12/31/2018
12/30/2018
Best of 2018 - The Jester Equipe from Karlsruhe, aka Germany's Federal Constitutional Court
As well known under the nom de plume 'The Divas in Red' or 'Joker Boyz'.
Seems like there is tradition in fashion, if you know what I mean. Anyhoo, these ridiculous blokes showed no interest in someone who
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| Paulus, Kirchhof and Masing (from left) - photo: Uli Deck/dpa |
- was a civil servant (Beamter) at the Jobcenter Munich until I exposed him as the one who had sent an email with a criminal complaint to police using a false name! Everything covered up by police and Munich Court.
- After that he was quickly shifted to the 'Department for Education and Sports Munich'.
- Had all our IT equipment confiscated incl. router. No free speech for shitface bloggers in Germany!
- The laptop of my Tibetan daughter (who needed it for school) was deliberately damaged by some blokes of the Munich Kangaroo Court.
- Confiscation of smartphone without court order (no problem for Karlsruhe)
Here is the criminal civil servant Jürgen Sonneck operating like a rat in the sewers of anonymity under cover of the night just like in Nazi times.
On the cheapest paper you can get these aloof blokes informed me of their decision taken on March 4, 2018 that my constitutional complaint had not been accepted (File # 1 BvR 246/18). Of course they have never read it in the first place. By law, they are required to give a reason for their decision. Fuck it, you get none.
This internet meme is forbidden in Germany according to the Kangaroo Court Munich. And the text is hate speech should you ask!
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| Contravenes Criminal Code 86a |
Oh, in case you wonder about the standards of these guys in ridiculous red bathrobes, you actually can deny the Holocaust in Germany! Yes, yes, the judges Eichberger, Kirchhof and Masing have got you covered.
Here the honorable judges in front of their posh digs. (Image courtesy FT Alphaville. With much appreciation to Her Majesty's Kingdom)
That was by the way my fourth constitutional complaint.
Vor diesem Hintergrund ist die Unabhängigkeit und Unvoreingenommenheit des Richters Ehegartner vom SG München in Zweifel zu ziehen
Rechtsanwalt/in ...
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41....
Betreff: die Az. S 42 AS 2594/16 - S 42 AS 165/17 - S 42 AS 1398/18 - Richter Ehegartner
Gemäss der beigefügten Rechtsmittelbelehrung zu den drei Beschlüssen vom 30. Nov. 2018 und übermittelt durch meine Anwältin mit Schreiben vom 11.12.2018 ist dieser Widerspruch innerhalb der Frist von einem Monat eingelegt.
1. Unter Bezug auf Artikel 13 EMRK und § 42 Abs. 1 und 2 ZPO drücke ich meine begründete Besorgnis der Befangenheit des vorsitzenden Richters der 42. Kammer Herrn Ehegartner aus und sehe eine Unparteilichkeit basierend auf bisherigen Urteilen und Klageverläufen als nicht gegeben an.
2. Weiters liegt ein Verstoss gegen den Artikel 6 EMRK Abs. 1 vor.
Der Art. 6 EMRK garantiert das Recht auf ein faires Verfahren
Begründung:
Ich bin erstaunt zu lesen, dass in diesen drei Fällen wiederum Richter Ehepartner sich der Sache annimmt, als ich anlässlich meiner Klage vom 21. Nov. 2018 mit Az. S 42 AS 2723/18 wegen wiederholten Betrugsversuchs des Jobcenter München bei meinem Wiederbewilligungsantrag (das JC sah Einnahmen von € 143,-/Monat, wo diese sich tatsächlich auf die omnipotente Summe von € 0,- (in Worten NULL) auftürmten), u.a. wie folgt schrieb:
Weiters schrieb ich:
Ich erlaube mir auch zu unterstellen, einem Richter an einem Sozialgericht ist der SGB II § 11a Nicht zu berücksichtigendes Einkommen / 2.8 Pflichtlose Zuwendungen (Abs. 5) geläufig.
Vor diesem Hintergrund ist die Unabhängigkeit und Unvoreingenommenheit des Richters Ehegartner in Zweifel zu ziehen. Ich darf auch die Hoffnung ausdrücken, nicht noch einmal einen solchen Antrag behandelt zu sehen wie im Herbst 2017 durch Frau Dr. Schmidt. Es ist mir ohnehin bewusst, dass Sozialgerichte dem neoliberalen Arbeitsministerium BMAS unterstehen.
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26. Dez. 2018
41....
Betreff: die Az. S 42 AS 2594/16 - S 42 AS 165/17 - S 42 AS 1398/18 - Richter Ehegartner
W I D E R S P R U C H
Gemäss der beigefügten Rechtsmittelbelehrung zu den drei Beschlüssen vom 30. Nov. 2018 und übermittelt durch meine Anwältin mit Schreiben vom 11.12.2018 ist dieser Widerspruch innerhalb der Frist von einem Monat eingelegt.
1. Unter Bezug auf Artikel 13 EMRK und § 42 Abs. 1 und 2 ZPO drücke ich meine begründete Besorgnis der Befangenheit des vorsitzenden Richters der 42. Kammer Herrn Ehegartner aus und sehe eine Unparteilichkeit basierend auf bisherigen Urteilen und Klageverläufen als nicht gegeben an.
2. Weiters liegt ein Verstoss gegen den Artikel 6 EMRK Abs. 1 vor.
Der Art. 6 EMRK garantiert das Recht auf ein faires Verfahren
(1) 1 Jede Person hat ein Recht darauf, daß über Streitigkeiten in bezug auf ihre zivilrechtlichen Ansprüche und Verpflichtungen oder über eine gegen sie erhobene strafrechtliche Anklage von einem unabhängigen und unparteiischen, auf Gesetz beruhenden Gericht in einem fairen Verfahren, öffentlich und innerhalb angemessener Frist verhandelt wird.Ich lehne Richter Ehepartner als Richter wegen des begründeten Verdachts der Befangenheit ab.
Begründung:
Ich bin erstaunt zu lesen, dass in diesen drei Fällen wiederum Richter Ehepartner sich der Sache annimmt, als ich anlässlich meiner Klage vom 21. Nov. 2018 mit Az. S 42 AS 2723/18 wegen wiederholten Betrugsversuchs des Jobcenter München bei meinem Wiederbewilligungsantrag (das JC sah Einnahmen von € 143,-/Monat, wo diese sich tatsächlich auf die omnipotente Summe von € 0,- (in Worten NULL) auftürmten), u.a. wie folgt schrieb:
“In diesem Bescheid entdeckt die betrügende anonyme (!) Sachbearbeiterin Einnahmen von € 143,33 pro Monat (Anlage Bescheid). Diese Einnahmen sind perfid und betrügerisch erlogen, wie schon in meiner Klage vom 24. Mai 2018 bzgl. des Bewilligungszeitraums bis Ende Nov. 2018 unter Az. S 42 AS 1348/18 ausgeführt. In dieser Angelegenheit ist seit meinem letzten Schreiben vom 19. Juli 2018 kein Fortschritt zu erkennen.
Die Kungelei des Gerichts mit dem Jobcenter hat seit geraumer Zeit ohnehin schon abstossende Ausmasse angenommen. Dies bis hin zu Verstoss gegen das Grundgesetz durch die Richter Mayer, Herz, Tischler des LSG (siehe Beschluss L 7 AS 222/18 B ER vom 27. Sept. 2018) und etliche Klagen (Wahrn. Umgangsrecht, Feriengeld, Tabletkosten und eine seltsame optometrische Ferndiagnose einer Richterin, nach der ich keine Brille benötige, obwohl dies z.B. in meinem Führerschein seit Jahrzehnten verpflichtend angegeben ist) dümpeln vor sich hin, obwohl die Gesetzeslage kristallklar ist.
Ich gehe davon aus, diese Klage wird von einem anderen Richter bearbeitet als Richter Ehegartner. Es ist nicht hinnehmbar, wenn ein Richter seine Entscheidung auf ein BSG Urteil stützt, das das genaue Gegenteil seines Beschlusses belegt und auf ein weiter angeführtes Urteil überhaupt nicht eingeht! So sehr er auch noch die "Sphärentheorie" anzuführen sich bemüssigt fühlt (siehe unten), die im Übrigen überhaupt keinen Erklärungs- oder Begründungswert besass. Dies wurde klar und unmissverständlich in meiner Klage vom 24. Mai 2018 dargelegt.”Die Besorgnis der Befangenheit im Sinne des § 42 Abs. 2 ZPO / § 17 SGB X ist zu bejahen, wenn aus der Sicht des Ablehnenden die Unparteilichkeit des Richters nicht mehr gewährleistet erscheint. Für diese Besorgnis müssen Gründe vorliegen, die objektiv, d.h. bei vernünftiger Betrachtung vom Standpunkt des Ablehnenden geeignet sind, Zweifel an der Unvoreingenommenheit des Richters zu wecken. Für die Frage, welche Gründe es rechtfertigen, an der gebotenen Objektivität des Richters zu zweifeln, kann nur ein objektiver Maßstab gelten. Nicht erforderlich ist hingegen, dass der Richter tatsächlich befangen ist; ebenso unerheblich ist es, ob er sich für befangen hält. Entscheidend ist allein, ob aus Sicht des Ablehnenden genügend objektive Gründe vorliegen, die aus Sicht einer ruhig und vernünftig denkenden Partei Anlass geben, an der Unvoreingenommenheit des Richters zu zweifeln.
