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Trafigura. Gagging. Injunctions. Suppressed reports. Caustic Soda. Freedom of Speech. Carter-Ruck. The Minton Report. The Ivory Coast. Birth defects, miscarriages and deaths…

All you need to know is right here.

(Via Nick Barlow on Twitter)

You need to have a serious talk to someone about how the Internet and search engines work. This was the first page of Google.co.uk search for Trafigura earlier this morning…

Click for the bigger picture

For those coming in late…

‘London solicitors Carter-Ruck, who specialise in suing the media for clients, who include individuals or global corporations,’ have gagged the Guardian from reporting parliamentary proceedings. That’s the parliamentary proceedings that you and I are completely free to read by simply going to the online version of Hansard.

So why have lawyers stopped a newspaper publishing quotations from the record of our democracy? It’s all to do with a company called Trafigura and what it may or may not have got up to in Africa.

It seems the Guardian has been prevented from publishing this written parliamentary question tabled by Paul Farelly MP…

61 N Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura.

You can download your own copy of the Minton report from Wikileaks.

It appears that some or all of these slops were disposed of at waste sites in and around Abidjan, Ivory Coast approximately in August 2006. This is alleged to have caused, or in part contributed to, a high incidence of health problems being reported, including nausea, breathing difficulties, vomiting, diarrhea.

Read section 3 in particular – ‘Health and Environmental impacts’ – all kinds of horrible stuff were involved.

Nick Barlow has more, as do many others. There’s also much being said on Twitter (if you want to Twitter about this, use the #Trafigura hashtag – it’s currently trending on Twitter’s front page). You might also be tempted to blog about Trafigura.

This is what Trafigura doesn’t want you to know. Now you do. If they hadn’t gone running to their lawyers, it’s very possible you wouldn’t. The Streisand is well and truly out of the bag.

More background:

Independent: Call for murder charges to be brought over toxic dumping

The settlement of the High Court case, expected to be finalised within weeks, concerns claims by victims who suffered short-term illnesses. But it does not apply to allegations, which will now not be tested in the British courts, that the dumped waste caused more serious problems, including deaths, miscarriages and birth defects.

Video: Newsnight – Dirty tricks and toxic waste in Ivory Coast

George Monbiot (on September 17): Trafigura’s attempts to gag the media prove that libel laws should be repealed

In Britain, libel (or defamation) is used as the rich man’s sedition law, stifling criticism and exposure of all kinds of malpractice. Dating back to the 13th century, it was reframed during the past 200 years specifically to protect wealthy people from criticism, based on the presumption that any derogatory remark made about a gentleman must be false. The law of defamation is the only British instrument which places the burden of proof on the defendant. Given the inordinate costs involved, it’s not surprising that it discourages people from investigating abuses of power.

Guardian: How UK oil company Trafigura tried to cover up African pollution disaster

The UN human rights special rapporteur, Professor Okechukwu Ibeanu, criticised Trafigura for potentially “stifling independent reporting and public criticism” in a report the oil trader tried and failed to prevent being published in Geneva this week.

He wrote: “According to official estimates, there were 15 deaths, 69 persons hospitalised and more than 108,000 medical consultations … there seems to be strong prima facie evidence that the reported deaths and adverse health consequences are related to the dumping.”

Ministry of Truth: TRAFIGURA AND THE MINTON REPORT

The concentrated sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) is one, as anyone coming into contact with it on the waste dump would be likely to suffer severe chemical burns to the skin or lungs, from vapour inhalation, and as, I’m afraid to say, scavenging from waste dumps is not that uncommon a practice in the developing world… Do I really need to spell out the rest?

Greenpeace: Trafigura background

On July 2, 2006, the Probo Koala (chartered by Trafigura) attempted to unload waste in Amsterdam. Noting the strong-smelling nature of the waste and probable toxic nature, harbour authorities told the ship that the waste would be more expensive to dispose of. The ship refused to pay extra treatment costs and left Amsterdam…

Econsultancy: Social media turns toxic avenger for The Guardian (#trafigura)

This tidal wave of tweets makes for particularly bad PR, given the banning order against the newspaper. It’s a bit like an artist achieving a Radio 1 ban, which can result in chart success. What you seek to suppress only generates further interest.

