Helen Percy: abused by the press
I thought Derek Rodger’s piece (13 December) about press abuse of power was excellent. However, I was chilled to read his last paragraph. ‘It’s the electronic media that are worse. What passes for comment on blogs and Twitter is often just as bad or worse and in the interests of justice, the law will have to move in on electronic libel and incitement as well’.
Indeed the power of the printed media is diminishing, but unfortunately, they now understand the power of electronic media and are moving in not to stop injustice within the electronic media, but to control it for their own purposes once again. At least within the internet, people unjustly treated by the print media have an option to fight back for themselves when the press ignore the truth. However, if the government continues down the path it is on, then even this will be removed and once again the powerless will be subject to abuse and censorship.
We experienced this recently with our protest video in support of the residents of Menie, Aberdeenshire against Donald Trump, where the ‘excuse’ of copyright was used to quickly remove all traces of the video from so-called freedom of speech sites, such as YouTube and iTunes. Despite the claim of copyright infringement being very grey and one which should have been decided on a proper legal basis, the internet rolled over within five days and removed all copies of the video (although we have for now managed to upload other copies). No other video, such as those inciting hatred of Islam, or showing illegal dog fighting have been so quickly and effectively removed, showing that it’s easy if you know the right people and have financial clout.
The Open Rights Group, www.openrightsgroup.org, is working hard to try to protect the freedom of the internet for the ordinary person: It says: ‘Our freedoms are also under attack in the digital world: from governments and vested business interests. So we campaign against threats to your rights’. Its campaign on copyright infringement states: ‘Copyright owners want sites that are accused of copyright infringement to be blocked. Rights holders can currently go to court to get an injunction that forces an ISP to block websites involved in infringement. The first of these has recently been granted, with BT being forced to block access to the website Newzbin2. There are also further demands from rights holders for quasi-judicial arrangements with ISPs, currently being discussed in closed-door roundtables with the minister Ed Vaizey MP. Website blocking for copyright infringement won’t work to fix creative economies’ problems and does pose a significant risk to due process and freedom of expression’.
We already have laws to protect against libel and incitement on the internet as demonstrated recently by Lord McAlpine, no further laws are required, but unfortunately the PR message is being put out there by those with vested interest in controlling the use of the internet. Don’t be fooled into thinking that any laws will be brought in for the benefit of the ordinary person; we’ll end up in the same situation as we have with the print media.
Hazel Buchan Cameron
Derek Rodger’s timely article about the Scottish press intrusion into the life of the former minister Helen Percy described a situation both appalling and apposite. Appalling because this kind of aggressive and cruel journalism is under scrutiny following the Leveson inquiry; apposite because such journalism needs to be challenged and exposed.
But as an almost lifelong member of the Church of Scotland I am in addition deeply saddened by what appear to be the coldly legalistic procedures of its courts. If Helen Percy’s account is at all accurate (and I believe it is) she was treated in these courts with scant concern for her dignity as a person, and was allowed to appear without professional representation in the disciplinary tribunals.
If she had received professional help in putting her case (which was that she had not conducted an affair with the visiting elder, but had forgiven and refused to blame him) the outcome might have been different. Surely when a young woman is challenged in these courts simple compassion would suggest that the court itself should take steps to provide a person knowledgeable in the complexities of church law to offer support to an embattled former colleague.
Lawyers know how dangerous it is for an accused person to undertake their own defence in an unfamiliar court in the mistaken belief that all that is needed is to tell the truth. She did eventually receive professional help when it was too late. And her belated efforts to hold the church guilty of discrimination, which reached as far as the House of Lords, were held to be inept (because she was not in law an employee of the church), and anyway were not directed at the main mischief which was held to fall into the spiritual realm in which the church has exclusive jurisdiction. She received nothing.
Can it be that the church has forgotten the importance of justice, of compassion, of forgiveness?
Alistair R Brownlie
I have precisely no interest in football of any hue or level – something which marked me out as a bit of an oddity whilst growing up in my native Glasgow. Perhaps it was the rancour between the two tribes which left me with a lifelong disdain for those who find themselves drawn to the less than beautiful game, but I always see football as a type of displacement activity, a conflict proxy for those who have a conflict hole in need of filling.
Despite the progress we are told is abundant in our society, there is still football, in Glasgow, the ‘Auld Firm’. Still there to fill an identity void for those who need the comfort of a tribal alliance to wear and embrace.
In 2012, isn’t it thoroughly depressing that given their brief moment in existence here on planet earth, there are still so many who carve out a lifestyle for themselves which is defined by, and infused with, a proudly worn hatred of their neighbours?
Why should we find any of this surprising when we have two major football clubs operating as legacy brand bearers for both sides of the puerile self-renewing hatred that enjoys so much protection from the law? Both clubs’ USP is surely that they represent those who despise the other – perhaps despise is the wrong word, but only I’d suggest among a relatively small percentage of those who flock to their respective Saturday hell-holes.
Whilst both these football clubs continue to ply their ostensible trade of beautiful games, there will be in the west of Scotland at least, a legitimacy, a powerful focus, for those whose lives are lacking something, and are in need of filling with a little hatred of the lives of others.
Frank de Pellette
Thank you, Julia Loyd (11 December), for that magnificent, desperately sad yet still uplifting portrait of your mother’s mental and physical decline. We may, all of us, one day find ourselves in the dark parts of the forest. I hope, should that fate befall me, that someone is there to hear me sing, or shout, or whisper, or just to hold my hand.
James Robertson
What a stunningly well-written piece by Julia Loyd. Wow.
Elizabeth Roberts
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