Weiters schrieb ich:
“Der besagte Bewilligungsbescheid nimmt dem Klagenden seinen grundgesetzlich garantierten Anspruch auf Rechtsweggarantie durch bewusste finanzielle Atrophie und erfüllt den Tatbestand der Doppelbestrafung. Dies läuft dem Art. 103 Abs. 3 GG zuwider. Bislang hat das Gericht dem nicht Abhilfe geleistet und der Klagende hat den begründeten Verdacht, das Gericht handelt bewusst so! Hier eine Wiederholung einer Passage aus meiner Klage unter Az. S 42 AS 1348/18 vom Mai 2018:
“In seinem Beschluss vom 24. April 2018 mit Az. S 42 AS 860/18 ER unternimmt das Gericht auf Seite 4 einen Ausflug in einen Beschluss des BSG, um der Sphärentheorie das Wort zu reden. Der als Argument gedachte Verweis auf das Urteil des BSG - B 11 AL 4/09 R ist in Gänze unpassend. Wieso dieses Urteil und dann explizit noch Rz. 25 angeführt wird, erschliesst sich überhaupt nicht.
Es stünde dem Gericht gut an, das Urteil genau zu lesen und nicht ex ante Ignoranz auf den Hartz 4 Stehplätzen zu unterstellen. Die Sphärentheorie wird in Rz. 8 und 24 angesprochen und weiters empfehlenswert zu lesen wären die Rz. 15, 23 und 24.
[15] Nähere Bestimmungen zur Berücksichtigung von Vermögen trifft die insoweit auf der Verordnungsermächtigung nach § 206 Nr 1 SGB III idF des AFRG beruhende Arbeitslosenhilfe-Verordnung (AlhiV 2002) vom 13. 12. 2001 (BGBl I 3734). Danach ist das gesamte verwertbare Vermögen des Arbeitslosen zu berücksichtigen, soweit der Wert des Vermögens den Freibetrag übersteigt (§ 1 Abs 1 Nr 1 AlhiV 2002). Freibetrag ist, soweit hier von Bedeutung, ein Betrag von 200,00 Euro je vollendetem Lebensjahr des Arbeitslosen, der jedoch 13 000,00 Euro nicht übersteigen darf (§ 1 Abs 2 Satz 1 AlhiV 2002 idF des Ersten Gesetzes für moderne Dienstleistungen am Arbeitsmarkt vom 23. 12. 2002, BGBl I 4607, mit Wirkung vom 1. 1. 2003). Für den am 23. 12. 1975 geborenen Kläger ergab sich demnach zu Beginn des streitigen Zeitraums (Alhi-Bezug ab 23. 7. 2003) ein Freibetrag von 5400,00 Euro (200,00 Euro x 27), weil er am 23. 12. 2002 das 27. Lebensjahr vollendet hatte."Das Gericht äusserte im Beschluss vom 01. Feb. 2018 mit Az. S 42 AS 2994/17 auch Zweifel an der Glaubwürdigkeit eines Fundraisers. Im Beschluss heisst es auf S. 5:
“Ausserdem erscheint die Behauptung des Antragstellers, die Bargeldeinzahlungen stammten von einem namentlich nicht bezeichnetem Gönner, der über den “Fundraiser” Kontakt zum Antragsteller aufgenommen habe, wenig glaubhaft.”Dies ist zwar in Deutschland - und Bayern darf ohnehin den Provinz-Bonus an Ignoranz in perpetuum geltend machen - wenig bekannt bislang, aber ein Ausflug in die Schweiz lässt dies als Option erkennen. So heisst es im Pdf des Forum Poenale aus dem Jahr 2010 (!!!) mit dem Titel 'Die Beschwerde an den EGMR – Gewohnte Denkmuster über Bord werfen!' von Jürg O. Luginbühl, Rechtsanwalt in Zürich unter '3. Vorgehen bei mittellosen Klienten':
"Um es vorwegzunehmen: In den meisten Fällen der mittellosen Klientschaft wird der Anwalt angesichts des nicht unbeträchtlichen Aufwandes in einem nicht alltäglichen Rechtsgebiet auf eine Beschwerde an den Gerichtshof aus finanziellen Überlegungen schlicht und einfach verzichten (müssen). Will er dies partout nicht, ist zu empfehlen – allenfalls zusammen mit dem Klienten – frühzeitig externe Geldquellen zu erschliessen. Eine Mischung aus Phantasie und nicht allzu grosser (falscher) Bescheidenheit kann sich als fruchtbar erweisen, vor allem dann, wenn dem Fall generell oder in einem Teilbereich allgemeine Bedeutung zukommt. Letzteres dürfte bei einer Beschwerde an den EGMR immerhin öfter vorkommen als in der alltäglichen innerstaatlichen Arbeit. Kurz: Vor einem eigentlichen «fund raising» sollten Anwalt und Klient nicht zurück schrecken."(Hervorhebung durch mich)
Ich erlaube mir auch zu unterstellen, einem Richter an einem Sozialgericht ist der SGB II § 11a Nicht zu berücksichtigendes Einkommen / 2.8 Pflichtlose Zuwendungen (Abs. 5) geläufig.
Vor diesem Hintergrund ist die Unabhängigkeit und Unvoreingenommenheit des Richters Ehegartner in Zweifel zu ziehen. Ich darf auch die Hoffnung ausdrücken, nicht noch einmal einen solchen Antrag behandelt zu sehen wie im Herbst 2017 durch Frau Dr. Schmidt. Es ist mir ohnehin bewusst, dass Sozialgerichte dem neoliberalen Arbeitsministerium BMAS unterstehen.
Reading Lounge
1. “Most luxury brands have competition. Vespa doesn’t have any competition.”
2. Good news - People who drank moderate amounts of alcohol or coffee lived longer than those who abstained.
3. A temple by another name
4. The fallacy of obviousness
5. If You’re Over 50, Chances Are the Decision to Leave a Job Won’t be Yours
6. Dog walker wanted. Creative writing skills required.
7. Chinese spies
2. Good news - People who drank moderate amounts of alcohol or coffee lived longer than those who abstained.
3. A temple by another name
4. The fallacy of obviousness
5. If You’re Over 50, Chances Are the Decision to Leave a Job Won’t be Yours
6. Dog walker wanted. Creative writing skills required.
7. Chinese spies
12/29/2018
12/28/2018
In light of the shocking male-chauvinistic Claas Relotius affair we propose a framework for feminist journalism
(2) recognizes gendered and colonialist approaches to pan-journalistic knowledge, (3) challenges these systems of scientific domination, and (4) provides alternative knowledge sources and research methods for journalism cum transcendental media.— Straussian Obfuscator (@ErebusSagace) December 27, 2018
leading to more inclusive, diverse, and equitable journalistic and pan-ethno-engaging media more focused upon human relationships in today's global information matrix.— Straussian Obfuscator (@ErebusSagace) December 27, 2018
12/27/2018
12/25/2018
The Deadweight Loss of Christmas
Sobering paper that touches valid points. Still, a cash gift is kind of soulless.
“The Deadweight Loss of Christmas” is the sort of academic paper that makes ordinary people think economists are kind of crazy.So the NY Times in the article from 2014 'An Economist Goes Christmas Shopping'.
"I find that holiday gift giving destroys between one-third and one-tenth of the value of gifts,” proclaimed Joel Waldfogel, then an economics professor at Yale, in the 1993 paper. He estimated that ill-chosen gifts caused between $4 billion and $13 billion a year in economic waste; for comparison, he cited an estimate that put economic costs of the income tax at $50 billion.Here is an excerpt from the paper.
In the standard microeconomic framework of consumer choice, the best a gift-giver can do with, say, $10 is to duplicate the choice that the recipient would have made. While it is possible for a giver to choose a gift which the recipient ultimatelv values above its price-for example, it the recipient is not perfectly informed-it is more likely that the gift will leave the recipient worse off than if she had made her own consumption choice with an equal amount of cash. In short, gift-giving is a potential source of deadweight loss.
This paper gives estimates of the deadweight loss of holiday gift-giving based on surveys given to Yale undergraduates, I find that holiday gift-giving destroys between 10 percent and a third of the value of gifts.
12/24/2018
Environmental Impacts of Real Christmas and Artificial Christmas trees
May we ask for your attention in these last days of 2018 and on the eve of a beautiful event.
The American Christmas Tree Association (ACTA) commissioned this comparative LCA study in order to compare the life cycle impacts of artificial Christmas trees and real Christmas trees.We feel there is potentially reason to be concerned but you can make a difference. Here are the
Results
The results of this study show that the choices made by the customer are a significant contributor to the impacts of both Christmas trees. For the real Christmas tree customer, the manner in which the tree is disposed of at the end of its life is a major contributor to the impacts of the real Christmas tree. For the artificial Christmas tree customer, the length of use is the primary contributor to the artificial Christmas tree impacts.
For the real Christmas tree, cultivation (planting, fertilizing, watering, etc.) is the largest contributor of environmental impacts, with one exception. The end-of-life phase of the real Christmas tree results in the largest contribution of greenhouse gas emissions in the real Christmas tree’s life cycle. This difference is, in part, due to modeling decisions concerning the handling of carbon sequestration in the cultivation phase and carbon release in the end-of-life stage.
For the artificial tree, the raw materials used in manufacturing, specifically polyvinylchloride followed by steel sheets, comprises the largest source of impacts in the artificial tree. Among the various life cycle phases, raw materials and transportation are seen to have largest impacts. Raw materials are primarily responsible for greenhouse gas emissions, eutrophication of water sources and use of non-renewable energy. Transportation mainly causes acidification of water, air and soil and smog in the atmosphere.
