2017 (@2017@moviescape.blog)
Vacation: Wir sind die Griswolds (2015)
Nach einer ziemlich aufregenden Arbeits- und turbulenten ersten Ferienwoche, waren am Abend alle Familienmitglieder ziemlich platt. Als die Kids gegen 20:30 Uhr im Bett waren, haben wir uns vor den Fernseher zurückgezogen und mit "Vacation: Wir sind die Griswolds" einen Film eingelegt, von dem ich mir nicht viel erwartete. Dennoch war ich neugierig, wie denn die Fortsetzung einer der beliebtesten Filmreihen der 80er Jahre heute aussieht... Eine Fortsetzung, kein Reboot Die Originale rund […]https://moviescape.blog/2017/08/04/vacation-wir-sind-die-griswolds-2015/
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2016 (@2016@salisburyai.com)
Injustice
Life and death in the courtrooms of America
It sometimes comes as a shock to people that the only country in the Americas which still has the death penalty is the USA. It is especially favoured by the southern states such as Louisiana, Texas and Florida and we have on many occasions on this blog mentioned particular cases where the wrong man is convicted of a crime or where the evidence is at best doubtful.
Our view here in the UK of the justice system in America is heavily conditioned by Hollywood films, on screen or on TV, which give a highly biased view of the real life situation. In these depictions, an innocent man or woman has been wrongfully arrested. Clean cut lawyers appear for the defendant and there is a tense meeting in the DA’s office. At some point, the defence (or defense if you’re reading this in the USA) lawyer says ‘we’re outa here’ and they all sweep out. Hearings, such as a Grand Jury happen as if by magic and subsequent court appearances take place soon after. Few episodes can go by without a lawyer saying someone’s ‘Miranda rights have been infringed’ and more people sweep out. Everyone is dedicated to securing justice with the exception of one individual (a witness, police officer or someone needed for the plot) who is found out at the end. More clean cut young people find a tiny and crucial piece of evidence and this is sufficient to set a defendant free, often in the last minute or so of the trial. The overall impression is of a system that works – albeit uncertainly at times – with the good guy getting off at the end.
If you read Clive Stafford Smith’s book Injustice * you will find that these Hollywood stories are for many in the States, fiction. Clive has spent many years in the USA helping people on death row, the majority of whom should not be there. The book is about one individual, Krishna Maharaj (pictured), who was on death row in Florida for 28 years before being released. It is a truly astonishing book with 110 pages of detailed notes and describes the dysfunctional legal system in states such a Florida.
The problem – bizarrely – is that an innocent man or woman is often more at risk that someone who is guilty. Innocent people believe, often wrongly to their cost, that they don’t have to prove anything because they are innocent. There cannot be any evidence to prove they did it because they didn’t. They also think that the justice system is unbiased and the truth will out eventually, a ‘touching faith’ as Clive describes it.
The book explores these issues in great detail. America elects its law officers and so there is great pressure to convict to prove to the electorate that you are ‘tough on crime’. Sentencing people to death is a great way to prove this. Unlike recent changes to the justice system in the UK, the defence has no right of disclosure. So the police need only present evidence allegedly proving guilt, and not reveal evidence that proves the defendant innocent. This practice was also commonplace in the UK before new rules were introduced following some high profile injustices were discovered. In Florida, because of the enormous amount of money flooding in to the state from the drug barons, corruption is rife throughout the justice system. Amazingly, the judge himself in Krishna’s trial was arrested for bribery and corruption after three days of hearings. The police are often themselves involved in the drugs trade.
So if the judge was arrested, then surely the trial should start afresh? No, because defence lawyers are paid so little and on a block fee basis, to start again is something they cannot afford, so they just ploughed on with a new judge. The quality of defence lawyers is frequently poor and they fail to cross-examine properly, call relevant witnesses or even to meet the defendant that often. The problem here is that if through incompetence or otherwise the defence lawyer does not raise the issues at trial, then appeal courts will rule matters to be ‘procedurally barred’ subsequently.
So alibis are not called, forensic evidence not challenged, police witnesses’ changes in evidence not challenged and so on and so on. The result was an innocent man narrowly escaping death row for a crime he did not commit and which was committed it was eventually discovered, by someone acting for a drug cartel. The man murdered was ‘skimming’ drug profits. Errors are so great and so frequent that justice would better be served if it was done on the basis of a coin toss. Fewer would be executed on this basis.
Clive Stafford Smith is an extraordinary lawyer but he is also a great story teller and this account of Kris Maharaj death row case is a powerful thriller beautifully told. Helena Kennedy QC [senior lawyer in the UK]
Passionate and Humane Mail on Sunday
This is a highly recommended book for anyone interested in the justice system. If you have written letters to governors and others in the States it will explain a lot. Clive Stafford Smith was the founder of Reprieve.
