Why I won't join the Fidel Castro grief orgy

Fidel Castro is dead. And I, for one, will not be shedding a single tear for his passing.

As a journalist, I cannot mourn the passing of a man who on the day of his death left behind a country ranked at just 171 on the Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index. Cuba is ranked 171 out of 180 countries. It is dwelling at the bottom with other press freedom dumpster fires such as North Korea, Eritrea and Syria. It rates lower than Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and Turkey.

Just last month, Cuba arrested journalists who were attempting to cover the Hurricane Matthew disaster. Equipment was confiscated, and in the wake of harassment in recent months, some journalists have fled the country.

Raul Castro's calls for reforms in 2010 have been meaningless. The regime has almost 100 per cent ownership of all media outlets. Access to the internet for citizens is severely limited. Only around 5 per cent of Cubans have internet at home, all internet comes via the government-owned telco Etecsa. Opposition websites are blocked. There is no real editorial independence in Cuba. Censorship and threats to journalists trying to do their job are par for the course.

We will never know for certain how many people have been murdered under Fidel Castro's regime. The Cuba Archive has documented 3,615 firing squad executions since 1959. It's not on the same scale as the deaths under Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot or Mao but the mentality is the same - wipe out opposition and dissent through executions, a legal system without due process and labour camps.

Why would anyone who claims to chreish freedom, who is appalled by capital punishment, who believes in free and open political debate be OK with such repression, regardless of the scale?

"BUT FREE HEALTHCARE AND EDUCATION!" scream Castro's apologists.

Yeah, that's great as long as the educated, healthy people can actually fulfill their potential, travel freely, express their views freely, and enjoy access to a free press and a polling station once in a while. Have the apologists not noticed that plenty of countries have great educational and healthcare options and democracy? It should not be an either/or situation.

"BUT WHAT ABOUT THE US?!" the apologists yell.

It is precisely this non-nuanced, binary thinking that is turning the world into an idiocracy. It is possible to be angry about more than one thing. There is plenty to criticise the US over, especially in terms of foreign policy over multiple decades. But none of this will bring back the people who were on the receiving end of Castro's firing squads, or reunite families who have been separated, or bring peace to those who want to practice their faith without state repression.

People have risked their lives in dangerous sea voyages to escape the Castro regime. Yet it is stunning how many people who, I am certain, are quite rightly sympathetic to refugees escaping brutality, economic hardship and repression by sea in other parts of the world are seemingly unbothered by the plight of those who felt they had no choice but to leave Cuba. The hypocrisy is breathtaking.

Instead, I stand with the people who are dancing on the streets this weekend. The mere fact that I can sit here in London and criticise both the US and Cuba, and indeed Britain, without fearing for my life speaks volumes. Make mine a Cuba libre.



Photography by Kevin Burkett/Flickr

The death of Ataturk's vision

Ataturk's brilliant post WWI vision of a democratic, secular Turkey is in tatters today.

We went to bed on Friday night in the UK as a coup attempt by sections of the Turkish military was underway. Amid the chaos, there was an element of high farce as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a big fan of censorship and shutting down social media, was trying to speak to the nation on TV via Facetime, until the call dropped out. There were claims he was seeking asylum in Germany but Angela Merkel wouldn't have it. 

And, most hypocritically of all, Erdogan was calling for his supporters to take to the streets. Late at night. During a military coup. This is the same man who responds to people publicly protesting against his awful government with tear gas and rubber bullets. 

But he was more than happy to let his fans loose on the streets on Friday night. According to Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, 265 people were killed in the coup attempt, including civilians.

Boris Johnson, our new Foreign Secretary (yes, I know...), said he spoke to his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu to express support for the country's "democratically elected government and instititions".

However, there is evidence that the November 2015 elections were affected by fraud. These are the elections which President Erdogan's AKP Party won after losing an election in June 2015 and forcing a caretaker government rather than forming a coalition. He is a man who does not want to relinquish his grip on power. The Washington Post used an electronic electoral forensics toolkit to conclude that the results were most likely not above board. It could well be that, amazingly, voters in Istanbul cast 1.66 votes each as an email was leaked that appeared to show 10,316,871 voters cast 17,104,607. And then the official election results website went out of service. Incredible!

In any case, it is just another example of how democracy should not simply start and end at the ballot box. Gloating Brexiters telling Remainers to get over it, take note. 

As well as police routinely opening fire and tear-gassing anti-government protests in Turkey, internet censorship laws were passed in 2007 and amended in 2014 to broaden the scope of government blocking and to make it easier for the authorities to access data without a warrant, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube were temporarily blocked in April 2015 until they complied with severe restrictions, social media was blocked during the coup attempt, dozens of Turkish citizens have faced charges for criticising the government online, the Homeland Security Act 2015 increased the amount of time for which investigators can conduct wire taps and similar operations without a court order from 24 to 48 hours, and Turkey currently sits at a dismal 151 on the World Press Freedom Index out of 180 countries, dropping two places from last year.

It should come as no great surprise to anyone who has been observing Turkish politics for any extended period of time that a coup attempt happened over the weekend. The methods employed by the coup leaders will be debated for years to come but there are plenty of people in Turkey who may not be a fan of the methods yet they still agree with the stated aims of returning their beloved country to a proper, functional secular democracy.

We will never know if the coup leaders would have paved the way for a return to Ataturk's vision but we do know that dark days lie ahead for Turkey. Six thousand people have been arrested. There is serious talk of a return to capital punishment. It is a barbaric slippery slope to say it will be reintroduced simply for coup leaders. Does anyone trust Erdogan not to reintroduce it on a wider scale? For dissenters or journalists perhaps? They've already jailed two prominent journalists this year in outrageous circumstances.

Are we witnessing the birth of Erdogan's Islamist dictatorship?

None of this will help Turkey's bid to join the EU. Anyone who scaremongered about Turkey during the referendum campaign should feel pretty stupid today, although these people seem to be impossible to embarrass. And Turkey's role in the refugee crisis is now up in the air and this could have tragic consequences. The only positive would be for this to force the EU to work together properly on constructive solutions instead of member states taking simplistic, hardline approaches usually in a bid to appease rising far right groups across the continent.

It is a mess and, because of Turkey's fulcrum-like geographical location, it is a mess that will not be contained within its borders.

Photo by Faruk/Flickr

Grim times for peaceful protest

See that photo above? I am pretty sure I have very little in common politically with the people in the photo but I support their right to peacefully protest in Washington DC. In a free society, they have every right to express their views without inflicting violence on others or having violence inflicted upon them.

This is how peaceful protest should work. Peaceful protest does not necessarily mean quiet, demure protest. Hell, it does not necessarily mean protesting fully clothed either, Pussy Riot and Slutwalk being two cases in point.

But it has become abundantly clear that the right to peaceful protest is misunderstood.

The protest at the Conservative party conference was, objectively, by any reasonable person's measure, a peaceful one. It was estimated that at least 60,000 people marched in Manchester - with four arrests made, that means that, at worst, 0.00666666666% of all the people who protested were arrested. But the tiny and unconstructive minority ensured that anything but the nation-changing issues raised by the protestors got airplay in the next day's papers.

The newspapers have the right to run whatever the hell they want on their front pages. That is how a free press works. But sadly, a few buffoons gave the press a leave pass to run stories that were not related to any of the motivations behind the protest?

Journalists were spat it, which is obviously completely revolting. I understand the frustrations with the media that might lead to spitting but that does not make spitting on someone trying to do their job in any way acceptable. Pitifully though, when I tweeted that I "understand the frustrations", I was jumped on by a Tory apologist hate mob who accused me of condoning spitting. Which I did not do. Never mind that I am the person who dry-retches if I overhear someone spitting across the other side of the road. Apparently, understanding why people are frustrated with the media made me the patron saint of expectoration.

