Gary McKinnon protest report (Guest post)

This is a guest post from Judy and Kalvis Jansons

On the cold but dry afternoon of Tuesday, 15 December, a protest against the proposed extradition of Gary McKinnon by the US government was held outside the Home Office in London by Janis Sharp, Gary's mother, and other supporters. The protest lasted from 12:00 until 14:00 and when we arrived at 12:30, there were about 50 people present. Most of the people were enclosed in a kind of pen on one side of the Home Office, and two police officers stood behind this enclosure throughout most of the protest.

MPs from all political parties joined the protest. Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, was already there when we arrived speaking to the press, and later joined us in the pen. Keith Vaz, Labour MP for Leicester East, also came along to show his support, and spoke with a number of the protestors. He told us that this kind of demonstration really does help to send the message, and thought that there was a glimmer of hope for Gary. Kate Hoey, Labour MP for Vauxhall, and David Burrowes, Conservative MP for Enfield, Southgate were also present. Representatives from Liberty were at the protest too.

Many of the people attending the protest had heard about it and been interacting with each other on Twitter, and while the protest was going on, some people were tweeting on their mobiles. People held posters with slogans on such as "Fair UK trial for Gary McKinnon", "UK

law for UK citizens", "No extradition for Gary McKinnon". Janis Sharp led chanting, which everyone joined in with, of "UK trial or no trial", "No way to the USA" and others and this was continued by other people when she became hoarse.

We had written a letter to the Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, which we wanted to hand in to the Home Office while we were at the protest. This proved to be much more complicated than just delivering it to the Home Office reception desk. One of the police officers arranged for

some Home Office officials to come out to the front of the building and receive the letter from us to give to Alan Johnson.

Janis Sharp made a very good effort to speak to protestors individually and thank them for their support, and everyone present conducted themselves impeccably throughout the protest. This includes the two policemen present, who were courteous and helpful in the way

that people used to expect of police officers.

None of the people that we spoke to would condone criminality of any kind but merely wished to protect a vulnerable man without any ill intent from a disproportionate response to things that he foolishly did driven by his Asperger's Syndrome. The Americans are fortunate that the person who got into their military computer systems was such a person as Gary McKinnon, someone who had no malicious intent, but was simply following an interest too obsessively. The protestors, quite reasonably, simply request a fair trial in the UK for this vulnerable person and for due consideration to be given to the extraordinary stress that he has been under for so many years.

Gary McKinnon has become a pawn in a political game which is played by people with no compassion for one of their more vulnerable countrymen. As Nick Clegg says, "It is the basic duty of a Government to protect its citizens." And the common sentiment expressed by so many of the protestors is that the Home Secretary has taken away any pride that we

could have had in this country. We think that Britain should stand for more than this. Very few countries would betray their citizens in the way that Gary McKinnon has been betrayed by ours, and the USA certainly would not. So how did this country become part of such an asymmetrical extradition treaty?

We know from his mother that Gary is in an extraordinarily stressed out state, and what he has been subjected to is an extreme form of mental torture. Our personal feeling is that if a British court actually looked at what Gary McKinnon really did, and gave due consideration for his medical condition and the extent to which he and his family have already suffered, they would surely think that this suffering has already been far too great a punishment and would hopefully conclude that no further action against him was necessary.

If Gary McKinnon's diagnosis with Asperger's Syndrome had occurred earlier, his family would have known to look out for possibly obsessive behaviour and avoided this current situation. So Gary McKinnon has been failed by this country in many ways over a long period.

Surely it is time for Gary McKinnon's nightmare to end.

We finish by wishing Gary the best of luck and we pray that the Home Secretary remembers who he is there to serve.

Judy and Kalvis Jansons

Great letter to an MP about Credit Unions #NoCreditUnionLevy

One of my blog readers Judy Jansons has sent a letter to her local MP (former Tory minister Peter Lilley) regarding the injustice of Credit Unions being made to help fund the banking bail-out that I posted about last week.

I think it is an excellent example of how to express your strong feelings on a subject to your MP and she has given me permission to post the letter here. Over to Judy:

Dear Mr Lilley,

I was horrified to hear that the FSCS levy being applied to deposit-takers regulated by the FSA to fund the recent bail-out of the banking system includes the Credit Unions among those FSA member firms who have to pay it. (A letter sent to these firms can be seen here)

What is the government thinking of? It seems ludicrous to me, and to many others, that Credit Unions, which are set up to provide credit access and other services to the neediest people in communities, are being charged for a banking failure that they did not contribute to, when they are built on a quite different structure. We need organisations like Credit Unions which help vulnerable people get reasonable access to credit on affordable terms. We need to encourage the continuation of these bodies to avoid the human disasters created when people in desperate circumstances accept credit on any terms, however unreasonable, offered by local "loan sharks" to solve their short-term problems while creating a far worse situation for themselves in the long term.

I deplore the loss of mutual status of so many of the country's building societies and insurance companies (I used to work for one), and try to support those that remain. It seems totally wrong that another group of our financial institutions which work on the basis of community spirit, sharing and supporting those in need, should be endangered and unfairly charged due to the mismanagement of a much wealthier group.

Please do whatever you can to help reverse this situation for the Credit Unions. They should not be involved in this levy, the first payment of which is due on 1 September 2009, and urgent action is needed.

Yours sincerely,

Judy Jansons (Mrs)

I am interested to hear what Mr Lilley's response to this is.

In case you aren't aware, there is a Facebook group with over 100 members already supporting the campaign here to get this decision reversed by the government (we only have until 1st September before the first payment is due) and the Twitter hashtag for the campaign is #NoCreditUnionLevy.