to find “entertainment”.

In a series of explosive claims about conferences at Blackpool and Brighton in the 1980s, he alleges boys as young as 15 indulged in alcohol and cocaine before they had sex with the powerful politicians.

He says one person who attended a party is a current serving minister.

Others said to be present at the parties included Keith Joseph, Rhodes Boyson, Dr Alistair Smith and Michael Havers

As a young aspiring politician, Mr Gilberthorpe admits being in awe of the men, but now insists: “They ­manipulated and groomed me to do their bidding.”

He said: “I was just 17 when I first went to a conference in Brighton in 1978. I couldn’t believe I was rubbing ­shoulders with all these important people and I couldn’t believe that they were taking such a keen interest in me. I would have done anything for them because I was so desperate to make it in politics.

“During the years I was attending conferences between 1978 and 1985, I was a full-time political activist. At the same time I was running for office in district and county council elections.”

Mr Gilberthorpe claims that at the 1983 Blackpool conference he was asked by Dr Alistair Smith – the Tory Party Chairman in Scotland – to arrange for young rent boys to have sex with two high-profile cabinet ministers, who we are not naming today.

Other MPs at that party were said to include Rhodes Boyson and Keith Joseph.

In that week he presented the ­then-Prime Minister Mrs Thatcher with a cake to mark her 58th birthday. But he says he also had a more sordid role – using his young looks to find these underage boys for her ministers.

At the time, the age of consent made it illegal to have gay sex with anyone under 21-years-old.

He said: “Dr Smith, who I looked up to at the time and was the most ­important Tory in Scotland, told me to go and fetch some ‘entertainment’, which was code for young boys and handed me a handful of bank notes. There was about £120.”

Mr Gilber-thorpe claims he was not shocked by the request.

He said: “It was a norm and an open secret that these older members of the Tory party, like

Dr Alistair Smith, paid for young men to join them at sex parties.

“It was the first time I was asked to fetch them but it was hardly surprising as I was becoming one of their trusted people. There was a well known and used cruising area close to the Imperial Hotel, which was a conference hotel. The hotel was not open to the public.

“I was expected to find the youngest and prettiest boys. It was what those men wanted.

“In fact it was all they wanted.

“So myself and another Tory candidate walked down there and sat on some benches underneath an archway in the Pavilion area of Blackpool and waited.”

He said they were approached within minutes by a “guy aged about 20” called James. He went on: “I asked him if he wanted to come back to the hotel and he said ‘yes’. We asked if he had any mates and he went away and came back with two boys who were aged about 15 and no older.

"It was a surreal situation as we were dressed in suits and ties and they were wearing jeans.

“We said we would make it worth their while and the older one held out his hand and I passed him the money to share out. I promised him there would be plentiful amounts of free booze.”

Mr Gilberthorpe claims he then asked hotel security to contact a man inside who worked at the Conservative Party Central Office to arrange for the three rent boys to be given security clearance and special badges that would allow them to enter the Imperial.

He said: “All MPs, members of the National Executive and chosen delegates were given name badges that allowed you access to the conference hotel.

“Some of them had a small Oscar sign in the corner which was a code to allow others to know you were allowed into these secret parties.” He claimed the Hollywood-style Oscar symbol was actually in honour of gay writer and poet Oscar Wilde.

Once inside the Imperial, he says the group walked up several flights of stairs to a room where politicians were waiting for them, along with a table of cocaine.

He said: “We took them straight upstairs and into a room where Dr Smith and other MPs were waiting for them at the party. They were given drinks and cocaine to snort and then they were all moved into the centre of the room.”

Mr Gilberthorpe said he witnessed two senior Tories having sex with the boys. He said: “A couple of other MPs were in the room. I can clearly remember seeing one politician, who is now a serving Tory MP, standing there and watching.”

Mr Gilberthorpe also claims that two years earlier in 1981 he saw Sir Michael Havers – then Attorney General – at a swimming pool party at the Tory conference in Blackpool, where underage boys were encouraged to perform sex acts on several politicians, who we are also not naming today.

He recalled: “In 1981 I was invited back to the Imperial Hotel by a ­Conservative councillor.

“He was a big player in the notorious right-wing group the Monday Club.

“We arrived at around midnight and I was led down some stairs to a door where two men were stood as security.

“We were allowed to enter and I was led through a tiled changing room where there were piles of clothes strewn across the floor. We then walked into an area where there was a large pool and lots of men either stood around naked or simply wrapped in towels.

“Among the MPs I recognised in there were Keith Joseph and Rhodes Boyson. I saw the Attorney General Michael Havers down there as well.

“There were a couple of glass tables set up as a mini bar with bottles of spirits on them and there was cocaine on several tables. I saw several boys who were clearly aged between 15 and 16 down there and I saw that a few were performing sex acts on MPs.

“Other young men were acting as waiters walking around with little black bow ties on. I was completely shocked by it because I was still only 20 and I had never seen anything like it.”

He added: “I stayed for a couple of hours but was tired because a conference was always a boozy affair where mainly spirits were drunk in large ­quantities from about 5pm onwards.”

Mr Gilberthorpe, now 52, says he also attended a sex party at the Grand Hotel in Brighton during the Conservatives’ 1984 conference.

On the night before the seafront hotel was hit by an IRA bomb attack, he claims he saw senior MPs engaging in sex acts with boys below the age of consent at a “corridor party” held in a row of rooms on the fourth floor.

He said: “There were two guys on the door at the end of the corridor and because we were in the group I was allowed to enter. Several doors were left open and others were closed.

“There were several men walking from one room to another and enjoying sex acts with other naked men, including boys who were clearly only about 15 or 16 years old. I saw Keith Joseph there and a politician who is now still a serving MP.

