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by kergonath
1156 days ago
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That is a disgrace. A direct consequence of totalitarian laws. And at the same time, I really want to know the role of the French government. I cannot believe HMG cares whether someone was amongst the hundreds of thousands who demonstrated last week. Why set up such an ambush for a book publisher? |
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One can't imagine this being done on a member of the house of commons, house of lords, famous bbc actor or personality or even a non-famous British subject and you might get rather a lot more pushback than doing it against a Frenchman nobody has heard of.
I think it would be horribly naive of us to not assume these kinds of considerations were discussed extensively prior by the police involved and their superiors. Remember when it was said repeatedly by politicians that just this sort of thing would never happen. When the power exists it will find a way, every time.
There was a time when a publisher being kept in jail for years on a mere accusation in a country he's not visited that he may have breached a law universally regarded as utterly absurd by legal scholars would be something for which the air of the UK was too free to even countenance, whatever one's views of the man but that man is Australian, you know and he was also accused of rape, which seems a very, very weak accusation all this time later and also antisemitism, for which we haven't seen any evidence. Take out the support of the person and personality when doing a power grab. Is it policy or simply repeated coincidence?
The person and personality does not matter - they can be as big a scumbag as possible and that should be of zero consequence. The principle really, really, really does.
Now we watch for leaks and stories about just what a reprehensible human being this previously anonymous French publisher really is so no matter that you're losing your rights against warrantless search because you're not a French publisher accused of something, nor an Australian... Don't you worry about it, just leave it to the police who are never corrupt, never criminal, never abuse power, never rape, never murder, never derail nazi thug murder investigations because they're friends with one of the thugs drug-dealer parents. The British police want no oversight because they clearly need no oversight. Although I'm sure Osama Bin Laden or Saddam Hussein or (insert current object of the hate) would agree with any dissent on the matter.