Update @ 13.00: Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger has just posted this to Twitter:

Victory! #CarterRuck caves-in. No #Guardian court hearing. Media can now report Paul Farrelly’s PQ about #Trafigura. More soon on Guardian…

Wikileaks: Ivory Coast toxic dumping report behind secret Guardian gag

Statements made in parliament, including those of Paul Farrelly MP, traditionally enjoy an absolute exemption from molestation by the regular judiciary. Parliament does not, insomuch as it believes itself to be an expression of the national will, subordinate itself to any other court.

Knowing this, lawyers for Trafigura, Carter-Ruck, obtained a second, secret media injuction to prevent reporting of Paul Farrely MP’s questions. That this alleged order was granted is a bold and dangerous move by the High Court towards the total privatization of censorship. Is a multi-billion pound commodities trader a truer expression of the national will than the House of Commons? The question is no longer rhetorical.

Wikileaks: The Independent: Toxic Shame: Thousands injured in African city, 17 Sep 2009

The PDF presents a copy of an article originally published in UK newspaper The Independent, but censored from the Independent’s website.

Were you one of those liberal-lefty types that rallied to David Davis’ banner when he made his pointless and self-aggrandising publicity stunt principled stand over civil liberties last year? Your erstwhile leader thinks you’re a coward and an appeaser…

“If we had relied on Guardian-reading vegetarians to defend liberty,” he reckoned, “we’d all be speaking German.”

One of course wonders how many gin-swilling Tories joined the International Brigade in 1936. And how many ‘Guardian-reading vegetarians’ will join Davis on his next ego-buffing fool’s errand.

The best response was the first comment to the above piece:

More accurately, if we’d have relied on the Daily Mail’s 1930s editorial stance to defend liberty, we’d all be speaking German.

It’s a time when every politician desperate to keep his or her job is banging on about giving more power to the people (strange it’s taken them until now, mind).

So, I was wondering if anyone could tell me whatever happened to Gordon Brown’s nearly two year-old promise to repeal sections s132-138 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (SOCPA) 2005, banning free protest within a kilometre of Parliament.

Update: Right. While the actual repeal is trapped in the paralysis of a dying government…

…with recession-fighting measures now central to the Government’s plans, there was no Bill to enact the constitutional “renewal” reforms…

…it seems…

…although SOCPA is still on the statute books – and can therefore still be enforced at any time – it seems like the CPS have been given orders not to proceed with any prosecutions over “demonstrations” within the 1 km radius, so the law is effectively dead.

There is no place for dissenting views in mainstream politics. I was told recently by a Labour backbencher – a respected MP untainted by the expenses scandal – that “if the door was open just an inch to new ideas, I would stay on. But it has been slammed shut, so I’m resigning at the next election.” Our grossly unfair electoral system, which responds to the concerns of just a few thousand floating voters and shuts out the minor parties; the vicious crackdown on dissent within parliament by whips and spin doctors; the neoliberalism forced upon governments by corporate power and the Washington consensus; the terror of the tabloid press – all combine to create a political culture which cannot respond to altered realities without collapsing. What cannot be accommodated must be suppressed.

Read the rest

He covered up his police number and gave a woman half his size the back of his hand and his baton.

Let’s have a crack at the first draft of the script:

Investigation… inquiry… suspension… apologies… one bad apple… unacceptable… as you were… until the next time…

(I particularly enjoyed the officer at 4.30 in the video who tells the photographers to turn around and that ‘there’s nothing to see’. He really said, there’s nothing to see. It reminds me of somebody…)

In other news, the Independent Police Complaints commission chief was wrong when he said there was no CCTV in area of Ian Tomlinson assault. So who told him there wasn’t any and why?

