Whin Sill Spirit · @wildwalkerwoman
7th May 2014 from TwitLonger
@Hephaestus7 @MidWalesMike @JayneLinney @DebbieSayers @Suey2y
Hi Samuel,
About your twit-longer on the ICC, austerity and crimes against humanity http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1s1ldp1
You know I've been bitching about this already
https://storify.com/wildwalkerwoman/calling-all-uk-women-impacted-by-austerity#publicize
but I've been thinking further along these lines. So, as a former staff side secretary and jailhouse lawyer, I'm going to float a few ideas with you.
I think it's possible women could demonstrate that this judgement is not lawful because it condones and enables national and international economic abuse of women by failing to give our perspective equal weight and gravitas in coming to judgement. Under Human Rights law, women can argue that is bad law and requires urgent revisiting to correct the problem. It's the kind of thing that gets written into the rulebook in hide-bound systems. We find it in Employment Law and in Prison Rules. I'll cast my eye over these articles and see what I can find. I bet it's there as well.
There's a heartbeat in every true law. The ICC Articles will have incorporated into it the power to protect women. If the court can be shown to have failed and/or negligent in its duty to protect the Human Rights of women and children from crimes against humanity in the Greek decision, it is not safe and must be reconsidered. The interests of women and children carry equal weight, especially since we are both victim and plaintiff.
I would inform the ICC that any persons we dealt with in their offices, has skills and experience in listening, giving credence to manifest evidence and representing the woman's perspective which, rather surprisingly, appears to have been rendered entirely invisible by the Greek judgement.
I believe that in order to restore the integrity of the court in this matter, any ICC prosecutor and/or judge with personal links to world finance should seriously consider recusing themselves, unless they can produce a legal history of acting for and in the interests of justice for women and children. My request contains absolutely no suggestion of impropriety on anyone's part - it's simply that the finance world mindset was rather over-represented last time. Women and children's voices are ignored or dismissed, especially in Britain. A balanced hearing, on this occasion, would need to be weighted towards those whom the court unlawfully chose to overlook last time round. This is an issue that goes to the Heart of Human Rights Law, which the court exists to uphold.
It's about time it did it's effing job properly! Pardon my rant, but they must be having a laff!
So the court 'likes' us to exhaust all domestic possibilities. What's this? Bleeding' Facebook? You know what? Our ^government^ fixed it so poor women like me got no access to law. What am we supposed to do then, huh? Lie back and think of England? That's rape culture and, scuse my language, it has no fucking lawful place in the ICC. Their Articles will prohibit the court conspiring to deprive women and other vulnerable 'economic minorities' of their rightful access to international law in matters relating to crimes against the humanity of women and children.
Sorry if I'm being a high-flying bitch about this, but the ICC can take the Greek decision and stick it up their....
When, exactly, did we women and children lose our human rights in Europe and which white men decided that, then?. The law, for poor women in Britain like me, is meaningless, inaccessible or both - our white male government has taken it upon itself to breach all my human rights with impunity; its removed any ability I ever had; oh, and they're killing people on purpose by depriving women and children of our means to sustain life and health; and.... I've only just got started, laddie! There are going to be a whole load of specialist cases lining up behind me after I've slapped my own evidence on the table. We'll demonstrate just how ubiquitous this behaviour is and exactly how harmful it is to us. If the ICC is saying "You've got to exhaust all domestic routes", my reply is "You get your own house in order first".
Furthermore, we've got evidence to suggest that government and other party political parties, assisted by the mainstream media, are engaged in 'nudging' the British public to further 'dehumanising' of women and children whilst they and their cronies finish stealing the lead of the roof and deliberately sabotaging our social safety net. Those rich posh boys had no electoral mandate for that. The access UKIP has been given to the media - a party with no UK MP's - is alarming, particularly when set against the access given to Green candidates, who have elected representatives in BOTH houses. Here's my evidence on that
http://storify.com/FiveDee/notsatire-how-ukgov-has-privatised-brainwashing-o
This is how I would argue this with a Prison-Governor-in-Charge, Personnel Manager, Director of Employee Relations & Human Resources, an Industrial Tribunal back in the day. I could argue that in court - I've done it before. I know how to be an advocate in a court of law.