A story about the case in Miami Herald
*Injustice by Clive Stafford Smith, Vintage books, 2013
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#000080 #CliveStaffordSmith #DeathPenalty #deathRow #Florida #KrishnaMaharaj #Reprieve #USA
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2016 (@2016@voiceofeast.net)
Those Who Defied The Sovereignty Of Pakistan
Those Who Defied The Sovereignty Of Pakistan
Addressing the constituent assembly of Pakistan (including the present-day Bangladesh) on August 11, 1947, Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah said,
‘The first and the foremost thing that I would like to emphasize is this: remember that you are now a sovereign legislative body and you have got all the powers.’
The point is mentioned at least three times in the speech, acknowledging the assembly as a ‘Sovereign assembly’ and ‘a full and complete sovereign body as the Federal Legislature of Pakistan.’
In less than seven years, this very sovereignty of the assembly had been repudiated by almost every school of thought in the new state. This is arguably the most shocking aspect of the history of Pakistan, and yet it is the least discussed (possibly because everybody who mutinied against the state has become a hero by now).
In April 1948, Chaudhry Rahmat Ali arrived in Lahore from Cambridge and announced through a newspaper that his aim was ‘a complete repudiation’ of the partition plan through which Pakistan had been created.
In October the same year, Abul Aala Maududi and two of his associates had to be charged with sedition and arrested under the Public Safety Act. They remained behind bars till May 1950.
The members of the Congress Party, representing some of the non-Muslim constituencies, undermined the authority of the assembly from within on many occasions. In March 1949, they demanded that religion should not be mentioned in the constitution because, in their opinion, this was contrary to a famous statement of the Quaid (‘you may belong to any religion or caste or creed; that has nothing to do with the business of the State’). They failed to acknowledge that the Quaid himself had asked the assembly to act as a greater authority than him.
In 1951, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, many other members of Pakistan Communist Party and some army personnel were found guilty of plotting to overthrow the government, kidnap the Prime Minister and the cabinet, murder senior security officers and bring a totalitarian revolution by using military force.
In February 1952, a vilification campaign against PM Khawaja Nazimuddin was launched by Inayataullah Mashriqi, was soon taken over by religious organizations like Majlis-i-Ahrar and was eventually joined by Jamaat-i-Islami and several other ‘ulema’ including Syed Suleman Nadvi and Mufti Muhammad Shafi. Initially complaining about issues like the shortage of food items, the agitators moved on to press three religious demands, i.e. the Ahmadis should be declared non-Muslims, the Ahmadi Foreign Minister should be sacked and all Ahmadis should be removed from higher posts in the government.
While refusing to accept the demands, the PM made it clear to the agitators that they were trespassing on the jurisdiction of the assembly. Undeterred, they launched ‘direct action’ against the government in January 1953. Riots followed and resulted in loss of life, especially in Punjab, where an S.H.O. of the police was lynched to death inside the historic Wazir Khan Mosque in Lahore. The army was called to restore order on March 5.
Using these events as pretext, and with support from the military leadership, Governor-General Ghulam Muhammad dismissed the PM and appointed in his place Muhammad Ali Bogra, who was Pakistan’s ambassador in US at that time (and believed to be ‘pathetically pro-American’). Thus the assembly was stripped of an important aspect of its sovereignty, i.e. the authority to choose the PM and to keep him or her in office as long as it pleases the majority in the house.
Although the possibility of foreign involvement in the matter was suggested by an English newspaper of Karachi as early as the summer of 1952, it seems that nobody has noticed the striking similarity between these events and ‘Operation Ajax’, an undercover activity of MI6 and CIA in Iran around the same time. According to Kermit Roosevelt, the senior CIA officer in charge of this operation, it was based on ‘four lines of attack’:
- first, the popularity of PM Mossadegh would be undermined through a campaign in mosques, the press and the streets;
- military officers loyal to the Shah would deliver the decree dismissing the PM;
- mobs would take control of the streets; and
- General Zahedi, a loyalist, would emerge to be nominated by the Shah as the new prime minister.
There is an obvious parallel in the events that led to the dismissal of Nazimuddin in Pakistan, except that (b) and (c) occurred in the reverse order. There is no direct evidence, but the similarity tempts us to think that if the same foreign agencies did not stage-manage the events in Pakistan, they must have learnt something here to be repeated in the neighbouring country a few months later. The final outcome was the same in both cases. A civilian dictator willing to serve the British or American interests got rid of a PM supported by the majority in the house, was able to replace him with an avowedly pro-American person of no political standing, and succeeded in marginalizing the assembly.
The official report of the inquiry about the disturbances in Pakistan, commonly called the Munir Report and published by the autocratic regime of Ghulam Muhammad in the summer of 1954, called it unrealistic to think that ‘any Foreign Power would attach or has any need to attach so much importance to Pakistan as to consider it worth their while to run the risk of being caught meddling with its domestic affairs’ (p.76).
The issue of sovereignty was discussed at length in the report but the term was never linked directly with the constituent assembly, thus paving the way for the eventual dissolution of the assembly that happened soon afterwards with the full blessing of the main author of report.