“It was held on the night before the bomb went off and afterwards one MP crudely joked that it was a good job it was, or there would have been rent boys falling through the floor.”

Mr Gilberthorpe, who decided to finally break his silence because he fears an Establishment cover-up, also claims that in the aftermath of the bombing, in which five people were killed, he was asked to look after two rent boys.

He said: “I rushed over there from my hotel after I heard the blast and saw Keith Joseph stood outside in a blanket.”

Yesterday he said: “I was a teenager when I first met these men and they manipulated me and groomed me to do their bidding.

“Because they were the most powerful men in the land, I was led to believe it was all OK. In truth they were abusers and once they had tired of me they simply discarded me. It is time this came to light before anyone else is abused.

“They didn’t think they were doing anything wrong and it was the norm then. They felt untouchable.”

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tory-child-abuse-whistleblower-i-3848987

[ohhh_yeah 2991]

Not everyday that you hear a story that exhibits forgiveness like this.

 

 

 

Iranian killer's execution halted at last minute by victim's parents

When he felt the noose around his neck, Balal must have thought he was about to take his last breath. Minutes earlier, crowds had watched as guards pushed him towards the gallows for what was meant to be yet another public execution in the Islamic republic of Iran.

Seven years ago Balal, who is in his 20s, stabbed 18-year-old Abdollah Hosseinzadeh during a street brawl in the small town of Royan, in the northern province of Mazandaran. In a literal application of qisas, the sharia law of retribution, the victim's family were to participate in Balal's punishment by pushing the chair on which he stood.

But what happened next marked a rarity in public executions in Iran, which puts more people to death than any other country apart from China. The victim's mother approached, slapped the convict in the face and then decided to forgive her son's killer. The victim's father removed the noose and Balal's life was spared.

Photographs taken by Arash Khamooshi, of the semi-official Isna news agency, show what followed. Balal's mother hugged the grieving mother of the man her son had killed. The two women sobbed in each other's arms – one because she had lost her son, the other because hers had been saved.

The action by Hosseinzadeh's mother was all the more extraordinary as it emerged that this was not the first son she had lost. Her younger child Amirhossein was killed in a motorbike accident at the age of 11.

"My 18-year-old son Abdollah was taking a stroll in the bazaar with his friends when Balal shoved him," said the victim's father, Abdolghani Hosseinzadeh, according to Isna. "Abdollah was offended and kicked him but at this time the murderer took an ordinary kitchen knife out of his socks."

Hosseinzadeh Sr has come to the conclusion that Balal did not kill his son deliberately. "Balal was inexperienced and didn't know how to handle a knife. He was naive."

According to the father, Balal escaped the scene of the stabbing but was later arrested by the police. It took six years for a court to hand down a death sentence, and the victim's family deferred the execution a number of times. A date for execution was set just before the Persian new year, Nowruz, but the victim's family did not approve of the timing.

Hosseinzadeh said a dream prompted the change of heart. "Three days ago my wife saw my elder son in a dream telling her that they are in a good place, and for her not to retaliate … This calmed my wife and we decided to think more until the day of the execution."

Many Iranian public figures, including the popular TV sport presenter Adel Ferdosipour, had called on the couple, who have a daughter, to forgive the killer. Although they did so, Balal will not necessarily be freed. Under Iranian law the victim's family have a say only in the act of execution, not any jail sentence.

In recent years Iran has faced criticism from human rights activists for its high rate of executions. The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, accused Hassan Rouhani of doing too little to improve Iran's human rights, especially reining in its staggering use of capital punishment.

As of last week, 199 executions are believed to have been carried out in Iran this year, according to Amnesty, a rate of almost two a day. Last year Iran and Iraq were responsible for two-thirds of the world's executions, excluding China.

At least 369 executions were officially acknowledged by the Iranian authorities in 2013, but Amnesty said hundreds more people were put to death in secret, taking the actual number close to 700.

Iran is particularly criticised for its public executions, which have attracted children among the crowds in the past. Iranian photographers are often allowed to document them.

Bahareh Davis, of Amnesty International, welcomed the news that Balal had been spared death. "It is of course welcome news that the family of the victim have spared this young man's life," she said. "However, qisas regulations in Iran mean that people who are sentenced to death under this system of punishment are effectively prevented from seeking a pardon or commutation of their sentences from the authorities – contrary to Iran's international obligations."

She added: "It's deeply disturbing that the death penalty continues to be seen as a solution to crime in Iran. Not only is the death penalty the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment with no special deterrent impact, but public displays of killing also perpetuate a culture of acceptance of violence.

"Public executions are degrading and incompatible with human dignity of those executed. In addition, all those who watch public executions – which regrettably often includes children – are brutalised by the experience."

In October last year an Iranian prisoner who survived an attempted execution and was revived in the morgue was spared another attempt, though his family said he had lost mental stability and remained in jail.

 

 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/16/iran-parents-halt-killer-execution

[Kid Dynamite 7169]

I look forward to the day that CT's BUPA bills cause him to sell his house and not be able to pay £9k pa to put his kids through uni due to his treatment for chronic heart disease. It's all good though cos he gets £10k of his taxi fares tax free as opposed to £6k under labour.

[adios 717]

Astrology-loving MP seeks health answers in the stars

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-28464009

 

Jesus Fucking H. Christ on a trampoline.

[Park Life 71]

All the stuff Icke was saying about the rich and powerful and their predilection for nonsing turned out to be true. He fingered Heath about a decade ago.

[Meenzer 15716]

He fingered Heath about a decade ago.

 

Not a mental image I required.

[Park Life 71]

 

Not a mental image I required.

Done on purpose.