Someone threw an egg at a young Conservative who was trying to get a rise out of the crowd by brandishing a photo of Margaret Thatcher, even though he was probably still in nappies - or possibly not yet conceived - when Thatcher was ousted in 1990. The "egg-throwing yobs" became front page news rather than the issues that are a legacy of Thatcher's Britain.

And some people used their freedom of speech to yell "Tory scum!" at Boris Johnson as he entered the Conservative Party Conference. He punned his way into the headlines by claiming he was warmly welcomed with cries of "Tories, come!". Oh, the hilarity. And, thus, the fact that Boris Johnson only had the cojones to criticise the impact of his party's welfare cuts on Londoners after he voted for the bill that includes the welfare cuts, went unnoticed.

Then there was the sickening, dreadful report of street sexual harassment and a rape threat made to a woman attending the Conservative Party conference. This story was broken with minimal detail by Guido Fawkes. It is not known whether the accused was affiliated to any groups at the protest or whether he was just some random dickhead who decided to join in and allegedly behave like a sexist douchebag. I can only say "allegedly" because it is unclear if the incident was reported to the police. After all, police officers were not in short supply at the protest. Or was the woman concerned happy to just let Guido Fawkes use the story to further his political agenda and equally as happy to let a man who thinks sexual harassment and rape threats are OK to walk freely around Manchester?

And look at that, I've just spent four paragraphs of this blog post doing exactly what the establishment wants. I've talked about the minute minority rather than the real concerns of the 59,994 or more people who managed to march on the Conservative Party conference last Sunday without being arrested.

And just this weekend in Ankara, the Turkish capital, more than 100 people were killed in a bomb blast at a peace rally. Many are holding the government responsible, either directly or indirectly, and, at the time of writing, nobody has claimed responsibility.

Anybody, regardless of their politics, should be horrified at this infringement on the right to peaceful protest in Turkey. But, if you are also part of the brigade that judged the entire march on the Conservative party on the actions of a few, if you seriously think Boris Johnson's beloved water cannon should be used for events like this, I have to ask you: Why do you hate freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and democracy so much?

Democracy does not begin and end at the ballot box. It is a continuous process that includes the right to protest. It is not about people who didn't vote Conservative being "sore losers" unless your political thinking has not evolved past that of a six-year-old. Peaceful protest is one way to challenge the government, hold them to account, and suggest alternatives.

It does not matter if the protest comes from the left, the right or the middle. The right to do so peacefully must be upheld if we are serious about living in a democracy. Whether it is the 250,000 who marched against TTIP in Berlin this week or a handful of Britain First types brandishing inarticulate signs and yelling inarticulate slogans about immigration, it is a right we should all cherish.

One day, you might be the one being silenced because you were angry enough to protest but more people were angry enough at protests in general to stand by and let water cannon - or worse - take over.




Photography by Peter Griffin

Azerbaijan's press freedom: #JeSuisYunus

Jeremy Clarkson has been fired as presenter of Top Gear. Assorted idiots across Britain are behaving as if this is a monstrous attack on free speech. It is not. He had all the free speech he wanted but he cannot get away with assaulting a colleague. The only person responsible for the likely end of Top Gear is Jeremy Clarkson himself.

I do not want to talk any more about Jeremy Clarkson. I want to talk about Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan is home to true martyrs of free speech. Khadija Ismayilova is locked up on an absurd charge of inciting a colleague to commit suicide. She is best known for reporting on high level government corruption in Azerbaijan. Seymour Khazi, another journalist who has investigated the government, is serving five years for "aggravated hooliganism." His defence is that he was attacked and acted in self-defence. He has accused the president of ordering his arrest and has written an open letter in support of Khadija Ismayilova.

One of the most shocking cases is that of Leyla and Arif Yunus. Leyla is a leading human rights campaigner and her husband is an academic. The couple, married for 37 years, has been detained separately. They were arrested at home in July 2014 on trumped-up charges of state treason, high treason, tax evasion, illegal entrepreneurship, falsification of documents and fraud. Leyla and Arif are both in poor health. Their detention period has been extended until August 2015. Leyla and Arif's daughter, Dinara, is currently exiled in The Netherlands where she is campaigning for their release as well as for true freedom for Azerbaijan.

The notion of a free media is laughable in Azerbaijan. As well as jailing journalists and activists without fair trials or due process, Radio Azadliq was raided and documents confiscated earlier this year. Last month, President Ilham Aliyev signed amendments to media legislation that make it easier for the government to shut down news outlets.

But none of this is getting a whole lot of attention in the west. Today if you do a Google News search of "Azerbaijan", the top two stories about this country are about the opening of a Harvey Nichols department store in Baku, and the country's increased oil production. The next cab off the rank on the Google News search is a scant eight reports from obscure news outlets about how the president is "miffed" about criticism ahead of the European Games, which Baku is hosting in June.

Boo hoo. Poor little President Aliyev is miffed that people are trying to call him out for his despotic ways.

Still, he won't waste too much time being miffed. He can simply shut down media outlets so much faster these days, in between jailing the outspoken. It's not as if there is a Europe-wide movement of country leaders calling for a boycott of the games. So they'll go ahead without controversy, just as the Winter Olympics did in Russia and the Summer Olympics did in China, those other bastions of human rights and freedom. And Qatar will keep its 2022 World Cup tournament despite its appalling record on human rights - everything from deaths of labourers building the stadium to Sheikha Mozah's involvement with a clinic that claims it can cure gay people.

It's all about the money. Whenever corruption is tolerated and human rights abuses swept under the carpet, there is almost always a trail of money that you can follow to the source of the stench.

Just as Europe is heavily reliant on Russian gas, everyone wants to do business with China and massive companies such as Shell are making a fortune in Qatar, Azerbaijan's economy is on the up thanks to oil. Foreign investment is on the rise. Nestle, another company with questionable ethics, has just been announced as a major sponsor of the European Games. As per today's news, Harvey Nicholls has opened up in Baku - it is rather like when Harvey Nicks opened in Dubai in an attempt by that particular city to replicate the best of the west in all but democracy.

There is money to be made, there are businesses to boom, there is oil to be drilled, there are human rights and freedoms to be thrown under the bus.

It is highly unlikely any western country will take a stand against Azerbaijan's human rights abuses any time soon. Sadly, the likes of #BringBackClarkson will continue to dominate in a way that #JeSuisYunus really should.

Charlie Hebdo, part trois... The Plimsoll line returns. And has the bear been poked?

Back in September 2013, long before most of the world had heard of Charlie Hebdo, I blogged about the Plimsoll line of modesty. I was ranting, as I sometimes to, on how frequently women can't win, no matter what they choose to do/say/wear etc.

Get your boobs out on Page 3 and risk being called a slag and a traitor to other women, wear something Islamic and you'll be told you're oppressed as if you are a stupid child, wear a short skirt and you might be asking to be raped, dress a little dowdily and you run the risk of some concern troll offering you a makeover, and whether your shoes are high or low, you may have to defend your choice to wear them and declare them as "empowering" even if you're just wearing them to keep your feet dry.

It is as if there is an imaginary Plimsoll line for hem lengths and square inches of flesh exposed before a woman crosses from slapper to sheepish. And now it would seem there is a Plimsoll line for offence as well.

The question has been asked over and over again since the Charlie Hebdo massacre: Did the magazine poke the bear?

And this is where there has been a global exercise in missing the point and, ultimately blaming murder victims for their own demise from everybody including the Pope. That said, the Pope is perfectly entitled to express his views and anyone who uses words rather than bullets for dissent is doing it right.