Given the quantification of environmental impacts across both of the trees’ life cycles, a comparative assertion shows the breakeven point between the two trees is 4.7 years. That is to say an artificial tree purchased and used for at least 4.7 years demonstrates a lower contribution to environmental impact than 4.7 real Christmas trees purchased over 4.7 years. This assertion considers all end of life scenarios for the real Christmas tree, and assumes that a customer of an artificial tree would purchase the tree and keep it for 5 or more years. The breakeven point can change based on the environmental metrics and end-of-life scenarios, but considering the most conservative calculations, purchasing an artificial tree and keeping it for 4.7 years is less environmentally impactful than purchasing the equivalent amount of real Christmas trees.
In 2010, a life cycle assessment by PE Americas was conducted to compare the impacts associated with a real Christmas and an artificial Christmas tree. The PE Americas LCA studied the differences in impacts for both trees over a similar period of time. The results of the PE America’s Study demonstrated similar results to the study completed by WAP Sustainability Consulting, LLC.. However, the results of these two studies must not be compared directly. This incomparability stems from several key elements, mostly owing to differences in methodology, and include:
...
Despite the two studies’ limited comparability, the results of the two studies do support some important and consistent generalizations. These are basic trends that can be understood by looking at both of the reports individually and include:
Comparative LCA of the Environmental Impacts of Real Christmas and Artificial Christmas Trees. Public Release Version 2018
1) Both studies indicate that the impacts of sourcing of raw materials is the number one contributor to the environmental impacts across all categories for the artificial tree.
2) Both studies indicate that End-of-life treatment options for real Christmas trees significantly impact the overall footprint of these trees.
3) Both studies indicate a roughly 5-year average breakeven point favoring the artificial Tree as a comparative assertion, given the customer keeps the artificial Tree for at least 5 years.
Conclusion
This LCA was conducted in order to compare the life cycle impacts of artificial Christmas trees and real Christmas trees. The results demonstrate that on a one-to-one comparison, one real Christmas tree generates fewer environmental impacts than one artificial Tree. This statement considers all end of life variables for both trees across all life cycle impact categories.
The study also assumed that reasonable customers do not purchase an artificial tree and use it for only one year. The study demonstrated that if a customer purchases an artificial tree and used it for at least 4.7 years, vs. purchasing the equivalent (4.7) real Christmas trees, the environmental burden shifts and the artificial tree would generate fewer environmental impacts.
Public Statements about the study will aim to educate customers that the purchase of an artificial Christmas tree is environmental beneficial to real Christmas trees, provided the customer keeps the tree for at least five years.
MERRY CHRISTMAS
oh, full study here. In particular thanks to Tim Taylor.
Reading Lounge
1. Against marriage
2. There’s More Religion Than You Think in Bach’s ‘Brandenburgs’
3. Raid into Tibet - 1967
4. The Landlord Asks for a Christmas Rose
5. One year ago I wrote about my vagina and men’s opinions of it. Things have not improved.
6. Real vs. Artificial Christmas Trees: Comparing Environmental Effects
7. The Guptas rise and fall - not those historical's
2. There’s More Religion Than You Think in Bach’s ‘Brandenburgs’
3. Raid into Tibet - 1967
4. The Landlord Asks for a Christmas Rose
5. One year ago I wrote about my vagina and men’s opinions of it. Things have not improved.
6. Real vs. Artificial Christmas Trees: Comparing Environmental Effects
7. The Guptas rise and fall - not those historical's
12/23/2018
Bayessches Netz in Causa Nazi-Stil Denunziator Jürgen Sonneck, Referat Bildung & Sport München
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| Bayessches Netz in Causa J. Sonneck, Referat Bildung & Sport München |
in Anlehnung an den Kachelmann Fall. Tentativ.
Der BGH stellte in seinem Urteil 2 StR 112/14 - Urteil vom 24. März 2016 (LG Bonn) fest:
“Soweit maßgeblich auf biostatistische Wahrscheinlichkeitsberechnungen abgestellt wird, sind daher die zu Grunde liegenden mathematischen Denkgesetze zu beachten; dazu gehört gerade auch das Bayes-Theorem, das den logisch korrekten Umgang mit Unsicherheiten beschreibt. Dessen Anwendung führt nicht zu einer Mathematisierung der Beweiswürdigung, sondern ergibt sich aus der Notwendigkeit, innerhalb mathematischer Wahrscheinlichkeitsberechnungen die systemimmanenten Denkgesetze einzuhalten. Diese können zur Vermeidung von logischen Fehlschlüssen nicht unter Hinweis auf einen angeblich „objektiven“ Ansatz ignoriert werden.”Siehe auch:
Die Logik der richterlichen Überzeugungsbildung
Max Planck Research Group "Intuitive Experts"
Zusammenfassung
Die Zivilprozessordnung setzt voraus, dass Richter sich ihre Überzeugung zur Wahrheit bestrittener Tatsachenbehauptungen frei bilden. Bei der Beweiswürdigung müssen Richter gleichzeitig zahlreiche Teilüberzeugungen halten, die sich gegenseitig beeinflussen können. Mittels sogenannter Bayes-Netze lassen sich diese Teilüberzeugungen und ihre (Un-)Abhängigkeiten grafisch darstellen. Die Darstellung mittels eines Bayes-Netzes erzwingt die Widerspruchsfreiheit der Teilüberzeugungen und erlaubt zu prüfen, wie sich unterschiedliche Annahmen auf die Überzeugungsbildung auswirken.
12/21/2018
12/20/2018
Querulant Rainer Hoffmann – Kampf gegen die Solarindustrie & Klimaforscher | Reportage | SRF DOK
"Querulant" - da fällt mir Richter Grains (AG München) Urteil von 2013 ein. Die Auszeichnung gibts ganz schnell im Kangaroo Court München.
12/18/2018
12/16/2018
Die Geheimakte Hoffmann
von der SRF Website.
TV-Hinweis "Die Geheimakte Hoffmann" am 16.12. auf "SRF1"
TV-Hinweis "Die Geheimakte Hoffmann" am 16.12. auf "SRF1"
Rainer Hoffmann leitete in Deutschland die Finanzbuchhaltung eines KMU und besass ein Eigenheim. Heute ist er mittellos und versteckt sich in der Schweiz vor der deutschen Justiz und Psychiatrie. «Reporter» berichtet über den tiefen Fall eines Mannes, dessen Rechtshändel harmlos anfingen.
«Ich bin der Edward Snowden für Deutschland», sagt Rainer Hoffmann, «ich bin für Deutschland mindestens so gefährlich wie Edward Snowden für Amerika.» Kleiner Unterschied: Snowden setzte sich nach Russland ab, Hoffmann tauchte vor sechs Jahren in der Schweiz unter. Und: Snowden legte sich mit den US-Geheimdiensten an, Hoffmann mit der Solarindustrie und der deutschen Justiz. Dafür zahlte er einen hohen Preis. Er verlor nicht nur seine Stelle als Leiter der Finanzbuchhaltung eines KMU, sondern auch sein Eigenheim.
Die Tragödie nahm ihren Anfang 1996. Hoffmann entschied sich, in seinem Haus eine Solarthermie-Anlage zu installieren. Eine Werbeanzeige und die damaligen Solarprospekte hätten ihm suggeriert, er könne damit seine Heizwärmekosten mehr als halbieren. Dass bei solch vollmundigen Versprechungen Skepsis angebracht ist, wurde Hoffmann erst klar, als es schon zu spät war. Er weigerte sich, die in seinen Augen mangelhafte Solar-Anlage vollständig zu bezahlen und bestand darauf, Opfer eines Betrugs geworden zu sein. Das Gericht entschied gegen ihn. Es war der Anfang einer langen Reihe von Prozessen, die Hoffmann fast alle verlor. Das Justizministerium Nordrhein-Westfalen wurde auf ihn aufmerksam und legte eine 198-Seiten dicke «Geheimakte» über ihn an.
Reporter Simon Christen berichtet über einen, dem eine deutsche Psychiaterin einen «Querulantenwahn» diagnostizierte. Hoffmann sieht es ganz anders: Er sei ein unnachgiebiger Kämpfer für die Wahrheit über die Solarindustrie. Er will das aufdecken, was er einen gross angelegten «Solarschwindel» nennt. Inzwischen versteckt er sich in der Schweiz und führt seinen Kampf aus dem Untergrund weiter: Neu auch gegen Klimaforscher, die von einer «gefährlichen Klimaerwärmung» reden. Alles Quatsch, sagt Hoffmann und deckt Medien, die aus seiner Sicht falsch über den Klimawandel berichten, mit Beschwerden ein, so auch SRF – bisher erfolglos.
Economic Effects of Islam
From the always good Tim Taylor.
Timur Kuran "critically evaluates the analytic literature concerned with causal connections between Islam and economic performance" in his essay "Islam and Economic Performance: Historical and Contemporary Links," published in the most recent issue of the Journal of Economic Literature (December 2018, 56:4, pp. 1292–1359). He is not interested in sweeping generalizations, but rather in discussing work published in the the last two decades in the professional economics literature. From the abstract:
full post here
Timur Kuran "critically evaluates the analytic literature concerned with causal connections between Islam and economic performance" in his essay "Islam and Economic Performance: Historical and Contemporary Links," published in the most recent issue of the Journal of Economic Literature (December 2018, 56:4, pp. 1292–1359). He is not interested in sweeping generalizations, but rather in discussing work published in the the last two decades in the professional economics literature. From the abstract:
"Among the findings are the following: Ramadan fasting by pregnant women harms prenatal development; Islamic charities mainly benefit the middle class; Islam affects educational outcomes less through Islamic schooling than through structural factors that handicap learning as a whole; Islamic finance has a negligible effect on Muslim financial behavior; and low generalized trust depresses Muslim trade. The last feature reflects the Muslim world’s delay in transitioning from personal to impersonal exchange. The delay resulted from the persistent simplicity of the private enterprises formed under Islamic law. Weak property rights reinforced the private sector’s stagnation by driving capital from commerce to rigid waqfs. Waqfs limited economic development through their inflexibility and democratization by keeping civil society embryonic. Parts of the Muslim world conquered by Arab armies are especially undemocratic, which suggests that early Islamic institutions were particularly critical to the persistence of authoritarian patterns of governance. States have contributed to the persistence of authoritarianism by treating Islam as an instrument of governance. As the world started to industrialize, non-Muslim subjects of Muslim-governed states pulled ahead of their Muslim neighbors, partly by exercising the choice of law they enjoyed under Islamic law in favor of a Western legal system."