Iraq war: Gordon Brown aims to delay inquiry report until after election
‘Gordon Brown will announce by the autumn a “long” inquiry into the Iraq war, indicating that the potentially embarrassing report will be delayed until well after the general election expected next year’

Kneejerk policies a strain on prison system, says charity
‘The government is failing to rehabilitate offenders, leaving charities to pick up the pieces and running the risk of further strain on the overstretched prison system, according to damning research published today.’

Mass arrests over power station protest raise civil liberties concerns
‘Police have carried out what is thought to be the biggest pre-emptive raid on environmental campaigners in British history, arresting 114 people believed to be planning direct action at a coal-fired power station.’

This is my Hillsborough
‘Twenty years after Britain’s worst football stadium disaster, in which 96 people died, Mike Bracken shares his painful memories for the first time – and describes the ongoing fight for recognition of what really happened’

Following on from the photo of the police medic at the G20 demonstrations, Amjamjazz has published more photos in the sequence.

The police could do their image the world of good by releasing footage of their own of officers trying to restrain their more baton-happy colleagues.

The Guardian publishes the video of Ian Tomlinson being attacked, the Independent Police Complaints Commission aren’t happy.

And what kind of independent body is it whose first reaction to the Guardian’s evidence on Tuesday night was to call at our offices (accompanied by a City of London policeman) and ask for it to be taken off the website?

In more innocent times we’d be shocked. These days it’s more to be expected. You can see why the IPCC would be embarrassed enough to take a policeman down to the Guardian to help cover their tracks. They were taking every word of the police’s version of events at face value when the video came out showing the police as liars and the IPCC as shamefully credulous.

Maybe the P in IPCC needs changing from ‘Police’ to ‘Public’ if the organisation is to continue to get confused over just whose complaints it’s supposed to be investigating.

Merrick has some great comment and links on all of it. And there’s this, which is slowly being forgotten in the rush to nail one policeman:

This was not one bad officer taking the law into his own hands. This sort of assault was endemic that day. I saw it hundreds of times with my own eyes, and I was at the more peaceful climate camp protest, and left before it got kettled then attacked with dogs and batons in the evening.

[...]

Every single officer is behaving like the one who attacked Ian Tomlinson. It is not them acting on private motivations, they have clearly had orders to do it.

This one guy is being dished up as the fall guy for what was a widespread policy of police violence on April 1. It’s fortunate there weren’t more deaths or serious injuries.

And where’s the CCTV footage from that day? Where are the police spotter photos and videos? Lets see the official footage of policemen blocking ambulances.

And little by little, the ‘truth’ has dripped out about Ian Tomlinson, the man who died after being struck by police during the G20 riots.

He was (wait for it) wearing a Millwall shirt. He was (now steady yourselves) smoking a cigarette.

He appeared to be (and I’m sorry but you may need to lie down after this) drunk. Well, stone me guv, he had it coming to him.

Read the rest

(Anyone wanting to follow developments in the investigation into the death of Ian Tomlinson more closely should get themselves along to Google News and set themselves up a comprehensive News Alert.)

A great piece by Merrick on police tactics at demonstrations and the complicity of the media.

It seems clear that the police’s aim is to minimise the number of demonstrators. Having talked up a riot in advance, they discourage many people who are sympathetic to the cause from coming out of fear of injury. Then, on the day, by inciting a riot, kettling the crowd or other methods of physical abuse, they discourage people from coming to similar events in future.

‘They do not help him’

You could watch the Guardian’s footage of Ian Tomlinson’s last minutes all day and never stop coming up with questions to ask. What was going through his head at that point, a man on his way home work? An ordinary man is struck by a policeman and gives out his last in the gutter. Is this London?

James Graham says it for me…

I watched it about 20 minutes ago and my heart is still racing. More than anything, it frightens me. That could have been me, minding my own business. If I had been tripped over in that way by a mob of coppers, however angry I might have been I would have been shitting myself. I think my heart could have taken it, but I don’t know. I have absolutely no interest of putting it to the test – and absolutely no way of preventing it from happening if I ever get unlucky. This is what it feels like to be afraid of the state.