So the big question is: At what point is something fair comment, accurate reportage or "acceptable" satire and at what point does it become offensive? There is no one point for all people for this to happen. It depends on the individual. There is no Plimsoll line for offensiveness. This is not a question with a solitary right or wrong answer.

Plenty of people, and not just IS-loving extremist terrorists, found plenty of Charlie Hebdo's cartoons for different reasons - but the people who are not extremist lunatics have used their freedom of speech to call out Charlie Hebdo, as is their right to do so. They have not shot people dead as the extremist lunatics have done. It is a tragedy that the dead magazine staffers are no longer around to engage in any sort of meaningful conversations about their work and answer their critics.

As I said, there is no Plimsoll line for offensiveness. Monty Python's The Life Of Brian, for example, offended countless Christians when it was released in 1979 but there were plenty of Christians who found it hilarious. Likewise, who is to know where the line should be drawn with material that may offend Muslims? Again, it depends on the Muslim. Plenty of Muslims are offended by Charlie Hebdo but defend the magazine's right to free speech. And other Muslims may disagree with this entirely. Nobody speaks for all the world's Muslims any more than anyone spoke for all the world's Christians in 1979.

But the Monty Python team were not assassinated for making The Life Of Brian, just as nobody has been killed over The Book Of Mormon. Indeed, the Mormons have used the show as a PR tool which is rather brilliant.

So does all satire about Muslims need to be tempered in case more maniacs decide to gun down journalists, cartoonists and editors? This is the question that shows a lack of understanding about terrorism. Terrorism is effective because of the horrific element of surprise. Even after 9/11 and 7/7 and the Madrid bombing, we are still shocked when something like this happens, we remember where we were when we heard the news, we panic when it happens close to home or close to our loved ones.

Charlie Hebdo could, I suppose tone down the satire. But that would not necessarily save any more lives. And what is stopping another publication from being the next target? The Daily Mail, for example, sometimes renders satire redundant. It, like the Daily Express, is also a newspaper that does not exactly give Islam an easy ride. So, should these newspapers stop publishing stories on, say, the Rotherham sex abuse scandal just in case some maniac turns up at their offices and shoots everyone? Or how about Jezebel, a US website that often publishes stories about the latest insane thing Saudi Arabia has done to women? Plenty of Muslims find Saudi to be a ridiculous regime. Others may think banning women from driving and making sure male guardians give women permission for everything from working to travelling is perfectly reasonable. So should Jezebel quit calling out Saudi's sexist bullshit?

If any of these outlets became the target of a terrorist, we'd still be shocked. And then fearful. And then we start censoring, editors start second-guessing themselves, people start cancelling travel plans or changing their daily routine. And that is how terrorists win.

See? Where does it end? Does every news outlet in the world have to keep self-censoring and neutering stories and tempering opinion pieces until all it is left with is bland, inoffensive material that is of no use to anyone?

Charlie Hebdo may have poked the bear but everyone has their own bear and the level of poking it can withstand can vary wildly.

Interestingly, the outrage over the Charlie Hebdo cartoon depicting the victims of Boko Haram's kidnapping and sexual enslavement as pregnant welfare queens was, I thought, ridiculous. I was so relieved when someone else interpreted it the same way I did - not as a sexist dig at the victims but a poke in our collective consciences over our attitudes in EU countries to Muslims on benefits. There is always outrage at asylum seekers on benefits and immigrants on benefits - and if they happen to be Muslim, that seems to kick the outrage meter up a few more notches. But there is still outrage, sometimes from the same people, at the kidnappings and forced marriages. To me, it posed the question of what we'd do if all the victims turned up on our borders, pregnant to their Boko Haram rapists, seeking asylum and state benefits. Would we all suddenly be collectively generous to these women or would attitudes remain unchanged?

I thought it was one of Charlie Hebdo's better cartoons. The cartoon depicting a black female politician as a monkey was, I thought, rather repulsive and I have no problem with saying that without reaching for a gun.

If this whole story has taught us anything, it's that satire doesn't always travel well and a lot of people have been left either baffled by French satire or simply unamused. But satire doesn't have to be universally amusing. Not everyone has to get it. And nobody should be killed over it.

You should be able to poke the bear. It is up to the bear to respond in a civilised manner.



Photography by Lilla Frerichs

Charlie Hebdo, what now? Part Deux

Following on from last week's blog post on the Charlie Hebdo murders, it is clear we still really don't know what to do about all this terrorism and the threats to free speech and a free press. What is clear is that the right to free speech includes the right to say something stupid (and this is as it should be) and plenty of people are exercising their right in this manner.

Still, facetiousness aside, it is heartening to see people in multiple cities come out in their thousands in a show of defiance against threats to free speech but ironically, the wall-to-wall coverage of these marches has taken up so much of the news cycle that other important stories are not being reported.

Indeed, to add to the irony, among the leaders of nations who linked arms to show their support for free speech in Paris were plenty of people who would do well to clean up their own backyards.

We have Francois Hollande demanding to know how the attack could have happened despite laws passed at the end of 2013 which increased government surveillance powers. Here's a clue, Francois: Your stupid laws aren't working. Then there is David Cameron who rushed through email and phone surveillance laws last year, describing them as "essential".Oh, and let's not forget Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel. That'd be the same Israel that jailed three journalists in 2013 and targets journalists, especially those trying to cover the situation in Gaza. Not that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, also at the march, is any better with attempts to control the messages people hear via state-controlled media and ensuring peace negotiations are kept secret and not properly reported. And Queen Rania of Jordan was there too. She'd be the one everyone says is so amazing yet she is also queen of a country that blocked 300 news websites in 2013 and isn't above jailing journalists either. But she seems to get a leave pass because she has such great style.

Barack Obama and John Kerry were criticised for not being there, despite the US ambassador to France and the Assistant Secretary of State being there. John Kerry was in India and is off to Paris next week for talks on countering violent extremism. Maybe Obama couldn't be arsed to attend, maybe he was busy doing other things, maybe he didn't want to link arms with a bunch of hypocrites, maybe it seemed like a futile exercise to him. I don't know and I don't really care just as I wouldn't really care if Bush was still in the White House and he didn't take a trip to Paris.

The reason I don't care is because one of the more ridiculous responses to all this has been to demand that every newspaper in the world print the Charlie Hebdo cartoons in a show of solidarity. "Demand" is the operative word here. While it was certainly absurd that numerous media outlets ran pixellated versions of the cartoons with their coverage of this story, trying to force every newspaper to run the controversial cartoons is not what free speech is about either.

If a newspaper doesn't want to run a cartoon for whatever reason, they shouldn't have to do that. You don't have to publish every single thing that has offended someone in order to be an advocate for a free and fearless press, or to defend the right of others to publish things that may cause offence.

A great way to not hand victory to those who threaten press freedom would be for journalists to simply keep on working, to be fearless, to not be bound by political agendas, to pause every time they are self-censoring to ask why they are doing this and what they - or their masters - are so scared of.

Having worked for five years in the UAE, I was involved in some absurd self-censorship. I wrote an opinion piece about how easy and transformative it would be for the UAE to have a rail service to link all seven emirates. If it ever happens in my lifetime, I will be stunned. As such, I ended the piece with: "Do the leaders of the UAE have the political will to make this happen?". Cue a panic-stricken editor emerging from his office, fearful that I had broken the country's laws against criticising the rulers.

"But Georgia, it sounds like you don't think they have the political will to do this!" he wailed at me.

"That's right. I don't think they do."

"But people might think that we think they can't do this."

"I know, hence I wrote it as a rhetorical question so people can make their own minds up."

"Can you please tone it down, Georgia?"