Islamic finance
"Islamic finance refers to a class of financial transactions that are ostensibly free of interest and compatible with Islamic teachings. It encompasses Islamic banking, asset- backed Islamic bonds known as sukuk, Islamic insurance known as takaful, along with Islamic credit cards, mutual funds, stock indexes, mortgages, and microfinance.
...
full post here
Who decides what words mean
Good article on AEON by an ECONOMIST language columnist and editor about changes and development of languages and their grammar. Language is self-regulating.
Language as a self-regulating system
Language changes all the time. Some changes really are chaotic, and disruptive. Take decimate, a prescriptivist shibboleth. It comes from the old Roman practice of punishing a mutinous legion by killing every 10th soldier (hence that deci- root). Now we don’t often need a word for destroying exactly a 10th of something – this is the ‘etymological fallacy’, the idea that a word must mean exactly what its component roots indicate. But it is useful to have a word that means to destroy a sizeable proportion of something. Yet many people have extended the meaning of decimate until now it means something approaching ‘to wipe out utterly’.
...
There is another fact to bear in mind: no language has fallen apart from lack of care. It is just not something that happens – literally. Prescriptivists cannot point to a single language that became unusable or inexpressive as a result of people’s failure to uphold traditional vocabulary and grammar. Every language existing today is fantastically expressive. It would be a miracle, except that it is utterly commonplace, a fact shared not only by all languages but by all the humans who use them.
...
The leap from ‘obedient’ to ‘busty’ seems extraordinary until we look at it step by step. Nice used to mean ‘foolish’. Silly used to mean ‘holy’. Assassin is from the plural of the Arabic word for ‘hashish(-eater)’, and magazine from the Arabic word for a storehouse. This is just what words do. Prestigious used to be pejorative, meaning glittery but not substantive. These kinds of changes are common.Who decides what words mean
Language as a self-regulating system
12/15/2018
This Merkel nagging has to stop. She deserves some credit.
This Merkel nagging has to stop.— Straussian Obfuscator (@ErebusSagace) December 10, 2018
She deserves some credit. pic.twitter.com/kCgNlcaBwN
Risk of poverty from 2005 to 2017
12/10/2018
Gilets Jaunes demands in English and a German politician calls to support Macron
In English!!!!! pic.twitter.com/05egxNT6DV— Cynthia McKinney PhD (@cynthiamckinney) December 10, 2018
- Zero homeless : URGENT.
- Income tax more progressive (more slices).
- SMIC ( minimum wage for growth) of 1300 euros net.
- Promote small businesses, villages and city centers. (Stop the construction of large commercial areas around big cities that kill small business + free parking in city centers).
- Large Insulation Plan for housing. (to make ecological savings for households).
- That BIG (Macdo, Google, Amazon, Crossroads ...) pay BIG and that small (artisans, TPE,PME– SME and Microenterprises) pay small.
- Same system of social security for all (including artisans and self-entrepreneurs). End of the RSI ( the social regime of the self-employed).
- The pension system must remain in solidarity and therefore socialized. (No retirement at peak).
- End of the tax increase on fuel.
- No pension below 1200 euros.
- Any elected representative will have the right to a median salary. His transport costs will be monitored and reimbursed if they are justified. Right to the restaurant ticket and check-holiday.
- The wages of all French people as well as pensions and allowances must be indexed to inflation.
- Protect French industry: prohibit relocation. Protecting our industry is protecting our know-how and our jobs.
- End of detached work (where ‘posted workers’ are sent by their employer to carry out a service in another European country on a temporary basis). It is abnormal that a person who works on French territory does not benefit from the salary and the same rights. Anyone authorized to work on French territory must be equal with a French citizen and his employer must contribute to the same height as a French employer.
- For job security: further limit the number of fixed-term contracts for large companies. We want more CDI (the default open-ended or permanent work contract in France).
- End of the CICE ( tax credits that corporations can claim for all salaries 2.5 lower than the French minimum wage). Using this money for launching a French car industry that has hydrogen (which is truly ecological, unlike the electric car.)
- End of austerity policy. We are ceasing to repay the debt interest that is declared illegitimate and we are starting to repay the debt without taking the money from the poor and the poorest but by going after the $80 billion in tax evasion.
- That the causes of forced migration are treated.
- That asylum seekers are well treated. We owe them housing, security, food and education for the miners. Work with the UN to have host camps open in many countries around the world, pending the outcome of the asylum application.
- That the unsuccessful asylum seekers be returned to their country of origin.
- That a real integration policy be implemented. Living in France means becoming French (French language course, History of France course and civic education course with certification at the end of the course).
- Maximum salary fixed at 15000 euros.
- That jobs are created for the unemployed.
- Increase in disabled benefits
- Limitation of rents + low-rent housing (especially for students and precarious workers).
- Prohibition to sell property belonging to France (airport dam ...)
- Substantial means granted to justice, the police, the gendarmerie and the army. That law enforcement overtime be paid or recovered.
- All the money earned by highway tolls will be used for the maintenance of motorways and roads in France and road safety.
- Since the price of gas and electricity has increased since privatization, we want them to become public again and that prices fall significantly.
- Immediate closure of small lines, post offices, schools and maternity homes.
- Let's bring well-being to our elderly people. Prohibition of making money on the elderly. The gray gold is finished. The era of gray well-being begins.
- Maximum 25 students per class from kindergarten to the final year. - Substantial resources brought to psychiatry.
- The People's Referendum must enter the Constitution. Creation of a readable and effective site, supervised by an independent control body where the links can make a proposal of law. If this bill obtains 700,000 signatures then this bill will have to be discussed, completed and amended by the National Assembly, which will be obliged (one year to the day after obtaining the 700,000 signatures) to submit to the vote of all the French.
- Return to a term of 7 years for the President of the Republic. (The election of the deputies two years after the election of the President of the Republic made it possible to send a positive or negative signal to the President of the Republic concerning his policy, so it helped to make the voice of the people heard.)
- Retirement at age 60 and for all those who have worked in a trade using the body (a builder or butcher for example) a right to retirement at 55 years.
- A 6-year-old child is not able to look after him or herself, continuation of the PAJEMPLOI help system until the child is 10 years old.
- Promote the transport of goods by railway.
- No deduction of tax at source
- End of presidential allowances for life
- Prohibition of charging retailers a fee when their customers use the credit card.
- Tax on marine fuel oil and kerosene.
This list is non-exhaustive but thereafter, the will of the people will be heard and applied by means of the creation of the popular referendum system which will have to be quickly set up. Members of Parliament, make our voice heard in the Assembly.
Obey the will of the people. Apply these Guidelines. Yellow Vests.
See below. A new 'unofficial list' dated December 7, 2018 includes:
- cut tax to 25% of GDP ( half current levels)
- better public services/ massive hiring of civil servants to this end
- leave EU and NATO
- default on public debt
- new constitution
- on immigration: "Prevent migratory flows that cannot be accommodated or integrated, given the profound civilizational crisis we are experiencing."
. . . . . . . . .
Berlin - In view of the escalating "yellow west" protests in France, the CDU foreign policy politician Norbert Röttgen has made an appeal to the Federal Government to give more support to French President Emmanuel Macron. "The protests in France are so dangerous because they reveal that France no longer has a functioning party system," the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee told the newspapers of the Funke media group.
Perhaps invasion of France??
12/09/2018
Some positive trends in the MOST UNACCEPTABLE WORDS IN BROADCASTING in 2018
In case you are already outraged, this is from New Zealand.
KEY FINDINGS
2018 MOST UNACCEPTABLE WORDS IN BROADCASTING
KEY FINDINGS
2018 MOST UNACCEPTABLE WORDS IN BROADCASTING
- Cunt, Nigger, Jesus Fucking Christ, Cocksucker, and Mother fucker – remain the top five most unacceptable words across all scenarios
- However, notable decline in the proportion who find four of the five totally unacceptable
- Racial / cultural insults added to the list in 2018 appeared in the top 12 – Chink, Gook, Coconut
- Homo, also new, appeared at 11th most unacceptable
- Small but notable increases in proportion who find some gender-related words totally unacceptable, e.g. Bitch, Dick, Prick
- Level of unacceptability for some blasphemies has decreased significantly – Jesus Christ, God and Jesus Fucking Christ
You are of course interested in some details (A Minus means term has become more acceptable).
‘God’ from 22% in 2013 to now just 15% = - 7%
‘Mother fucker’ - 9% (way better)
‘Jesus Christ' beats all with - 12%
‘Slut’ unfortunately up 1%
‘Retards’ even worse at + 4%
To which community you belong is to be considered. “Faggot, fag, dyke, lesbo - if not used by someone from the LGBTQ community are unacceptable.”
YOUNGER GENERATIONS ARE TYPICALLY MORE ACCEPTING
Except for words relating to gender or sexual orientation – eg, higher proportion of 18-24 year olds find ‘Homo’ unacceptable.
The most open are in the 25-34 age bracket. So stay clear of the rest and THOSE OF PASIFIKA AND ASIAN ETHNICITY ARE LESS ACCEPTING.