It’s the casualness of it all. Everybody’s strolling. They all stop for a look, sort-of-interested, like they’ve seen a beetle wriggling on its back. ‘They do not help him’. The dogs get more attention.

What are the chances of punishment? You know, real punishment like we could expect? Where’s the outcry across the political spectrum, newspapers, blogs and politicians? Where’s the outrage? Power and those who speak for it will be worth watching in the next few days.

If this shows us anything, then it’s that this could have been any of us. You, me, our dads. It could have been one of the Lib Dem MPs on their way home from being legal monitors of the protest. It could have been a city type dressed down for the day (there’s some currently silent who would have been shouting a little louder had that been the case). It could have been Guido Fawkes staggering home from another bender (ditto).

(Tim Ireland has lots of links.)

Not got a lot of time for blogging today but didn’t want these to pass without notice.

Matthew Norman in the Independent on why the real treachery against soldiers comes not from dickheads with placards but from Gordon Brown:

On Tuesday, even as the PM railed against the disrespect shown to the troops, an article in the new edition of the revered military journal International Affairs dealt with the crisis in British defence. Before concluding that the “state of degeneration (is) perhaps more serious than at any time since the end of the Cold War,” its authors touched on the “critical shortage” of helicopters in Afghanistan. Whether any of the dozen Anglians, or “Poachers” lost in combat died because of this, insufficient training, useless or non-existent body armour, or inadequate troop strength left them outnumbered, I’ve no idea. But many British soldiers have lost their lives and been wounded because their Labour overlords failed to equip, prepare and protect them properly, and more will do so in Afghanistan in the years ahead.

Timothy Garton Ash has an excellent breakdown of the Binyam Mohamed affair and why next week’s Foreign Office’s annual report on human rights violations around the world will be a farce.

In these circumstances, and given all we know from the high court, any decision other than to hand this over to the director of public prosecutions will inevitably be interpreted as a political cover-up. Until we have got to the bottom of this dark well, using the unrestricted searchlight of the law, any lectures the British government tries to deliver to others on respect for human rights will be dismissed as rank hypocrisy.

Arm of the UK state uses Guantanamo-style psychological warfare on environmental protesters:

The report, launched by the Liberal Democrats, said the music seemed “an attempt to deprive attendees of sleep”.

The report also highlighted the police approach to participants of a “festival picnic” procession mostly made up of families and small children. A helicopter ordered them via loudspeaker: “Disperse now, or dogs, horses and long-handed batons will be deployed.”

And yet still no word from our champion on arbitrary house arrest for teenagers though. When will our doughty defender stand up and be counted? Come on David, resign your seat.

There’s a disgraceful policy idea doing the rounds about putting people under house arrest for up to a month on nothing more than a policeman’s say so. It’s a bit Apartheid-era South Africa.

So where’s David Davis, that doughty defender of civil liberties, when you need him? Didn’t he once accuse the government of ‘casually disregarding our civil liberties in the face of problems to which it has no adequate solutions’?

Why isn’t he resigning his seat and calling a by-election in protest against yet another revolting assault on the criminal justice system? Why isn’t he manning the barricades? Or rallying cross-party opposition?

Chris Grayling: Labour is soft on crime and soft on the causes of crime

Our police should have powers to go straight to a magistrate and get an order against that troublemaker confining them to their homes for up to a month – except for during school hours. And if they break that curfew order they should expect to find themselves in the cells.

[...]

The Conservatives are the party of law and order – law and order based on common sense, strong families and communities and a system which places the victim above the criminal.

Ah. That’ll be why.

Amnesty are making a list. And checking it twice. Will Obama be naughty or nice?

Sign the petition.

Mr Miliband regrets:

The idea of a “war on terror” is a “mistake”, putting too much emphasis on military force, Foreign Secretary David Miliband has said.