As a result, a wishy-washy ending to my opinion piece went to press. Sigh... But I was working in a country that does not have a proper free press or freedom of assembly. I knew the score when I moved to the UAE and my time there was sometimes frustrating but the experience was still worthwhile. And it was obvious my boss was terrified of jail and deportation over a little column in the corner of the newspaper's motoring section.

For those working as journalists in the Middle East, I hope you can one day be a bit more fearless than I was over an opinion piece about trains. And for those of us who are working in countries that are doing better on the Reporters Without Borders Free Press Index, a lot of us can probably do better ourselves. We don't need to be forced to print anything we don't want to print. But a media governed by fear, even if there is nothing in legislation to justify the fear (and even if there is, quite frankly...), is not much of a media at all and it serves nobody.

Picture by Petr Kratochvil

After the Charlie Hebdo murders, what now?

There it is. One of the cartoons that has caused at least 12 people in the office of Charlie Hebdo to lose their lives today.

For those who can't read French, it is a cartoon of the leader of IS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and the words simply say: "Best wishes, by the way. To you, al Baghdadi," and he says: "Especially to your health!". One wonders how weak one's beliefs are if they feel the need to shoot 12 people over such a statement.

Yet for this and other similar cartoons, two cowardly murderers who didn't have the balls to show their moronic faces stormed the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine and opened fire.

And the response to this latest act of terrorism, this latest attack on free speech, is the same old, same old. There's the usual blaming of every Muslim on the planet, the usual calls for moderate Muslims to speak out (which every moderate Muslim/agnostic Muslim/lapsed Muslim I know, and plenty I don't know, do all the time, over and over again, and I really do not know how much more they can do...), the usual plaintive calls for better understanding among all people of the world, the usual pointing out of violence by non-Muslims...

In short, we really don't know what to do.

You don't have to dig too deeply in the comments section of an online news story about, say, burqas to find people saying that France has the right idea on this issue, even those who may otherwise think France is a seething den of sinful socialism. The European Court of Human Rights upheld France's right to ban the burqa last year, a law that has been in place since 2010. France also bans all outward signs of any religion in all government schools. None of this stopped today's disgusting, terrifying events. Equally, Australia, the UK, Spain and the US do not ban the burqa and do allow outward symbols of religion to be worn in state schools and these countries have all experienced the deadly evils of warped Islamic extremism as well.

On top of all this, reports abound of French Jews are leaving their country because of a rise in anti-semitism, including violent attacks on people and synagogues. In 2013, a record 3,270 French Jews immigrated to Israel, a 63% increase from 2012.

So, yeah, there are problems in France, just as there are problems globally with people struggling with the basic concept of live and let live.

Fighting poverty and ensuring everyone has access to education are important actions in the fight against extremism. But plenty of educated, affluent people have gone on to be jihadis.

We really don't know what to do.

I will share the Charlie Hebdo cartoon, although this isn't some heroic act of courage on my part. I fully expect to make it home safely tonight without being targeted by a lunatic over this blog as I anonymously walk to the tube station. I will continue to support the right to freedom of speech, freedom of expression and a free press. But I've always done this, as have so many people everywhere, and still this shit happens.

But we cannot go on censoring ourselves, censoring those with whom we disagree, wanting to ban all the things that might offend us, deliberately trying to be offended instead of ignoring that which one might find offensive, seeking to police humour, and squashing satire along the way.

I am not going to pretend I have all the answers to this one. I don't. I am not sure who does or if anyone does.But I have just seen scenes from Paris appear in my newsfeed. It's a large gathering in France's gorgeous capital city of a diverse group of people gathering in solidarity with Charlie Hebdo and, as a result, with journalists everywhere. A similar gathering is about to start in London. This is moving, important stuff and to scoff at such gatherings is to be, quite frankly, a bit of a dick.

I will end this blog post with an abridged version of my friend Luke Thornhill's Facebook status. As a sports journalist, he is thankful that the only backlash he gets in his line of work is the odd accusation of bias against a sporting team or a tweet from an angry fan, but that does not make him any less of a champion for a free press.

In a world where we really don't know what to do, Luke's resolution and subsequent actions in response to today's events sure as hell beat doing nothing at all.

I have decided to be a bit more Muslim-like and give more of what would loosely be termed as zakat. The Big Issue seller in Hull was the first beneficiary, with a cuppa and sandwich to go with his tip in return for his wares, I hope that the perpetrators of this attack die a little bit more inside on the coals of hell when they realise they're helping turn me into a better person, and that today I did it by adopting a pillar of Islam and supporting a magazine which exercises its freedom of speech in such a brilliant way. Peace be upon you.



  

20 ways to not be a dick in 2015

Happy new year! Here are a few tips on how to not be a dick in 2015. You're welcome.

1. Do not mistake UKIP for the party of free speech. They will only publicly defend your right to free speech if you agree with them or say something racist, sexist or homophobic because that means you have the "courage" to say what we are all really thinking. Apparently. This is also a party that is desperate for its members to stay off social media lest someone says something stupid.

2. On the same token, UKIP members can use their freedom of speech to say something stupid. Indeed, anyone can use their freedom of speech to say something stupid. Always remember that you have the freedom to ignore anything someone says that you find stupid. If you are seeking to silence someone, ask yourself whether this is because you feel threatened by what they are saying.

3. If you succeed in getting something banned that you don't like, do not act all surprised if something you do like also gets banned.

4. If you walk down the street with your face in your phone, do not get all indignant if you walk into someone. It is not their fault.

5. Before you blame immigrants for any problems with the NHS, bear in mind that the real cost pressures are coming from rancid PFI deals and the astronomical costs of administering the tender process for contracts.

6. If you whine about "BBC lefty bias", you will sound like a weapons grade bellend.

7. Vaccinate your kids.

8. Do not interrogate women without children about why they don't have children or when they might have children. It is none of your business.

9. If you are an MP, consider not giving yourself another massive pay rise this year. You also might like to consider paying for all manner of stuff yourself. Such as meals. And home maintenance.

10. Londoners! Unless it is the last tube of the night, there is no need to run for it or barge open the doors with an enormous bag of shopping just as they are beeping closed. There will be another train.

11. Refrain from eating oranges or mandarins on public transport. It's gross.

12. I am sure your children are adorable. They will be even more adorable if they do not ride scooters in supermarkets with narrow aisles and will be more likely to celebrate another birthday if they don't ride said scooters at speed on busy high streets. This and point number seven comprise the full extent of my parenting advice.

13. If you live somewhere like Dubai, a pet husky is a stupid idea.

14. The Duchess of Cambridge is not amazing. If you think she is amazing, you are too easily amazed.

15. Do not get all your news from one source. This will turn you into a moronic caricature.

16. I know it's an embarrassment of embarrassments rather than an embarrassment of riches when it comes to the talent of many MPs or potential MPs in Britain but it is still smart to vote. You never know. Your vote may even make a difference, especially if your MP has a tiny majority.

17. Don't whine about the death of the high street if you never actually use the shops on the high street.

18. Detoxing is a myth. We detox every day by doing a poo. But there is no money to be made in telling people this. Eat well, everything in moderation, et cetera et cetera. Boring but effective.

19. Similarly, if you don't eat sugar/gluten/meat/whatever food is declared lethal this week, that is your choice. But don't bore me with your sanctimony. I will continue to eat all of the above in varying quantities.

20. If another person's sex life is consensual, mind your own business. They probably don't want you to join in.

Censorship, censorship everywhere and not a chance to think...

You think you can say what you like? Think again. This blog has been routinely blocked by O2 and EE using stupid internet filters that treat adult consumers like children. O2 regularly makes Barry Butler, a freelance ESOL teacher from the Midlands, jump through absurd hoops every time he tries to read this blog and finds it has been blocked. 