You might enquire about gender differences. Here you go.
Significant differences between males and females in levels of acceptability of offensive language, particularly:
YOUNGER GENERATIONS ARE TYPICALLY MORE ACCEPTING
Except for words relating to gender or sexual orientation – eg, higher proportion of 18-24 year olds find ‘Homo’ unacceptable.
The most open are in the 25-34 age bracket. So stay clear of the rest and THOSE OF PASIFIKA AND ASIAN ETHNICITY ARE LESS ACCEPTING.
You might enquire about gender differences. Here you go.
Significant differences between males and females in levels of acceptability of offensive language, particularly:
- Homo: 39% of males find it fairly or totally unacceptable cf. 61% females
- Retard: 38% males cf. 59% females
- Chink: 46% males cf. 65% females
- Cunt: 58% males cf. 76% females
The latter is hardly surprising. Probably because there are so many. Oops.
And ... OH!
Those who are Christian are least accepting, with higher or significantly higher levels of unacceptability for most words.
For those who would like to know the 2013 readings. They are here.
Fucking enjoy. Meant to say, it's been a pleasure serving you.
Reading Lounge
1. Going native in the Hermit Kingdom
2. CAN THE EURO RIVAL THE DOLLAR?
3. Christian Missionaries and Their Mistaken Message from God
4. Rapper Symbolizes Backlash Against South Korea's Feminists
5. Time Lapse of the Sushi Scene in Isle of Dogs
6. Philip Johnson Was Very Nazi
7. How the British Ascended in India 200 Years Ago
8. Linguistic observations of Chancellor Merkel
2. CAN THE EURO RIVAL THE DOLLAR?
3. Christian Missionaries and Their Mistaken Message from God
4. Rapper Symbolizes Backlash Against South Korea's Feminists
5. Time Lapse of the Sushi Scene in Isle of Dogs
6. Philip Johnson Was Very Nazi
7. How the British Ascended in India 200 Years Ago
8. Linguistic observations of Chancellor Merkel
Gilets Jaunes - Some surprisingly excellent demands
Yellow vests. Some surprisingly excellent demands:— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) December 8, 2018
- Banning Lobbies (8)
- Smaller Banks (5)
- Banning MONOCULTURE, GMOs, Glyphosate (20)
- Anti Foreign Interventionism (22)
- Pol. Diversity of Media (15)
- Frexit (9)
Some questionable ones (3, 2) .#GiletsJaunes #YellowVests pic.twitter.com/Jjwy16xpWK
Here is Peter Turchin:
The Yellow Vest Rebellion
“To defeat populism, America needs its own Macron–a charismatic leader who can make centrism cool” wrote Max Boot in June 2017, one month after Emmanuel Macron was elected president in France. I always felt that calling Macron a “centrist” is a remarkable misrepresentation of his hard neo-liberal ideology. But the extent of his radical refashioning of France’s social fabric is becoming clear only now in the wake of the Yellow Vest Rebellion, at least for those who don’t follow French politics closely, like myself.
Until recently, France was one of the few major Western countries that resisted the world-wide trend to growing economic inequality. Not anymore. Macron’s government has enacted a comprehensive program of reforms seemingly (or, more likely, intentionally) designed to make the poor poorer, and the rich richer. Pensions have been frozen (but solidarity taxes on pensioners were increased), minimal wages were frozen, but at the same time taxes on the very rich were reduced. Increasing the taxes on gasoline, which triggered the rebellion, hits the poor much more than the rich. It also hits the rural areas more, and by most accounts the majority of Yellow Vests are provincials.
The assault on France’s social state is remarkably comprehensive, and includes measures affecting the health system, education, and transport infrastructure (see this article by Diana Johnstone for more detail). The result of these policies has been graphically plotted in this BBC graph:
 |
| Winners and losers in France 2018-19 budget |
For any student of history, the Yellow Vest Rebellion immediately brings to mind the Yellow Turban Rebellion that ended the corrupt Eastern Han Dynasty in the second century AD:
 |
| The Yellow Turban Rebellion |
12/07/2018
Greek austerity – a denial of basic human rights, penalty should be imprisonment
This is based on Bill Mitchell's post with the same title which dives deeper into economics. The occasion is somewhat fitting in that German chancellor Merkel gave up the leadership of her party CDU. It was the EU, i.e. she and her government that brought unspeakable hardship on the Greek people. It shows what the EU is all about.
Here is the executive summary of the report by the Transnational Institute. The full report is here.
Democracy Not For Sale
The Struggle for Food Sovereignty in the Age of Austerity in Greece
AUTHORS: (in alphabetical order): Stephan Backes, Jenny Gkiougki, Sylvia Kay, Charalampos Konstantinidis, Emily Mattheisen, Christina Sakali, Eirini Tzekou, Leonidas Vatikiotis, Pietje Vervest.
Executive summary
This report examines the impacts of austerity in Greece on the right to food. It concludes that the Greek State and the Eurozone Member States violated the Greek people’s right to food as a result of the austerity measures required by three Memorandums of Understanding (2010, 2012 and 2015). In other words, the austerity packages imposed on Greece contravened international human rights law.
In August 2018, the European Council celebrated the end of the third Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), praising the Greek’s efforts and European solidarity. Yet, as this report shows, there is little to celebrate. Not only did austerity measures increase poverty and food insecurity, it further consolidated an agri-food business regime that will perpetuate inequalities in access to and control over food.
The report examines the impacts of austerity on food producers and consumer/cooperative initiatives as well as social impacts on the Greek population in general. By focusing on the human right to food, the report highlights the impact of the Greek economic crisis that has touched every aspect of people’s lives. The focus on food producers and rural areas also draws attention to an overlooked aspect of Greece’s crisis as these sectors and regions often lack voice and recognition in national politics and decision-making.
The findings are based on direct interviews and original fieldwork, supplemented by interviews (including with high-level State officials) as well as macro-economic data analysis and literature reviews of key texts.
The findings of the report are startling.
1. Austerity measures increased rural poverty and food insecurity.
• An estimated 38.9 % of rural citizens in Greece in 2017 are at risk of poverty*.
• Rural unemployment soared from 7% in 2008 to 25% in 2013 while rural income per capita dropped by 23.5% during the crisis years (2008–2013).
• Food insecurity across Greece has also increased – with food prices increasing at faster rates than prices in the Eurozone during the crisis, despite the sharp fall in domestic incomes and labour costs. This led to a drop in food expenditure in total terms but an increase in food expenditure as a share of total monthly expenditure from 16.4% in 2008 to 20.7% in 2016.
— The proportion of households that cannot afford a meal with meat, chicken, fish (or vegetarian equivalent) every second day, for example, doubled during the crisis from approximately 7% in 2008 to more than 14% in 2016.
* The EU defines this as someone severely materially deprived, below the poverty line after social transfers, or living in households where adults are employed less than 20% of the time.
— The share of households with children unable to afford a protein-based meal on a daily basis doubled from 4.7% in 2009 to 8.9% in 2014. EU statistics estimate that 40.5% of children in 2016 faced material and social deprivation.
— Overall the crisis prompted a noticeable change in consumption patterns with the substitution of higher cost food items with more inexpensive foods.
2. Austerity measures impacted particularly severely on small-scale food producers and traders.
The adverse measures on farmers included:
• Higher taxes and increased costs of production due to the replacement of a separate income tax regime for farmers with a standardised income tax system, higher VAT rates on agricultural inputs including on fertilizer, pesticide, feed and seed, and diesel; and the introduction of a new tax on farmland. Taxes as a proportion of agricultural net value added soared from 4% between 1993 and 2010 to 15.4% in 2016.
• The abolition of the specialised Agricultural Insurance Organisation (OGA) and its merging with a generalised system of social security has led to higher contributions for many farmers.
As well as direct impacts, a number of structural reforms significantly tipped the balance in favour of larger food retailers and private traders to the detriment of small-scale producers. These reforms included:
• Retail trade liberalisation, such as the lifting of restrictions on particular goods sold in supermarkets, flexibilisation of labour laws, and a move towards Sunday trading.
• Wholesale trade liberalisation, specifically the privatisation of the formerly publicly administered and profitable Central Markets and Fishery Organisation, the country’s prime wholesale food operator, responsible for the country’s 2 major food markets and 11 fish markets.
• Privatisations, including the privatisations of the Agricultural Bank of Greece (ATE) and the major dairy cooperative AGNO. The results have been increased costs for farmers less access to rural credit, specialised financial services, and agronomic advice.
3. The austerity measures hit an already weakened rural food sector made vulnerable by long-term trends.
Agriculture in Greece remains a significant part of the economy, making up nearly 4% of the country’s GDP (more than double the EU average) and providing 12% of the country’s jobs in 2016, but it has been in a state of decline since the early 1980s. Greece’s entrance into the European Economic Community in 1981 and later the EU – and the Common Agricultural Policy – opened up Greece’s small-scale farmers to greater competition. This led to a number of vulnerabilities in the Greek agri-food system prior to the crisis including:
• A steady fall in domestic agricultural production and an increasing reliance on food imports that led to a negative food trade balance. Between the late 1980s and the beginning of the crisis in 2008, the food trade deficit frequently exceeded 1% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) while in the period 2005–2011, imports accounted for nearly 40% of domestic consumption.
• Increasing reliance on food subsidies with subsidies rising as a share of net value added in agriculture from 23% in 1993 to 81% in 2008.
• A growing supermarket sector that intensified monopolistic conditions in relation to producers and consumers alike.
