Jenny’s Pennies

Via Feministe, I find this old, but still puke-worthy story about Justice Jon-Jo (sic!) Douglas, judge in Ontario, Canada.

An Ontario judge is at the centre of a misconduct investigation after insisting a witness who is HIV-positive and has Hepatitis C don a mask while testifying in his courtroom.

Three groups have complained to the Ontario Judicial Council about the conduct of Barrie judge Justice Jon-Jo Douglas, who later moved the case to a bigger courtroom in order to create more distance between the witness and the bench. (…)

“The HIV virus will live in a dried state for year after year after year and only needs moisture to reactivate itself,” Douglas insisted, according to a transcript of the Nov. 23 trial proceedings.

Maybe someone needs to tell dear Jon-Jo that it is very possible that he might have been sitting next to someone with HIV or Hepatitis C in a movie theater, or in the subway, or in a restaurant. He might even have shaken their hands. Because, thankfully, there is no law requiring people infected with either HIV or Hepatitis to wear a scarlet letter pinned to their clothes. If that scares Jon-Jo, maybe he should move out to the forest where he can live his life in isolated assholyness.

Really, there is absolutely no excuse for ignorance like this in year 2008.

A week ago, in a hospital in Naples, Italy, a woman was recovering from her anaesthesia after having a (completely legal) abortion. Then, police entered the hospital and started interrogation the woman, still in her hospital bed. They also seized the aborted fetus as “evidence”. The woman, who in Italian newspapers has been identified by her first name Silvana, was 39 years old. (Read the New York Times article here, Dagens Nyheter in Swedish here)

The police had acted on an anonymous tip that the abortion had taken place later in the pregnancy than the law allows (in Italy the limit is 24 weeks). But the hospital showed that the pregnancy had been terminated at 21 weeks, well within the limit, after that a test had showed severe fetal deformities.

Why is it acceptable to treat a woman like this? Even if the police were to investigate it, surely there is a better way than to bust into the hospital ward in a way that Carmine Nappi, the chief of obstetrics at the hospital, likened to an anti-Mafia raid. Here is a woman who just has undergone a physically and emotionally painful experience, and the police thinks that is a good time to interrogate her?!

The event has led to protests in Italy, in defence of the country’s abortion law, with the participation of Health Minister Livia Turco who said: “we are defending a law that is close to us”.

In Italy, abortion has been legal for 30 years. The subject is of course controversial, since the Catholic Church has a huge influence on Italian politics and society. Parliamentary elections will be held mid-April, and abortion has now become a pivotal issue in the election campaign.

Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is expected to win the election and has promised to change the abortion law if he wins. He has also backed a campaign for getting the UN to declare a universal moratorium on abortions (I can’t wrap my head around this, and I really wish I read Italian so I could see how on earth he argues for this idea). The campaign was started in December last year, by Giu­liano Ferrara, editor of conservative newspaper Il Foglia (which is used as a campaign platform) and former minister in a Berlusconi government.

So while the anti-choice crowds are gathering strength, the partly liberal-Catholic center-left block is unsure of how to act, according to Dagens Nyheter. Last week, a web campaign was launched to compel the politicians to defend the abortion law. It says: “Enough is enough. The clerical offensive against women has become unbearable. But equally unbearable is the lack of reactions from the center-left.”

I wish the women of Italy best of luck. And Silvana, the woman who was harassed by the police and used as a tool by people who couldn’t care less about her and her feelings, I wish you well also.

Cara of the Curvature writes about the story here.

Today, Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter published a letter to the editor from Shahbaz Khan. He had gone to the bank to open a new account. He writes (my translation):

In the morning, a clerk calls me and asks what country I am from, where I am born and what citizenship I have. I have to give them all this information to open an account. Sweden, I answer to all the questions. ‘I’m sorry, but your name showed up on our list from the EU over terrorist names’, the woman says /…/ The bank does have my personal number*, isn’t that enough? ‘No we don’t use the personal number, we have a list of names that we check’ says the woman. So, if I change my name to Daniel Karlsson, it would be cool? The woman agrees. I can hardly believe it. And if it hadn’t happened to me personally, I would have doubted that it was true. A change of name, and you’re through the net.

So, what kind of “security” is that EU list of terrorist supposed to provide? A false one, it is. If you change your name to Daniel Karlsson, you’re off. Because we can’t start tracking all the Daniel Karlssons now, can we? A terrorist is called Shahbaz. Not Daniel.

Shabaz Khan writes:

Instead of efficient and necessary surveillance to protect the society, broad strokes are drawn all across Sweden and the EU. All of you with a certain name, consider yourself targeted. This is called contraproductivity.
What you are suspected of is not based on your actions, but on your name. You are a suspect, and there is nothing you can do about it. This is hard to swallow in a society that preaches that everyone is judged by their actions.

Indeed.
It should be noted that it is perfectly possible to track all changes of name that Swedish citizens do. The information is there, and we have the technology. But somehow the authorities chose not to. Because it would target, you know, normal people. People with names like Daniel Karlsson. So it is better limited to people like Shahbaz Khan. You know, the terrorists.

*Personal number = a number every Swedish citizen is given, consisting of your date of birth and then four unique digits, such as YYMMDD-XXXX.

/co-written with my husband Markus, who should have a blog of his own, but piggybacks here instead.

One of the things that truly makes my blood boil, is when people say:

“I think [x], but you are not allowed to say that in Sweden.”

x usually = “gays are unnatural and shouldn’t be allowed to marry/have children/show affection in public”
or
“muslims shouldn’t be allowed to build mosques in Sweden, we are a Christian country”
or
“we have too many immigrants here, we can’t save the whole world”
or
“a woman’s place is a as a nurturer and caregiver to children, equality has gone too far”
or
…well, you get the idea.

First of all, you just said it, that thing that you are “not allowed to say”. And you have newspapers, and churches, and organizations, and marches, and websites, and political parties, and TV-channels, and letters to the editor that say exactly that, that thing that you are “not allowed to say”.
(I could provide links for all of those, but I refuse to give them any traffic. And I don’t want to ruin a perfectly nice Friday evening by having to look at their vile and hateful stuff. But if you’re curious, there’s www.info14.com, www.nd.se, www.varldenidag.se, www.patriot.nu, www.livetsord.se, www.bibeltemplet.net, www…. and so on.)

So don’t tell me you’re “not allowed” to believe what you believe. Don’t tell me you’re some kind of martyr in the struggle against “political correctness”. Don’t tell me you’re oppressed.

Arguing against you is not stifling your freedom of speech. Saying that you are wrong is not stifling your freedom of speech.
Neither is pointing out your misinformation, your logical fallacies, your straw-men arguments, and your blatant lies.
Freedom of speech does not mean that you can speak uncontradicted and unchallenged.

PS. That goes for the comments section here as well (if there ever will be any). DS.