EE has also been guilty of preventing adult customers from accessing this blog - this is especially ridiculous given that EE sponsored the BAFTA awards the other week. Let me see if I understand. We have a phone company that has prevented adults from accessing the internet in its entirety putting its name to a celebration of the British film industry. That would be an industry which over the years has given the world some of the most brilliant, subversive and controversial contributions to the cultural landscape. 

Corporations are already doing the work of the government whose plans for internet filtering are anti-free speech in the extreme. There is an alarming dearth of opposition to these plans in the House of Commons or the House of Lords. If that doesn't strike you as the start of an ominous future of restricted speech and expression, we need to sit down and have a little chat.

And then we have the mob mentality which seeks to silence anything offensive. Personally, I think Katie Hopkins is an attention-seeking professional troll. I don't tune in when she is on TV, I don't follow her on Twitter, I simply cannot be bothered with her nonsense. But she has every right to spout whatever it is that she says. The same goes for lads' mags, Frankie Boyle, Seth McFarlane, Sarah Silverman and anyone or anything else that people have sought to ban.

Campaigning website change.org wasted bandwidth with an e-petition to remove Katie Hopkins from ITV and Channel 5 after she she tweeted something tasteless after the helicopter crash in Scotland late last year. And, by jingo, it worked! Hopkins was indeed dropped from ITV's This Morning programme. Seriously, it is far saner to just not watch her if you don't like her. Frankly, I'd be happy if Keith Lemon, Citizen Khan, Mrs Brown's Boys or Chris Lilley never appeared on TV again because they're all about as funny as burning orphans but starting up an e-petition is childish and misses the point. 

Once you seek to ban something just because you don't like it, there is no reason why something you do like cannot be banned too.

We also have problematic discussions when it comes to banning hate speech. The thing is we don't actually need any more laws on hate speech. The UK already has laws against verbal abuse as well as physical abuse. If you yell something awful at someone and it causes distress or upset, you have broken the law and the judge will have to consider the hate speech aspect of it when sentencing. Similarly, if someone is beaten up for whatever reason, this is against the law and the judge again has to take into account whether there is any hateful motivation, such as racism or homophobia, when passing sentence. The impact of such abuse should be pretty obvious - I don't want to live in a society where it is acceptable to beat someone up for any reason - and in the case of assaults, either verbal or physical, that are motivated by hate, education is just as important as harsh sentences.

But this does not mean someone should not be allowed to speak out against issues such as same sex marriage or further immigration. I may find the views of someone opposed to marriage equality or immigration from certain nations absurd, illogical, unconstructive, unpleasant or just plain moronic - but if their views are silenced as "hate speech" there is nothing to stop other opinions also being shut down. If you start cutting down the right to express opinions, even ones with which you violently disagree, you automatically restrict your right to refute it.

And then there are more insidious ways that we are censored. 

The "gagging law" passed through Parliament, albeit with a few minor amendments and there was no mass outrage because, basically, people didn't take the time to understand it or think about how it might affect them. It imposes ridiculous requirements on lobbying groups (but not corporations...) in the run-up to elections and is essentially aimed at silencing groups such as trade unions and the implications go beyond silencing some rowdy unionists. Hint: If a law is opposed by various groups across the political spectrum, groups who typically disagree with each other, it's probably a bad law. The bureaucracy that will be involved in monitoring the membership lists and campaign spending of lobby groups flies in the face of government claims that they are all about spending less public money and being a libertarian party of small government. 

And just today I was tweeting in my other guise at the @Save_St_Helier account, whereby I am part of a campaign to try and retain vital services at my local hospital, such as A&E, maternity, renal and kids' intensive care. A few of us asked faceless bureaucrats in the Twitterverse for some transparency in relation to a process which has so far cost taxpayers £8.2 million. How the hell was a review of local healthcare services costing us so much money? 

We finally found out that £1.874 million of our money was paid to 2020 Delivery, one of those vague consultancies whereby a peruse of their website leaves you none the wiser about what they actually do. All we were told by the bureaucrats was that the £1.874 million was spent on "finance and activity monitoring and travel and transport analysis". But we can't really find out a whole lot more because Freedom of Information legislation does not apply to private companies, only public bodies. It's just another way to stop the free flow of information, to drive people who are using their freedom to publicly ask questions into a brick wall and to keep us passive and quiet.

I'm exhausted. I apologise for this blog post rambling all over the place but once you start looking at the ways in which we are censored, the ways in which the flow of information is restricted, the ways in which we seek to ban that which we dislike without thinking through the consequences, you soon discover a multi-headed hydra of anti-freedom bullshit has grown before your very eyes. Now, who wants to help me slay the hydra? It's a big job but it's one of the most important jobs we will ever do.   

Image: "Resurrection de la Censure", JJ Grandville

Journalists working for free: It's just not cricket or capitalism

Journalism is a job. Just like any other job, real work is done. It can be tiring, the hours can be anti-social, countless studies have shown us up to be terrible at marriage and a bit too good at alcohol consumption, but the rewards can be priceless. Well, almost priceless. Just because many journalists genuinely love their job, it does not mean they should do it for nothing. Like anyone else, journalists have to eat, they have bills to pay, they cannot get by on bylines alone.

But it is a profession where many are expected to work for free. Especially freelance journalists. There is barely a freelancer alive who hasn't been told that the work will be "good for your portfolio" or "it will be good exposure" or "we're not paying anyone because the company hasn't yet broken even". And so on and so forth.

And some companies aren't even that honest. It is a rare freelancer that has been paid for every single piece of work they have produced or, at the very least, hasn't had to embark on a frustrating wild goose chase with editors and accounts staff to ensure money they are legally entitled to ends up in their frequently depleted bank accounts. I know someone who once staged a sit-in at the accounts department of a well-known newspaper. He was only handed a cheque when he lit up a cigarette indoors and refused to put it out. Journalists should not have to resort to being a fire hazard to get paid.

Nor should journalists have to resort to embarrassing people on social media or calling in lawyers because monies owing have not been paid. A high end magazine that I am currently not naming for legal reasons is one such case in point. It was launched in Asia with four issues produced, leaving in its wake a bunch of unpaid freelance journalists and subscribers who never received a single copy. The publisher is now trying his luck in the competitive British market.

I've seen the high quality launch party invitations. I can only assume that these weren't free, that someone paid the printing costs. And, given it's a magazine launch, booze will most likely flow freely and the canapes will most likely be Hoovered up. I can only assume that caterers will be paid for their services. So why haven't journalists who were commissioned to work for the Asian edition been paid?

Well, the plot thickens. I decided to defend the unpaid writers on social media and by the end of today, I'd received a message from the publisher promising that the writers will be paid in two weeks. He has not explained why they were not paid in a timely manner. He has also promised to me that subscribers who have not received copies of the Asian edition will receive six issues free of charge. I will keep everyone posted on whether everyone is paid in full within the next two weeks.

I wish the publisher well in his British endeavours, if only because I value a free press operating in a free market economy, and I value diversity in the media. Without that sort of press freedom, we have North Korea. I value the BBC, I value not-for-profit media outlets such as Channel 4 but I also value the outlets that operate in the free market. The more publications the market can support, the more work there is for journalists and this means there are more ways for people to get their information on everything from sports cars to Syria. 