These trends have undermined Greece’s food sovereignty, turning Greece from a net food exporter to a net food importer. Yet rather than remedying these vulnerabilities, the three MOUs (2010, 2012 and 2015) accelerated these trends. Examining the structural requirements of the memorandums suggests a deliberate ideological project of transforming the State and restructuring the Greek economy in favour of certain sectors of capital such as large (trans)national supermarket chains. The crisis provided a means to implement it.
4. The Greek government’s social safety net was insufficient to prevent food insecurity and poverty.
The Greek government enacted a number of social programmes seeking to provide a safety net against the fallout from austerity and to address urgent food insecurity concerns. These included the passing of a humanitarian assistance law that provided food, rent and electricity subsidies for low-income individuals and families. This was later replaced by a Social Solidarity Scheme which provides low-income households with a monthly allowance.
While addressing the most basic needs, the Scheme’s support has been limited in scope, providing only €30 to €200 per household per month, with an additional €100 for every adult and €50 euros per child. The strict eligibility criteria limits support to the most severe cases of material deprivation, while the means testing requirements exclude many who would be entitled due to its restrictive and bureaucratic stipulations. Coverage in rural areas has also been limited.
As a result, private foundations, charities, NGOs, and the Greek Church have had to fill some of these gaps – offering among others free school meals, food banks and soup kitchens, and ‘social grocery’ stores that provide food, clothing, cleaning materials, and other basic goods for low- income individuals and families.
While some of these programmes receive support from local municipalities, and in the case of the school meals programme also central government backing, they are little more than sticking plasters. Human rights-based responses, such as supporting jobs and just wages, that would deal with the root causes of hunger and food insecurity need to be much more centrally foregrounded.
5. Community-led popular responses provide real solutions and point to the emergence of a new food politics.
In the face of Troika-enforced government policies undermining food sovereignty – and a failure to adequately ameliorate its impacts - a range of grassroots community initiatives have emerged to help secure people’s access to food.
These reflect different political tendencies, vary in terms of infrastructure and engage differently with States and markets. They include solidarity kitchens, food cooperatives, ‘No intermediaries’ markets, food self-sufficiency collectives and networks, Community-supported agriculture (CSA) schemes, as well as a range of other agricultural cooperatives, alternative farm models, and producers’ ventures.
The call for a ‘solidarity economy’ has become a key framework within which many grassroots responses have articulated their demands and aspirations. This Social Solidarity Economy (SSE) has grown massively during the years of the crisis: in 2013, 372 social enterprises were registered while in the years 2014, 2015 and 2016 these rose to 585, 714 and 907 respectively.
In building up such counter-power from below based on innovative practices, social experimentation and people-controlled infrastructures, this movement is paving the way not only for a popular resistance to austerity, but also a new, transformative, just food system. This extends beyond demands for affordable food prices and farmer protection towards genuinely challenging the structural power of the corporate agribusiness sector and advancing popular alternatives.
6. The right to food has been violated in Greece.
The right to adequate food is strongly enshrined in international human rights law and its normative content notes several elements (availability, accessibility, adequacy, sustainability) that need to be safeguarded. The right to adequate food also correlates closely with other economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR), meaning that the violation of one right often leads to the violation of other rights. The right to health, life, water and adequate housing are underlying determinants of the right to food.
Several austerity measures - including changes to agricultural taxes and social security regimes and the drive towards privatization and trade liberalization - contributed directly to undermining the right to food in Greece. Other measures such as minimum wage reductions and pension cuts also affected this fundamental human right and contravened other economic, social and cultural rights, such as the right to work, housing and health.
States have the obligation to realize human rights. This obligation includes the progressive realization of socio-economic rights with the maximum available resources, which prima facie prohibits retrogressive* measures that would limit or reduce existing levels of enjoyment of enshrined rights. Retrogressive measures can only be taken under very limited circumstances and based on key conditions – such as careful monitoring and evaluation, consideration of all rights, ensuring no disproportionate impact on the most vulnerable – none of which was applied by the Greek government. The wide array of retrogressive measures taken, combined with the increasing cost of living, are sufficient proof that the right to food was violated in Greece.
* Retrogressive measures means any measure that implies a step back in the level of human rights protection due to the intentional decision by a State.
7. Accountability for violations of the right to food rests both with the Greek government and the Eurozone Member States, with the latter arguably taking a greater share of the responsibility.
When a human right is violated, it means there has been a breach in the obligation to respect, protect and fulfill this human right. Many actors were involved in the negotiations leading to the three MoUs. Human rights obligations exist territorially and, under certain circumstances, extraterritorially.
As a result of the austerity measures, Greece has violated the human right to food of people living in Greece. Yet, Eurozone Member States, as direct lenders are also responsible as they signed the MoUs and likely pressured the Greek government to do so. Eurozone Member States – as States Parties to the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights and other international human rights instruments – have therefore breached their extraterritorial obligations to respect the human right to food in Greece. Not only should Eurozone States have refrained from requiring measures that affected the right to food, they should have also conducted human rights impacts assessments of the Memorandums. These HRIAs are required prior to, during, and after the passing of MoUs, but were never done.
Furthermore, all European States have failed to comply with their human rights obligations when acting and taking decisions in Intergovernmental Organisations and International Financial Institutions, such as in the International Monetary Fund. As part of the UN system, the latter is obliged to comply with the UN Charter which includes a commitment to the progressive realization of human rights. It certainly should not take any action that would constitute a human rights violation.
Troika members claim that the sole responsibility for the impacts of the MoUs lies with the Greek State. This argument is false because they, with Greece, were joint signatures of the three MoUs. Therefore, the responsibility for violations of the right to food is a shared one too. Indeed it can be argued that the responsibility of the Eurozone Member States is much bigger, given the evidence of direct interference or even coercion by the Member States of the Troika on Greece to sign the MoUs.
The focus of this report is on Greece, but its findings are relevant internationally. Greece is not an exception. Many other countries, in and outside of Europe, find themselves in similar situations, forced to implement austerity-driven, technocratic policies which lead to violations of economic, social and cultural rights including the fundamental right to food. Greece’s experience also shows that the violations of these fundamental rights are not only issues of the global South. They are happening in the global ‘North’. Hunger, food insecurity, poverty and material deprivation are European issues. Human rights are universal, which means all governments have obligations to fulfill them. It is time now for the EU to act in accordance with these obligations and put human rights above the needs of financial markets.
The Transnational Institute (TNI) is an international research and advocacy institute committed to building a just, democratic and sustainable planet. For more than 40 years, TNI has served as a unique nexus between social movements, engaged scholars and policy makers. www.tni.org
FIAN International was founded in 1986 as the first international human rights organization to advocate for the realization of the right to adequate food and nutrition. FIAN’s mission is to expose violations of people’s right to food wherever they may occur. www.fian.org
Agroecopolis is a young, grassroots non-profit, non- governmental organisation. It is the Hellenic Network for Agroecology, Food Sovereignty and Access To Land. www.agroecopolis.org
Bill Mitchell's post here
Here is the executive summary of the report by the Transnational Institute. The full report is here.
Democracy Not For Sale
The Struggle for Food Sovereignty in the Age of Austerity in Greece
AUTHORS: (in alphabetical order): Stephan Backes, Jenny Gkiougki, Sylvia Kay, Charalampos Konstantinidis, Emily Mattheisen, Christina Sakali, Eirini Tzekou, Leonidas Vatikiotis, Pietje Vervest.
Executive summary
This report examines the impacts of austerity in Greece on the right to food. It concludes that the Greek State and the Eurozone Member States violated the Greek people’s right to food as a result of the austerity measures required by three Memorandums of Understanding (2010, 2012 and 2015). In other words, the austerity packages imposed on Greece contravened international human rights law.
In August 2018, the European Council celebrated the end of the third Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), praising the Greek’s efforts and European solidarity. Yet, as this report shows, there is little to celebrate. Not only did austerity measures increase poverty and food insecurity, it further consolidated an agri-food business regime that will perpetuate inequalities in access to and control over food.
The report examines the impacts of austerity on food producers and consumer/cooperative initiatives as well as social impacts on the Greek population in general. By focusing on the human right to food, the report highlights the impact of the Greek economic crisis that has touched every aspect of people’s lives. The focus on food producers and rural areas also draws attention to an overlooked aspect of Greece’s crisis as these sectors and regions often lack voice and recognition in national politics and decision-making.
The findings are based on direct interviews and original fieldwork, supplemented by interviews (including with high-level State officials) as well as macro-economic data analysis and literature reviews of key texts.
The findings of the report are startling.
1. Austerity measures increased rural poverty and food insecurity.
• An estimated 38.9 % of rural citizens in Greece in 2017 are at risk of poverty*.
• Rural unemployment soared from 7% in 2008 to 25% in 2013 while rural income per capita dropped by 23.5% during the crisis years (2008–2013).
• Food insecurity across Greece has also increased – with food prices increasing at faster rates than prices in the Eurozone during the crisis, despite the sharp fall in domestic incomes and labour costs. This led to a drop in food expenditure in total terms but an increase in food expenditure as a share of total monthly expenditure from 16.4% in 2008 to 20.7% in 2016.
— The proportion of households that cannot afford a meal with meat, chicken, fish (or vegetarian equivalent) every second day, for example, doubled during the crisis from approximately 7% in 2008 to more than 14% in 2016.
* The EU defines this as someone severely materially deprived, below the poverty line after social transfers, or living in households where adults are employed less than 20% of the time.
— The share of households with children unable to afford a protein-based meal on a daily basis doubled from 4.7% in 2009 to 8.9% in 2014. EU statistics estimate that 40.5% of children in 2016 faced material and social deprivation.
— Overall the crisis prompted a noticeable change in consumption patterns with the substitution of higher cost food items with more inexpensive foods.