Brave words coming, as they do, five days before George Bush steps down and from a man who’s been at the centre of a government guilty of unprecedented assaults on the citizenry of Iraq and Aghanistan since 2001 (and who used the phrase himself in a speech as recently as two months ago). As Quarsan says:

Seven years of policies that New Labour instigated. Where was Miliband’s conscience then? It was in the Aye lobby.

To be honest, it’s not the most fulsome mea culpa ever written. He seems more worried about the label applied to what the US and UK governments have done in the last seven years rather than what they did and how they did it. It’s a bit like calling murder ‘involuntary suicide’.

Nobody with even the most rudimentary powers of observation thought that The War Against Terror had some detailed over-arching strategy with any possibility of an ultimate victory. It’s clear that the coalition of the willing, such as it is, has been making it up on the fly, lurching from one foreign policy disaster to another.

And you hear Miliband say…

We must respond to terrorism by championing the rule of law, not subordinating it, for it is the cornerstone of the democratic society. We must uphold our commitments to human rights and civil liberties at home and abroad.

…and you think, ‘Oh, where to begin with that and where to end’. Iraq, BAE, Yarl’s Wood, SOCPA, ID cards, collusion with torturers, databases, databases and more databases…

Is this an implicit admission by Miliband that all this is going to stop? What exactly are New Labour’s ‘commitments to human rights and civil liberties’ anyway? Are they written down anywhere (you suspect it’d be quite a short list) or are they simply what a government minister says they are when giving a self-serving speech?

Libel lawyers Schillings have been chasing Craig Murray. Again. This time its over things Craig had to say about the mercenary Tim Spicer in his new book, The Catholic Orangemen of Togo and Other Conflicts I Have Known.

Schillings succeeded in getting Craig’s publishers to pull out of producing the book. Craig says:

Let me be clear: there is no libel in this book – it is all true and based on my own eye-witness account. It contains not libel, but rather truth some people wish to hide.

To get around this attempt at censorship he has self-published the book (which you can buy here) and also made it available as a free download. Get it, read it, and make up your own mind. Don’t let Schillings make that decision for you.

How about this then. New Labour’s shiny new propaganda ghetto masquerading as a blog, Labourlist, (run by former influence peddler Derek Draper) has a lawyer. That lawyer is Schillings. Remember them?

Schillings, a London Law firm, have closed down several prominent political blogs by contacting their webhosts, on behalf the new part owner of Arsenal – Alisher Usmanov. These blogs have made criticisms of Mr Usmanov. Schillings alleged that these criticisms were defamatory, and threatened legal action. Note that no court action has been taken, but the freedom to debate Mr Usmanov’s record has been taken away by the mere making of a threat.

The last times Schillings got themselves involved in the world of blogging, nearly 300 British bloggers from left, right and centre registered their disgust. You could say Schillings are not exactly flavour of the month in these parts. Or those who employ them. What an excellent way to get the attention of political bloggers. With their shared attitudes to open debate and freedom of speech New Labour and Schillings should get on famously.

(Tim has more on Draper’s quest to be ‘Labour’s Iain Dale’. He’s mimicking the methods of the exemplars of blogging very well so far.)

Stalinesque! Even though Damian Green isn’t in a labour camp. Zimbabwe! Even though Damian Green isn’t making a break for a friendly neighbouring country and doesn’t have a fractured skull.

Councillor Bob says it for me:

If it is wrong for the police to enter Damien Green’s house and…. shock, horror, take away his computer, will you be raising your voices just as loud when they knock down the door of Asian families in the early hours and take away the residents. Or will you look the other way, and say to yourself that the police must have had a warrant, obtained from a judge, and that there must have been probable cause.

The Tory Party and its mouthpieces are silent on such incidents (see also the culture of the dawn raid and the Iraqi employees and interpreters). New Labour do these things because it impresses the readers of the right-wing press. The Tories don’t speak out over these things because it impresses the readers of the right-wing press.