And this means that media outlets have to value the skills of journalists, to pay them properly so that quality products are created, products that people will want to consume, products that advertisers can work with, confident that it is credible, that print run and circulation figures are not being massaged, products that paid-up subscribers will receive in a timely manner without publishers having to give away freebies to save face. This is not just good for the media, it is smart business sense. And part of this is ensuring the people that do the work are paid. Nobody should have to do their jobs as a labour of love. When people are not paid, that is when there is a greater reliance on the welfare state. Why would any capitalist support that? Yet, sadly, it appears, so many do. There are plenty of media businesses constantly advertising for unpaid interns, unpaid full time staff or not paying in a timely manner, or simply not paying at all. It has to stop.



Photograph of Jane Stafford, scientist and medical writer, from the Smithsonian Institute.

Losing lads' mags and the slippery slope of censorship

The hashtag popped up on Twitter over an otherwise quiet bank holiday weekend. Suddenly my Twitter feed erupted with #losetheladsmags - as an unrepentent former employee of a lads' mag, I was curious so I took a peek at the Lose The Lads' Mags website.

UK Feminista and Object are on the warpath and they want high street shops to take lads' mags (the likes of Nuts, Zoo and FHM) off the shelves or risk legal action. Without any hard data linking such magazines to sexual assault or domestic violence, the website asserts that lads' mags "promote sexist attitudes and behaviours" and "normalise the idea that's acceptable to treat women like sex objects."

It's as if men looking at women's bodies is something new...

Just as well then that UK Feminista and Object are on the case to stop customers and shop employees from being exposed to such filth. That'd be the customers who can choose not to buy magazines they find offensive and employees who have accepted jobs in shops where they know such magazines are sold.

Seriously, where might this ban-hammering end? Or is this an attempt at selective censorship on the part of UK Feminista and Object?

Would UK Feminista and Object be up for defending the sensibilities of customers and employees who did not want to be exposed to gay magazines because they find homosexuality offensive? What if someone's religious views were offended by the opinions put forward in, say, The Jewish Chronicle or The Muslim News? What if an anti-birth control Roman Catholic wanted to work in Boots but not process any transactions for condoms?

UK Feminista and Object have "obtained brand new legal advice showing that displaying and selling lads' mags and papers with Page 3-style front cover images can constitute sexual harassment or sex discrimination under the Equality Act 2010." In short, if shops sell magazines that have been approved for unrestricted sale in a free society with a free press, staff and customers could have a claim, according to UK Feminista and Object.

Excellent! More work for lawyers! And even better, the people who are employed by such magazines might find themselves out of work! Yeah, what a great result in the current economy!

In the midst of the rush to sign petitions and be offended, UK Feminista and Object are not listening to the women who choose to work in men's magazines, whether they are writers, photographers, graphic designers, stylists, sales and marketing staff or indeed the models themselves. Do they not want to ask these women how they feel about it all? Do they think the models are bimbos who don't know what they're doing and are unable to speak out if they feel oppressed? Why are two groups claiming to know what is best for women who work out of choice on such magazines?

If women want to pose for lads' mags or work for them, that's their choice. Nobody held a gun to my head and forced me to work for the now-defunct Australian edition of FHM. I did not feel oppressed or feel I was oppressing people by writing headlines and captions, interviewing the women who appeared in the magazine, writing features which generally told men where they were going wrong, or compiling and styling the sex pages (which gave women another opportunity to tell men where they were going wrong...).

Much of the humour of FHM was about men being self-deprecating - more often than not, the joke was on them. We never made jokes about rape or paedophilia on my watch. And in an excellent example of self-regulation and learning from mistakes, an outcry concerning the Hillsborough tragedy, led FHM to quit using comedy captions on serious stories about issues such as terrorism, war veterans or prisons.

But it's far easier to clutch pearls, get outraged and call for bans in a free market economy.

Indeed, why are the generally healthier body sizes of women in lads' mags a target for censorship but not the unhealthy body sizes of fashion magazines? A perusal of the boobs on the Nuts magazine website is an interesting exercise in mammary variety - there are big breasts, small breasts, some are real, some have been surgically enhanced, some nipples are big, some are small, some are the national average cup size, some boobs sit high while other hang low. If a woman is at all worried that her breasts are in some way abnormal, the Nuts website is a good place to seek reassurance.

And if you don't want to look at such websites or buy such magazines, you don't have to do so.

But what about the children? Er, don't buy lads' mags for your kids. If you don't want your children seeing such mags, don't have them in the house. If your child spots such a magazine and asks why the lady has no clothes on, there are any number of non-hysterical responses you could make depending on how old the kid is. Because it was a hot day, because she is happy with her body, because it's her job...

There is room for school sex education programmes to discuss the images in such magazines, to explain to students who are old enough to understand (and have probably seen far more flesh online anyway...) about how images are PhotoShopped, about how women's bodies come in all shapes and sizes, about how there really is no such thing as one normal body type, how pubic hair is a reality even though stray hairs are routinely airbrushed out of such magazines and so on.

But teenagers should be taught to critically read all media, not just lads' mags. Given people routinely spout their newspaper of choice as gospel, this is a skill plenty of adults could use too.

So where will it end for UK Feminista and Object as they behave like the modern equivalent of Victorians covering table legs?

Will shops have to stop selling short skirts or tight dresses or low-cut tops lest women are seen walking around in them, objectifying themselves? After all, if women who pose for lads' mags have no control over their behaviour, surely women who willingly show their legs or cleavage are similarly powerless?

What about women's magazines dedicating pages to the care and feeding of the male orgasm? Or advertisements and features in women's magazines for lingerie or swimwear? Why is The Sun's page three girl offensive but not the Daily Mail's constant insistence that famous women's bodies are news? What about weekly gossip magazines speculating on pregnancies, weight loss, weight gain or cosmetic surgery? Should they be taken off sale too so women don't have to look at all that harassing female flesh and men aren't driven to sexual assault?

And there's the elephant in the room - the Daily Mail, magazines such as Cosmopolitan and the weekly gossip mags are very popular with women. Will UK Feminista and Object condemn women for consuming such publications? After all, if women are mindlessly posing for lads' mags, surely they are mindlessly consuming media too and they need other people to tell them what they can and cannot read.

Then again, market forces might do the work of UK Feminista and Object for them. The men's magazine segment is on the decline and Zoo and Nuts are two of the biggest losers in this slide. People just aren't buying magazines like they used to, largely thanks to the internet. Calling for magazines to be taken off shop shelves is, frankly, a bit retro in this online age. And trying to stop stuff you don't like from appearing on the web is like trying to stop a tsunami with a tampon.




Image courtesy of www.kozzi.com

Censorship: making a mockery of allegedly free societies

I lived for five years in a country where excessive female flesh is either obliterated from magazines with black marker pen, even a cheeky hint of side-boob, or the offending pages are torn out altogether. I never saw Porky Pig on TV. I got a letter from the Ministry of Information because the magazine I was editing had a (flesh-free) advertisement for Duo condoms in it - this letter arrived, without a trace of irony, in the same week as the launch of the country's first AIDS awareness campaign. This coy campaign failed to mention sex and gave no real clues as to how HIV might be transmitted. When Puss In Boots hit the cinemas, it was given the absurd new title of Cat In Boots in case the word "puss" caused offence. References to prostitution were redacted from Les Miserables, thus rendering Anne Hathaway's performance pretty meaningless.

How quaint it must be there, you may think. The country I lived in for five years was the United Arab Emirates and, yes, there were plenty of times when the bizarre censorship caused my head to connect with my desk. But countries that rank much higher up the World Press Freedom Index than the UAE at 112 are also capable of stupid censorship.

Exhibit 1: The BBC shot itself in the foot by deleting a classic scene from a repeat of Fawlty Towers. Major Gowen is telling Basil Fawlty an anecdote about going to see England play India in the cricket. He says he went to the match with a woman who "kept referring to the Indians as niggers. 'No, no, no,' I said, 'the niggers are the West Indians. These people are wogs.'"