2. Austerity measures impacted particularly severely on small-scale food producers and traders.
The adverse measures on farmers included:
• Higher taxes and increased costs of production due to the replacement of a separate income tax regime for farmers with a standardised income tax system, higher VAT rates on agricultural inputs including on fertilizer, pesticide, feed and seed, and diesel; and the introduction of a new tax on farmland. Taxes as a proportion of agricultural net value added soared from 4% between 1993 and 2010 to 15.4% in 2016.
• The abolition of the specialised Agricultural Insurance Organisation (OGA) and its merging with a generalised system of social security has led to higher contributions for many farmers.
As well as direct impacts, a number of structural reforms significantly tipped the balance in favour of larger food retailers and private traders to the detriment of small-scale producers. These reforms included:
• Retail trade liberalisation, such as the lifting of restrictions on particular goods sold in supermarkets, flexibilisation of labour laws, and a move towards Sunday trading.
• Wholesale trade liberalisation, specifically the privatisation of the formerly publicly administered and profitable Central Markets and Fishery Organisation, the country’s prime wholesale food operator, responsible for the country’s 2 major food markets and 11 fish markets.
• Privatisations, including the privatisations of the Agricultural Bank of Greece (ATE) and the major dairy cooperative AGNO. The results have been increased costs for farmers less access to rural credit, specialised financial services, and agronomic advice.
3. The austerity measures hit an already weakened rural food sector made vulnerable by long-term trends.
Agriculture in Greece remains a significant part of the economy, making up nearly 4% of the country’s GDP (more than double the EU average) and providing 12% of the country’s jobs in 2016, but it has been in a state of decline since the early 1980s. Greece’s entrance into the European Economic Community in 1981 and later the EU – and the Common Agricultural Policy – opened up Greece’s small-scale farmers to greater competition. This led to a number of vulnerabilities in the Greek agri-food system prior to the crisis including:
• A steady fall in domestic agricultural production and an increasing reliance on food imports that led to a negative food trade balance. Between the late 1980s and the beginning of the crisis in 2008, the food trade deficit frequently exceeded 1% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) while in the period 2005–2011, imports accounted for nearly 40% of domestic consumption.
• Increasing reliance on food subsidies with subsidies rising as a share of net value added in agriculture from 23% in 1993 to 81% in 2008.
• A growing supermarket sector that intensified monopolistic conditions in relation to producers and consumers alike.
These trends have undermined Greece’s food sovereignty, turning Greece from a net food exporter to a net food importer. Yet rather than remedying these vulnerabilities, the three MOUs (2010, 2012 and 2015) accelerated these trends. Examining the structural requirements of the memorandums suggests a deliberate ideological project of transforming the State and restructuring the Greek economy in favour of certain sectors of capital such as large (trans)national supermarket chains. The crisis provided a means to implement it.
4. The Greek government’s social safety net was insufficient to prevent food insecurity and poverty.
The Greek government enacted a number of social programmes seeking to provide a safety net against the fallout from austerity and to address urgent food insecurity concerns. These included the passing of a humanitarian assistance law that provided food, rent and electricity subsidies for low-income individuals and families. This was later replaced by a Social Solidarity Scheme which provides low-income households with a monthly allowance.
While addressing the most basic needs, the Scheme’s support has been limited in scope, providing only €30 to €200 per household per month, with an additional €100 for every adult and €50 euros per child. The strict eligibility criteria limits support to the most severe cases of material deprivation, while the means testing requirements exclude many who would be entitled due to its restrictive and bureaucratic stipulations. Coverage in rural areas has also been limited.
As a result, private foundations, charities, NGOs, and the Greek Church have had to fill some of these gaps – offering among others free school meals, food banks and soup kitchens, and ‘social grocery’ stores that provide food, clothing, cleaning materials, and other basic goods for low- income individuals and families.
While some of these programmes receive support from local municipalities, and in the case of the school meals programme also central government backing, they are little more than sticking plasters. Human rights-based responses, such as supporting jobs and just wages, that would deal with the root causes of hunger and food insecurity need to be much more centrally foregrounded.
5. Community-led popular responses provide real solutions and point to the emergence of a new food politics.
In the face of Troika-enforced government policies undermining food sovereignty – and a failure to adequately ameliorate its impacts - a range of grassroots community initiatives have emerged to help secure people’s access to food.
These reflect different political tendencies, vary in terms of infrastructure and engage differently with States and markets. They include solidarity kitchens, food cooperatives, ‘No intermediaries’ markets, food self-sufficiency collectives and networks, Community-supported agriculture (CSA) schemes, as well as a range of other agricultural cooperatives, alternative farm models, and producers’ ventures.
The call for a ‘solidarity economy’ has become a key framework within which many grassroots responses have articulated their demands and aspirations. This Social Solidarity Economy (SSE) has grown massively during the years of the crisis: in 2013, 372 social enterprises were registered while in the years 2014, 2015 and 2016 these rose to 585, 714 and 907 respectively.
In building up such counter-power from below based on innovative practices, social experimentation and people-controlled infrastructures, this movement is paving the way not only for a popular resistance to austerity, but also a new, transformative, just food system. This extends beyond demands for affordable food prices and farmer protection towards genuinely challenging the structural power of the corporate agribusiness sector and advancing popular alternatives.
6. The right to food has been violated in Greece.
The right to adequate food is strongly enshrined in international human rights law and its normative content notes several elements (availability, accessibility, adequacy, sustainability) that need to be safeguarded. The right to adequate food also correlates closely with other economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR), meaning that the violation of one right often leads to the violation of other rights. The right to health, life, water and adequate housing are underlying determinants of the right to food.
Several austerity measures - including changes to agricultural taxes and social security regimes and the drive towards privatization and trade liberalization - contributed directly to undermining the right to food in Greece. Other measures such as minimum wage reductions and pension cuts also affected this fundamental human right and contravened other economic, social and cultural rights, such as the right to work, housing and health.
States have the obligation to realize human rights. This obligation includes the progressive realization of socio-economic rights with the maximum available resources, which prima facie prohibits retrogressive* measures that would limit or reduce existing levels of enjoyment of enshrined rights. Retrogressive measures can only be taken under very limited circumstances and based on key conditions – such as careful monitoring and evaluation, consideration of all rights, ensuring no disproportionate impact on the most vulnerable – none of which was applied by the Greek government. The wide array of retrogressive measures taken, combined with the increasing cost of living, are sufficient proof that the right to food was violated in Greece.
* Retrogressive measures means any measure that implies a step back in the level of human rights protection due to the intentional decision by a State.
7. Accountability for violations of the right to food rests both with the Greek government and the Eurozone Member States, with the latter arguably taking a greater share of the responsibility.
When a human right is violated, it means there has been a breach in the obligation to respect, protect and fulfill this human right. Many actors were involved in the negotiations leading to the three MoUs. Human rights obligations exist territorially and, under certain circumstances, extraterritorially.
As a result of the austerity measures, Greece has violated the human right to food of people living in Greece. Yet, Eurozone Member States, as direct lenders are also responsible as they signed the MoUs and likely pressured the Greek government to do so. Eurozone Member States – as States Parties to the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights and other international human rights instruments – have therefore breached their extraterritorial obligations to respect the human right to food in Greece. Not only should Eurozone States have refrained from requiring measures that affected the right to food, they should have also conducted human rights impacts assessments of the Memorandums. These HRIAs are required prior to, during, and after the passing of MoUs, but were never done.
Furthermore, all European States have failed to comply with their human rights obligations when acting and taking decisions in Intergovernmental Organisations and International Financial Institutions, such as in the International Monetary Fund. As part of the UN system, the latter is obliged to comply with the UN Charter which includes a commitment to the progressive realization of human rights. It certainly should not take any action that would constitute a human rights violation.
Troika members claim that the sole responsibility for the impacts of the MoUs lies with the Greek State. This argument is false because they, with Greece, were joint signatures of the three MoUs. Therefore, the responsibility for violations of the right to food is a shared one too. Indeed it can be argued that the responsibility of the Eurozone Member States is much bigger, given the evidence of direct interference or even coercion by the Member States of the Troika on Greece to sign the MoUs.
The focus of this report is on Greece, but its findings are relevant internationally. Greece is not an exception. Many other countries, in and outside of Europe, find themselves in similar situations, forced to implement austerity-driven, technocratic policies which lead to violations of economic, social and cultural rights including the fundamental right to food. Greece’s experience also shows that the violations of these fundamental rights are not only issues of the global South. They are happening in the global ‘North’. Hunger, food insecurity, poverty and material deprivation are European issues. Human rights are universal, which means all governments have obligations to fulfill them. It is time now for the EU to act in accordance with these obligations and put human rights above the needs of financial markets.
The Transnational Institute (TNI) is an international research and advocacy institute committed to building a just, democratic and sustainable planet. For more than 40 years, TNI has served as a unique nexus between social movements, engaged scholars and policy makers. www.tni.org
FIAN International was founded in 1986 as the first international human rights organization to advocate for the realization of the right to adequate food and nutrition. FIAN’s mission is to expose violations of people’s right to food wherever they may occur. www.fian.org
Agroecopolis is a young, grassroots non-profit, non- governmental organisation. It is the Hellenic Network for Agroecology, Food Sovereignty and Access To Land. www.agroecopolis.org
Bill Mitchell's post here
12/05/2018
Prisoners of memes, social media victims in India. Hell, this has Munich police/courts written all over it
What a coincidence and how small the world is. Stumbled today upon this article from India, a country usually associated with rampant corruption. But while reading I was more and more reminded of Munich police. It was eery. It is about social networks, memes with dissenting opinion, yeah, and how police and courts deal with this.
I am now in a limbo. Who advised here who?? Was it India advising Munich or vice versa? Going by the dates given in the article it must have been Munich advising Indian police.