In more familiar settings, I'd probably kick this subject off with a formal complaint or grievance in order to get the problem down in writing. It gets any nonsense down in writing. People will either understand what I'm saying or they can't - but more women will 'get' this than men. It's the way we work together, especially when we have valid complaints:
http://www.theguardian.com/healthcare-network/2014/jan/08/female-managers-gender-equality-nhs?CMP=twt_gu
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/18/un-commission-status-women-enemies-equality
www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/jul/01/public-sector-austerity-measures-women
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/nov/26/gangs-sexual-violence-warzones
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/sep/06/uk-lowest-paid-classed-not-working-enough?CMP=twt_gu
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/04/legal-aid-uk-reputation-fairness
The situation is deteriorating swiftly now - certainly for me personally. You know that Suey, Jayne and I all believe we won't get to see the land promised by the UNCHR - as in sooner rather than later. None of us have a problem with that because we know our own value and this situation has to be fought - we all know that. The 2012 mortality stats will confirm all our worst fears - it's the reason why they're withholding them. These people know exactly what they are doing and why - a very British coup. Our mortality stats are ascending fast and the UN wants us to kick our heels outside their glossy halls of power, waiting around until they deign to grant us an audience? What's this? Pre-revolution Versailles? When did the UN think it could start exercising royal prerogative? Who the fuck do they think they're talking to (and whilst I'd like to say this could only have been said by a man, regrettably I've encountered women who behave in the exact same way - Esther McVey is a good example)?
Whoever they are, they need to get heads' out of their arse and their mindset out of cloud cuckoo-land in order to take a very hard look at the reality of British women under this Coalition government! If s/he still can't see it after that, they are to be deemed not-competent to handle the evidence we want to ask the ICC Prosecutor (whoever they 'field')to consider for prosecution. It is not possible to communicate with those who do not have the capacity to 'see' the problem; indeed, they are a part of the problem.
I hope you don't mind my speaking so freely but some 'designed4men' systems are enough to drive a saint to blasphemy, if only to emphasize the point - I suspect you know exactly what I mean. As someone in the thick of it, I've earned the right to swear! If they can't see me, not problem. But if they can see my swearing... and little else, they do not serve either the law or the public, but only themselves.
As I said, only floating ideas here but I've had a bellyful of this crap. The ICC should be ashamed of themselves for the Greek law! @EVB_Now and I have exactly the same problem talking to @ACPO - these men simply cannot register our reality. For them, it doesn't quite exist; does not compute; they don't know what the fuck we are on about because they don't have a problem with it; system works alright for them - from a mindset created and maintained, largely but not exclusively by privileged white men, for the purposes of personal and social gain (keeping it classy as always) at the expense of the poorest: women and children. Women are being actively frozen out of public discussion concerning our very lives and this is especially the case in Britain:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cocktail-party-physics/2011/07/20/is-it-cold-in-here/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-27062577
You know what? >>> http://wildwalkerwoman.tumblr.com/post/84767977781
Thanks for allowing me to vent in your direction - I truly value people willing to offer me that gift and not take it personally. I'm sure you'll have an opinion though :) I'll share this with the team :)
Here's what I think:
I believe that impoverished women in the UK understand what I'm saying here because they're saying it too. I can't speak for any particular 'tribe' of socially-exiled women even though I belong to quite a few of them. What I can say is we all seemed truly fucked off with this behaviour. There are women from British 'tribes' where I am not included through privilege of birth. They are just as pissed off too and they've got lists of persistent breaches of their womens' right to humanity breaches far more complex than mine. The main symptom in all instances is a denial of the problem, or empty 'reassurances' we no longer believe. The pattern of behaviour resembles that of domestic violence offenders and is regarded as criminal. If economic domestic violence by government against women, children and other socially-exiled groups is regarded as a 'collective' expression of a pattern of known criminal behaviour in 'isolated' cases of DV, when does it stop being criminal if it's a male government doing it economically to the country's undefended women?
You know what, Samuel? That can fuck off back to wherever it came from; it and the penny-farthing it rode it on! I call it a crime against 50% of humanity and it's time the men got out of the way and let the women deal with it. At least we know what we're on about. It's our own lives on the line in this.
If the ICC needs a trustworthy police officer to help them, one excellent example will be available quite soon:
http://thecandlelegacy.wordpress.com/2014/03/24/statement-on-resignation/
James Patrick can advise on what complying with an Oath means in practice :)
I hope Mrs Bensouda is a woman who can both see and hear the problem - I mean her no disrespect in any way whatsoever. I have worked well with prosecutors in the past and see no reason to believe that need change now, if she 'gets' the problem. I won't know until I try. What bothers me more is the impeccability of the court. The ICC exists to prevent crimes against humanity, not collude with them. I'm rather hoping she'll understand and help us to work together to restore its integrity because it has none at the moment, afaic.
Dunno, though? Might that work?
It's certainly how I'd be arguing it in a branch or wing meeting.
That's for being a good mate, Samuel. You and everyone else :)
All my love
Dee
xxx