Their defence was that it was inappropriate to use the word "nigger" before the watershed. If that's the case, the episode should have been broadcast later in its entirety. The joke is on the Major - John Cleese and Connie Booth were satirising a racist character when they wrote the script.

It could be argued that the cartoonish Manuel is a racist character, an embarrassing, dated caricature of a Spanish waiter. But even that argument is too simplistic and fails to recognise that Manuel constantly gets the better of the snobbish bigot that is Basil. When Manuel says: "I know nothing!" in relation to a bet on a horse race that Basil is trying to hide from his wife Sybill, the accent is pure cheese, but the weekly screwing over of Basil is real comedy. Basil is similarly screwed over by Manuel in another episode where a Lothario-type character offends Basil's uptight morals. Basil assumes the Lothario is an idiot but he is able to converse with Manuel in perfect Spanish.

But enough about my scarily encyclopaedic knowledge of Fawlty Towers...

Exhibit 2: Australian commercial TV channels are not known for being bastions of progressive liberalism. As such, they all banned Dick Smith's Australia Day advertisement for his line of Australian-made and owned foods. It features much innuendo surrounding the phrase "I love Dick", which upset the pearl-clutchers, and the bit where he hands out his products to grateful refugees landing ashore in a burning boat upset the professionally sanctimonious - who thought it was patronising to asylum seekers - as well as anti-immigration types who object to any depiction of refugees being welcomed to Australia.

Yes, the ad is crass and jingoistic - but such things are not illegal in Australia, nor should they be. The ad was no less insulting to anyone's intelligence as ads that depict women as perfect housewives, men as useless dolts who'd put the baby in the oven and the roast chicken in the cot if they were left unsupervised, or any tampon ad involving white bikinis, windsurfing or running joyously on a beach.

In short, it was another example of stupid censorship.

Exhibit 3: The silencing of rude words on American television. Freedom of speech clearly doesn't extend to rude words uttered by comedians who are known for, er, being rude. Jon Stewart of The Daily Show and Joan Rivers of Fashion Police are so regularly silenced that sometimes it's hard to tell what word has been deemed so offensive. This is not helped by Joan Rivers' collagen-filled lips, but I am pretty sure "tits" was the oh-so-shocking word the other night. Censoring comedy for grown-ups by grown-ups aired at a time when grown-ups watch TV is ridiculous and childish.

These three examples of censorship are moronic and illiberal. If we put up with it, it becomes acceptable via complacency, and more stupid thought policing will surely follow. This nonsense is only acceptable to adults who enjoy being treated like dimwitted children.

But these examples are chickenfeed in comparison to a nastier, more insidious form of censorship, a horrible corruption of free speech that is not constructive in the slightest. I am referring to the online bullying of Professor Mary Beard after her appearance on the BBC's Question Time. She made perfectly reasonable comments about the benefits of immigration. Naturally, people are entitled to disagree with her comments. Open debate is essential for any functioning democracy.

Personal attacks, however, are disgraceful. How was the immigration debate advanced by the troll who called Beard "a vile, spiteful excuse for a woman, who eats too much cabbage and has cheese straws for teeth."? Or by the idiots with too much time on their hands who superimposed her face onto pictures of female genitalia? The now-closed Don't Start Me Off website was a particularly horrible place to be after they declared Beard the "Twat of the week" and the trolls came out from under their miserable little bridges.

Nobody should be shedding any tears for the closure of Don't Start Me Off. It was a total waste of bandwidth. For while it may be argued that the closure of the site hampered the free speech of the morons who lurked there, such mass hatred will only deter women from accepting invitations to participate in public discussions, such as Question Time.

Mary Beard showed great courage and humour in speaking out against the mindless misogyny. She will grace our TV screens again because she is smart, interesting and far more accomplished than anyone who thinks a picture of a face on a vagina is comic gold. But many are not as thick-skinned. Many intelligent women may think twice before appearing on TV lest they don't meet some absurd standard of beauty and their voices are drowned out by an asinine rabble. A loud, cruel pack of intellectual bankrupts should not be allowed to stifle debate. That is censorship at its ugliest.


Image courtesy of www.kozzi.com

Tax: it's not all bad

I am delighted to report that Costa Coffee sales are up. The high street coffee chain has released figures showing that like-for-like sales at its coffee shops were up by 7.1% and total sales increased by 25.5% in the three months to November 29.

This is no coincidence given that Costa has demonstrated that it is paying its fair share of tax while Starbucks has been less than forthcoming and says it has not been making a profit in Britain, a curious claim for a company that is expanding. Despite the Starbucks near my office appearing to be no less busy since news of their tax shenanigans broke, it would appear that overall, British consumers are happy to support businesses who, like them, pay tax in a responsible manner.

Yes, I know Starbucks is a business, not a charity, and I know they have minimised their tax liabilities legally. But just because something is legal, it doesn't mean that it is right. The government has a duty to close loopholes so that multinationals contribute properly to Britain, to play its part in ensuring its staff and their families can access important things such as healthcare, transport and education.

Instead, Starbucks has been allowed to negotiate a new tax bill with the government. Nice work if you can get it. I might give George Osborne a call and see if I can pay a little less tax next year, which brings me to the point that, yes, most of us would pay less tax if we could. But most of us are not Starbucks and most of us cannot afford the kind of accountants and taxation lawyers who are very good at helping clients stick to the letter of the law even if they violate the spirit of it. Most of us are not managing our affairs Jimmy Carr-style and accepting cash-in-hand for a babysitting job as a teenager is about as dodgy as a lot of us ever get.

But without tax revenue, we lose out on the basics such as healthcare, education, infrastructure, transport and law and order. And we miss out on things that aren't essential to survival but important culturally, such as free museums, galleries and, yes, even the BBC. We can whine all we like about the things we deem to be a waste of taxpayers' hard-earned money and argue over whether our taxes should go to the royal family, wars we disagree with, MP allowances, the welfare bill and so on and so forth. It is important to monitor where our tax quids go and to call out government when they piss it up the wall.

However, the one thing I learnt from living for five years in a tax haven is that with taxes come rights. Obviously, basic human rights should not depend on how much you pay in tax, but when you do have a financial stake in the country where you choose to live, it is easier to complain when you feel your rights have been violated and it's much easier to hold the government to account.

As an example, when I lived in the United Arab Emirates, I received a completely absurd parking ticket from a police officer at Dubai Airport. I was looking for somewhere to stop briefly in the busy drop-off zone and a police officer caught my eye and pointed to a space by the footpath, directly behind another car. I smiled, waved and thanked him as I got out to help unload my visitors' suitcases and he started to write me out a ticket and demanded my driving licence. I asked him why I was getting booked, he refused to explain, he wrote me out a ticket in Arabic.

I admit I should have learnt more Arabic while I lived in the Middle East but in a country that claims to be constantly improving its justice system, it is not too much to expect an explanation for a mysterious parking ticket. Imagine if I was a tourist and that was the warm reception I received at the airport? I asked for his name, he pointed to some Arabic writing on the ticket and told me: "You're not in London anymore!" even though my licence, which he had confiscated, clearly said I was Australian.

A Lebanese friend translated the ticket for me - I'd been booked for "blocking the road" and he'd written that his name was simply "Mohammed" which wasn't really going to narrow it down in the Dubai constabulary. I had no choice but to pay the fine if I wanted to get my licence back from a police station drawer. I could forget any ideas about making an official complaint - I know it wouldn't get any further than maybe a phonecall or a turgid form to fill out. Even though I was working as a motoring journalist on a national newspaper at the time, I wouldn't have gotten too far with any plans to write an expose on bent traffic enforcement.