Prisoners of memes, social media victims
India is increasingly jailing its young for online posts that ‘offend’ politicians. The impact on their lives and families is devastating
Confiscation of phone without court order? No difference in India or Munich. Prosecutors Ken Heidenreich and lately General Prosecutor Osthoff handle that easily. The latter lady with a blatant lie.
Debajit's phone also confiscated.
On October 19, when he was in his house, the police came and arrested him. The charges slapped on him include obstruction of a public servant discharging his functions, assault or criminal force to deter a civil servant, and making statements conducive to public mischief. He was remanded for two days in Balurghat, and his mobile phone was seized.
Police... have got into habit of presupposing illegality in the act of morphing itself. At best morphing can be an act of defamation...- Apar Gupta, Delhi-based lawyer
There is but one difference how Munich/Germany handles such infringements. Here police and courts have under-cover-of-the-night Nazi-style informers such as Jurgen Sonneck, a public employee (Beamter), using a false name.
Or lately some idiots going by the imposing name 'Center for Political Beauty'. Hold your pants, here is the 'About' of them beauticians:
The Center for Political Beauty is an assault team that establishes moral beauty, political poetry and human greatness while aiming to preserve humanitarianism.
Come again.
It is, however, the German version that gives them away. They are looking for secret informers to put people of opinions they do not condone out of work, at least shame them publicly. In all seriousness these fucktards are looking for "Komplizen" (accomplice, partner in crime). You can't make that up.
UPDATE: They have pulled their website meanwhile.
Back to the Livemint article here in full.
I am now in a limbo. Who advised here who?? Was it India advising Munich or vice versa? Going by the dates given in the article it must have been Munich advising Indian police.
Prisoners of memes, social media victims
India is increasingly jailing its young for online posts that ‘offend’ politicians. The impact on their lives and families is devastating
Initially, they all thought it was a joke when the police turned up. Once the prison gates opened, reality sunk in. Entering the dark, stinking cells, filled with dangerous looking strangers, they all felt a mix of emotions. There was of course incomprehension, fear, and an unexplainable feeling of guilt for an unknown crime. But the sheen of innocence held steady, at least in their mind. It was after all just a social media post, or comment, or argument.
Trouble has a strange way of announcing its arrival that makes one sit up and take notice—a knock on the door at 3 am; men in jackboots rummaging through the house without permission; a couple of police jeeps waiting outside the house well past midnight. When policemen from another state chase you down on an otherwise ordinary day, that’s when you realise, in India, there is no such thing as “just a social media post”.
In 2017 and 2018, based on reported incidents accessed by Mint, at least 50 people were arrested across India for posts on social media. Some spent half-a-year behind bars, a few were in jail for roughly a month, while others were let off within a week. The most recent ones to get added to the list were five men, all Muslim, who were arrested on 15 November and booked under the Information Technology Act for making “derogatory remarks” on Facebook against Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath and the RSS. The arrests have been across geographies and the political spectrum. Defence analyst Abhijit Iyer Mitra, a vocal BJP supporter, has spent over a month in an Odisha jail after a ‘joke’ on social media.
Among those arrested over the past year, almost all are very poor; most are illiterate; over half are Muslims; and many are recent Internet users (one of them had acquired his first smartphone less than a fortnight before his arrest). “What is common in a lot of these cases is that they concern a comment on social media, either about a political personality or an issue of public interest. These are not direct threats that are being made against any person,” says Apar Gupta, executive director of Internet Freedom Foundation, a digital rights advocacy group.
How they wear you down. In India and in Munich.
‘Each court hearing involves changing six buses and ₹550’
₹550 just for a bus fare is a lot of money for an ordinary Indian. Here is the story of one Indian youngster. In Munich they have government agencies like the Jobcenter and the Labor Agency Munich for this purpose and they cooperate wonderful with police and courts.
Mohammad Shaqib | 18 (Saharanpur, UP)
Shaqib is the only son in his family of seven. His father is an agricultural labourer, who earns ₹5,000 per month. Apart from Shaqib’s on-and-off earnings, his father is the only earning member of the family. He is shy and barely speaks, but he is the ghar ka laadla (the beloved son). So, all the members come together to do whatever it takes to give him what he wants. Last year, in late September, after taking tailoring lessons in his hometown of Saharanpur, his father Mohammad Saleem decided to send him to Aaduwala village in the outskirts of Dehradun. The salary wasn’t much, but there were many boys from his village working there. Fifteen days later, Shaqib came back home for four days—this time, with a mission. He wanted something no one in his family had. He wanted a smartphone. “Everyone around me had smartphones. Everyone was on social media. The phone I had was barely a phone...(It was a basic feature phone),” says Shaqib.
Unlike his father, Shaqib didn’t want a device that could just give a missed call and send texts. He wanted to be one of the country’s 400 million smartphone users. After a lot of tantrum throwing, as his mother puts it, his father gave in. He took a microfinance loan and got him a Redmi phone that cost ₹8,000. Shaqib went back happy and started experimenting with his new toy. And like many in his age bracket, he downloaded WhatsApp. Despite its no frills interface, it took Shaqib a while to understand how it worked. On 18 November, when it had been just 12 days after he acquired the phone, six men barged into his shop. They demanded to know his name and walked away with his phone. He followed them and saw a police jeep waiting outside. The team led by Pradeep Kumar, an inspector with the Haryana Police, had come all the way to Vikaspur after a Tohana resident filed a complaint claiming Shaqib had shared an offensive photograph on WhatsApp.
The cops told Shaqib not to worry, and that he would be let off. The forward was a photograph of a dark complexioned woman being touched inappropriately by a man, whose face had been morphed to resemble Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The text roughly read: Modi has brought back all the black money (in effect, mocking the anti-black money drive). Shaqib spent eight days in a bacha jail (juvenile home). He was booked under Section 67 (publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form), 67 A of the IT Act (transmission or publishing of sexually explicit material), and Section 292A (putting into circulation a grossly indecent or scurrilous picture) of the IPC (Indian Penal Code). It has been almost a year since Shaqib’s arrest. There have been four hearings in court—each deciding the date of the next hearing, and each court appearance involving a change of six buses from Saharanpur to Tohana, along with an expense of ₹550 per person. The family has reconciled with the fact that the case will go on for a while. But his father has decided not to give his son a smartphone again, and not to let Shaqib step out of Saharanpur—even if that means keeping his only son more or less unemployed.
Here is another poor soul's story.
‘My family is now called ghaddar’
(Ghaddar means rebel, insurrect)
Aleem Ahmad | 16 (Meerut, UP)
Aleem’s family in Meerut had, for long, commanded respect in their village, Nagla Salempur. His father was almost like a mukhya in the village. On 16August, when Atal Bihari Vajpayee died, Aleem wrote a Facebook post expressing anger against Vajpayee and implicitly pointing to his role in the demolition of Babri Masjid. Three days later, at 3 am, the family was woken up by a bang on the door. A group of policemen entered the house asking for Aleem. He was in Delhi then. On being told he wasn’t there, they went around looking for him “as if he was some big, wanted criminal,” his brother Azeem Ahmad recalls.
They went to the first floor, despite being told that women of the family were sleeping there. There were two police jeeps and some 15 policemen, Azeem claims. Their father was taken in “for questioning” and was told he may lose his government job. On 20 August, Aleem surrendered and was taken to a bacha jail in Noida. In the bacha jail, he was locked in with murderers and drug addicts and Aleem ended up spending 39 days there, after his bail was rejected thrice. The villagers, the family claims, have changed their behavior towards them. The family is now called “ghaddar” and “desh drohi”.
...administration has successfully had a chilling effect on free speech, not only of that individual but an entire...community- Sanjay Hegde, Senior Supreme Court Advocate
Aleem was booked under Section 153 A (promoting enmity between different groups) 153 B (assertions prejudicial to national integration), 295 (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings) of the IPC and Section 67 of the IT Act (punishment for publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form). Aleem’s wasn’t an isolated case. Several other arrests were made for social media posts after Vajpayee’s death. Naushad Khan, 24, from Varanasi, spent three months in jail for his post on Vajpayee. Another person, Arif Malik (23), a resident of Saharanpur, faced similar charges when he wrote a Facebook post without naming Vajpayee. He was sent to the district jail and an FIR was lodged against his friends – Arif, Rihan, Hasnain, Ali, Anees, who commented on Naushad’s status and agreed with the post.
Debajit's phone also confiscated.
On October 19, when he was in his house, the police came and arrested him. The charges slapped on him include obstruction of a public servant discharging his functions, assault or criminal force to deter a civil servant, and making statements conducive to public mischief. He was remanded for two days in Balurghat, and his mobile phone was seized.
Police... have got into habit of presupposing illegality in the act of morphing itself. At best morphing can be an act of defamation...- Apar Gupta, Delhi-based lawyer
There is but one difference how Munich/Germany handles such infringements. Here police and courts have under-cover-of-the-night Nazi-style informers such as Jurgen Sonneck, a public employee (Beamter), using a false name.
|
| Jürgen Sonneck alias "C. Paucher" |
Or lately some idiots going by the imposing name 'Center for Political Beauty'. Hold your pants, here is the 'About' of them beauticians:
The Center for Political Beauty is an assault team that establishes moral beauty, political poetry and human greatness while aiming to preserve humanitarianism.
Come again.
It is, however, the German version that gives them away. They are looking for secret informers to put people of opinions they do not condone out of work, at least shame them publicly. In all seriousness these fucktards are looking for "Komplizen" (accomplice, partner in crime). You can't make that up.
UPDATE: They have pulled their website meanwhile.
Back to the Livemint article here in full.
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