One can only hope that Damian Green reflects that the ordeal he’s had in the last few days is suffered in a far worse way by the little people every day (hell, the Home Office are even busy on Christmas eve). He’s not in Yarl’s Wood. He hasn’t been assaulted. The screeching and melodramatic victim mentality on display from his colleagues would suggest however that such awareness doesn’t run too deep*.

Update: Mr Bliss is also less than sympathetic.

* Unbiased alert: See also the Cash for Honours arrests.

Via Mr E:

Harry’s Place may be removed (or rather have it’s DNS disabled) after a ‘complaint’ to the company that our domain name is registered with.

We assume after threats were made on the weekend that this ‘complaint’ originates from Jenna Delich or her supporters.

Though we have not yet seen the complaint submitted, we assume it runs along the lines that pointing out that Ms Delich linked to the website of a known neo-Nazi figure and former Ku Klux Klan leader is defamatory.

This is extraordinary since Ms Delich has not denied that she circulated links to David Dukes website. There would be no point since the evidence is in the public domain.

Nevertheless, a malicious complaint has been made to the company hosting our DNS.

I can’t stand Harry’s Place but censors and those who run screaming for their lawyers at the drop of a hat are to be resisted at every turn. It can happen to any blogger.

Via Aaron we have this – more morons in positions of power…

Might I humbly suggest that if members of the public have to teach these clowns their law, then the training isn’t all it should be down at police school.

With the news that the Home Secretary has banned a suspected terrorist from studying AS level Biology or Chemistry, Sunny asks…

Hmmm… what other subjects could be put on the ’suspect banned list’? Clearly flying lessons are out of the question. No photography lessons either, the Met police will have you. Mathematics? Foreign languages? The list is endless.

Oxford University’s Philosophy, Politics and Economics degree should definitely top the list. Look at the huge roster of inordinate bastards who’ve graduated in PPE and gone on to bring misery, death and shame to the human race.

The course should be wound up immediately and its lecturers prosecuted for inciting terror. Failing that, all applications should be routed through MI5 who can then have all the wannabe monsters quietly rounded up and shipped to Guantanamo Bay. Hop to it Home Secretary.

‘We need a proper national debate on these important matters… If you were serious about debating these important issues, you should have put up a candidate or at the very least allowed your ministers to debate publicly with me,’ wrote David Davis when challenging the Prime Minister to front up on the matter of civil liberties.

So how’s the Davis debate going? Here’s Shan Oakes, the Green Party’s candidate for Haltemprice and Howden:

I had previously been emailed by the Youth Assembly organiser to ask if I would attend an Assembly meeting to discuss the issues with David Davis. I had replied saying I would be delighted. I have attended several Assembly meetings – which are usually held in Beverley where I live. I had also requested David Davis to include us in meetings to debate the issues to which he had agreed.

We turned up at the school and were kept out. First we were refused entrance to the site, then, after great debate with the Head, we were allowed into a side room with the promise that we could meet the young people after the Tory meeting. Chris Abbott, the head teacher, was very helpful, but had little control over arrangements for the ‘private hire’ of a room in the school premises. We were horrified at the high degree of police presence and the fact that our promised discussion with the young people had been hijacked and turned into a one party PR event for the Tories with no opportunity for legitimate debate.

I tried to tackle the Dave Duo on this when they came out of the building (a friendly journalist had lent me a mike), but they had clearly been made aware of my intention and dived into their car (whilst a policeman held me back) as if they were in some sort of danger. Obviously even they realise they have a lot to hide. So much for civil liberties!

‘If you were serious about debating these important issues… yada yada yada.’ Smile for the camera, David(s).

And to think Davis used to be in the SAS. I’m beginning to think he broke his nose slipping on the soap in the shower. Or falling while running towards a TV camera.

His nickname in the Service was apparently ‘Double Tap‘. Probably something to do with how he opens his Terry’s Chocolate Oranges rather than some balls-out execution technique.

(via Liberal Conspiracy)