That parking ticket was my tipping point. As I drove off furiously, I burst into tears and told my husband I didn't want to live there anymore. And true to my word, I left not long after that incident. It is awful to feel so powerless over a damn parking ticket and to know that my rights for any kind of recourse where next to nil.

To say the UAE is tax-free is actually a myth - the government finds plenty of ways to get their hands in your pocket but they just don't call them taxes. Spurious traffic fines, road tolls, government-owned telephone companies, government-owned utilities companies, government-owned media... But without a line on your payslip each month telling you that you've made a contribution towards the running of the country and its facilities, it's hard to complain too hard about the government or get taken seriously if you open a can of whoop-ass on the authorities. Both locals and expats have landed themselves in hot water - as in prison - for doing just that.

As such, expats cannot send their kids to state schools, health insurance is compulsory in Abu Dhabi but at the whim of your employer in other emirates (I had two jobs in Dubai - one where it barely covered cough mixture, and one where they didn't offer any health insurance at all, and a job in Abu Dhabi where coverage was excellent - it's a crapshoot...) and if you want that gaping hole in the footpath fixed outside your flat, you can try asking the municipality to do so but you're not paying council tax, so why would they hurry?

Paying taxes provides us with all manner of things essential to a healthy, functional society. We don't always agree with the way our taxes are spent and we don't always agree with the way it is collected. Few of us are delighted that Starbucks can simply promise to £20 million in tax over the next two years and it'll all be fine.

But it's not the principle of paying tax that needs to be challenged. Instead, we must challenge how the government collects tax and hold them to account to spend it wisely. And we can do that by voting with our wallets to boycott the likes of Starbucks, as well as exercising freedom of speech to criticise the government without fear of prison.

(Meanwhile, here are some further sensible suggestions for UK tax reform from @christophersaul who is an British expat based in Dubai and willing to actually contribute to the UK coffers)

Image courtesy of www.kozzi.com

Leveson's toothless tiger

It's strange to be writing about the Leveson report from Qatar, a country that currently sits at a dismal 114 on the World Press Freedom Index, two rankings down from the United Arab Emirates, where I worked as a journalist for five years. The UK is currently ranked at a could-do-better 28. But at least I have the freedom to criticise the report, and the responses to the report without fear of ending up in a British prison. This is a stark contrast to Qatar where this week a poet has been sentenced to life imprisonment for criticising the Emir-led government.

I don't think Britain is on a track that will end up with similarly outrageous prison terms for things that should never be a crime anywhere in the world. And the Leveson report does not represent a move towards full government control of the media - but legislative change has been recommended to give an independent panel legal footing.

The report itself makes for some bizarre, and often wishy-washy, reading (he went way too easy on Jeremy Hunt for example. Cameron should be thrilled about that...). Despite ongoing controversies about people being arrested over stupid tweets and Facebook posts and David Cameron calling for a social media clampdown in the wake of last year's riots, the report only devotes a page to the internet. It is as if it was all too much for Lord Leveson to think too hard about the implications of this newfangled internet on a free press and freedom of speech. Indeed, he seems to be harking back to the original definition of a free press, which was literally the freedom to use printing presses. How quaint.

But what about phone hacking? Phone hacking is indeed an invasion of privacy and the Dowlers should never have gone through what they did when their daughter was missing. Equally, hacking celebrity phones for gossip about private lives is completely out of line. And phone hacking is illegal. If someone hacks a phone, there are already criminal sanctions available in courts of law to punish the perpetrators.

The Leveson inquiry testimonies exposed phone hacking as a practice that was largely used to collate celebrity gossip stories, the kind of stuff that is simply not in the public interest and serves the greater good in no way at all. But what if a phone hack revealed government corruption or exposed a terrorism plot? Should a public interest test be applied if such cases went to court?

All the celeb goss crap does is generate website clicks and copy sales. Should Hugh Grant's sex life be in the public interest, for example? No. He is an actor, he is a man with a penis, he is not a saint and he has never spoken out about the evils of fornication. What he gets up to in his personal life these days is his business. He did indeed break the law with the Divine Brown incident in LA, but that was a story that had an element of public interest and it was not obtained through hacking.

Tabloid journalism can be incredibly awful but in a free society with a free press and free market capitalism, they are businesses that are entitled to operate. It is also important to remember that even if a media outlet was run as a non-profit organisation, it still needs cover costs, such as ensuring staff are paid. While it is generally cheaper to run a website than a print or broadcast operation, it's a rare media outlet that can be successful, not pay anyone and not have to generate any revenue. As consumers of media, we have a responsibility to be educated consumers, to be aware that such media businesses may be beholden to advertisers and to read and watch smartly. Similarly, political bias is generally pretty obvious in newspapers, whether it is from the left or the right.

As consumers of media, we have the power to choose where we spend money on media. If you don't like the Daily Mail, don't buy it and don't give its website hits. And you have the right to do the same if you don't like the Guardian. There are plenty of good things being written by good journalists but they are not always commercially successful. Seek them out, spread the word, don't just rely on one newspaper or one news channel for all your information. You have choices. And you have the freedom to call out bad journalism through all manner of mediums - social media, letters to the editor, online comments, talkback radios, hell, start your own blog if you feel that strongly about it...

Then there is the issue of libel and defamation. In theory, you have the right to sue if you have been libelled or defamed by a media outlet. But the cost of litigation means that this has become a privilege for the wealthy. And this is where David Cameron's criticism of Leveson is hypocritical. Is he about to announce reforms whereby ordinary citizens could access legal aid if they wanted to pursue libel or defamation lawsuits but cannot afford to legal fees? Of course not. Is it in Cameron's interests to urge a private citizen who has been libelled or defamed in the Daily Mail? The constant and unbalanced exposure of "benefits scroungers" springs to mind, but would David Cameron make it easier for people on benefits to sue newspapers? Of course not.

And Cameron knows he cannot afford to lose the support of newspapers that have spoken out against the Leveson recommendations. But perhaps this is a time for newspapers to re-examine their support of politicians and parties. As an Australian, I have always been baffled about the way British papers will come out in public support of one political party or another at every election. How is that the role of a newspaper? Where is the balance or the independence?

As I write this from Qatar and reflect on the often frustrating realities my colleagues and I encountered while working in the UAE, 112 on the Press Freedom Index, I am very grateful that I can criticise without fear of getting arrested when I land back in London tomorrow night. I fully expect that I will not lose that right in post-Leveson Britain.

I had a very different experience in the years 2006 to 2011. Now that I no longer live and work in the UAE, I can now freely say that Hassan Fattah, the Editor-in-Chief at The National, where I worked in Abu Dhabi, told me to "tone down" an opinion piece about whether the seven sheikhs of the emirates had the will to cooperate to improve the nation's transport. And I can tell you about a story of mine that was spiked by Fattah. I worked on it in my own time and I planned to expose a man wanted by the Cypriot courts who was (and, as far as I know, still is...) hiding from the law in Dubai - but Fattah told me the story was "legally fraught." It is the kind of story that I would have no problem convincing an editor to run in Britain.

Instead, we used to get excited about pathetic victories, such as the time the section of the newspaper on which I worked got away with running a picture of a trophy featuring a naked man. It is probably the only time The National has ever run a picture of a penis. "Getting away with it" was something we'd do to feel like we had a small win over the system and for our own amusement.

I expect that Britain will not end up with a highly restricted and regulated media like that of the UAE or Qatar - and I expect that current laws regarding illegal activities of journalists be upheld so that the whole profession is not brought into disrepute. And I include tabloid journalists in the profession because not all tabloid journalists are hacking phones and tabloids have as much of a right to exist in a free society as the Guardian. Deal with it.

Image courtesy of www.kozzi.com