On October 24, 1954, Governor-General Ghulam Muhammad dismissed the assembly. At the end of the legal battle that ensued, a full bench of the highest court in the country, headed by Chief Justice Muhammad Munir, ruled on March 21 that it was ‘a mistake to suppose that sovereignty in its larger sense was conferred upon the Constituent Assembly.’
It still belonged to the Crown of Great Britain and the assembly ‘lived in a fool’s paradise if it was ever seized with the notion that it was the sovereign body in the State.’ The only member of the bench to disagree was Justice R. A. Cornelius (later the Chief Justice of Pakistan).
#CIA #Democracy #India #MuhammadAliJinnah #Pakistan #PakistanPolitics #Politicians #Politics #QuaidEAzam #USA
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2015 (@2015@streetartutopia.com)
Street Art by DALeast – In San Diego, USA
——————————————————————————————- By DALeast in San Diego, USA. ——————————————————————————————-https://streetartutopia.com/2015/07/29/street-art-by-daleast-in-san-diego-usa/
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2015 (@2015@streetartutopia.com)
By Sebastien “Mr. D” Boileau in Houston, Texas
“Preservons La Creation” (Let’s Preserve the Creation). By Sebastien “Mr. D” Boileau in San Jacinto Street, Houston, Texas, USA. Photo by sulla55.https://streetartutopia.com/2015/04/29/by-sebastien-mr-d-boileau-in-houston-texas/
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2014 (@2014@moviescape.blog)
Die Unfassbaren: Now You See Me – OT: Now You See Me – Extended Edition (2013)
Langsam aber sicher reicht es mir mit den beständigen Krankheiten. Nachdem letztes Wochenende das Zappelinchen dran war, hat es nun den Zwergofanten und meine Frau erwischt. Alle Pläne für das Nikolaus-Wochenende dahin. Somit waren die Umstände der gestrigen Sichtung von "Die Unfassbaren: Now You See Me" (gesehen in der Extended Edition) auch alles andere als optimal. Ob der Film dennoch überzeugen konnte, erfahrt ihr in der folgenden Besprechung... Filme rund um die Bühnenzauberei […]Show Original Post
2014 (@2014@streetartutopia.com)
Faith47 – Photos from 2014
On Facebook. In Tunisia. ———————————————————————— By Fait47. ———————————————————————— In Los Angeles, USA. In Los Angeles, USA. On Facebook. In Los Angeles, USA. In Portland, USA. In Aalborg, Denmark. Stare Down – In Brick Lane, London, England. Photo by Ian Flinders. In Durban, South Africa. In Durban, South Africa. In Durban, South Africa. In Durban, South Africa. In Glasgow, Scotland.https://streetartutopia.com/2014/11/12/faith47-photos-from-2014/
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2014 (@2014@streetartutopia.com)
Street Art by David Zinn in Michigan, USA
On Facebook. By David Zinn in Michigan, USA. More by David Zinn: Chalk Art by David Zinn – A Collectionhttps://streetartutopia.com/2014/10/18/street-art-by-david-zinn-in-michigan-usa/
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2014 (@2014@streetartutopia.com)
23 Beloved Street Art Photos – May 2014 – July 2014!
This is some of the most beloved photos on our Facebook Page May 2014 – July 2014! Click on a photo to sometimes see it bigger and some times see more of the same artist. On Facebook. On Facebook. By Paulo Ito: Flickr/Facebook. In Pompeia, São Paulo, Brazil. Comment on 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil. On Facebook. By Mr Thoms in Ferentino, Italy. On Facebook. By Oakoak France. On Facebook. By Anarkia, Flantl and Belin in Linares, Spain. On Facebook. By Pichi and […]https://streetartutopia.com/2014/08/24/23-beloved-street-art-photos-may-2014-july-2014/
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2014 (@2014@streetartutopia.com)
By Sebastian Coolidge and Derek in St. Petersburg, USA
On Facebook. By Sebastian Coolidge and Derek Donnelly in Downtown St. Petersburg, USA. Photo by Ryan Zarra:https://streetartutopia.com/2014/05/31/sebastian-coolidge-derek-st-petersburg-usa/
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2014 (@2014@streetartutopia.com)
By David Zinn in Michigan, USA
On Facebook. By David Zinn in Michigan, USA.https://streetartutopia.com/2014/05/12/david-zinn-michigan-usa-3/
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2014 (@2014@streetartutopia.com)
6 beloved Street Art Photos – April 2014
This is some of the most beloved photos on our Facebook Page February 2014 – March 2014! Click on a photo to sometimes see it bigger and some times see more of the same artist. —————————————————————————————— On Facebook. By Collettivo FX in Palermo, Italy. On Facebook. By Seth. On Facebook. By Sqon in Italy. On Facebook. In Guarda, Portugal. On Facebook. By Banksy in Cheltenham, England. On Facebook. By David Zinn in Michigan, USA.https://streetartutopia.com/2014/05/06/6-beloved-street-art-photos-april-2014/
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