Human Rights in Chechnya

They never go out alone, and when they are in their small apartment here in the capital of Chechnya, a flat screen on the wall displays a continuous feed from security cameras in the hall and stairway outside.

When the three men squeeze into their little car, they can activate a video camera and microphone in case of trouble and push a small red button on their dashboard to transmit sound directly to their main office 900 miles away.

“It’s an internal rule,” said Vladislav Sadykov, 46, a lawyer who leads the group. “We always travel together. If you are alone, it is easier to kidnap and torture you. The pictures are for protection, and also in case they kill us it will be recorded.”

The three men make up the current shift in a rotation of visiting human rights investigators called the Joint Mobile Group, which has taken on kidnapping and torture cases in this Russian republic that it considers too dangerous for resident human rights workers to handle.

“All local human rights people here live in danger,” said Dmitri Laptev, 24, a lawyer who has been in Grozny for 45 days on his third rotation. “Their homes can be burned. Their children can be kidnapped.”

The separatist war is mostly over in Chechnya, but kidnappings and extrajudicial killings continue in a more targeted way against people who support the rebels or speak out against the government of the Chechen leader, Ramzan A. Kadyrov, human rights groups say.

“When you talk to ordinary people, you are shocked to see how afraid they are,” Mr. Laptev said.

The human rights group Memorial said its monitors were finding it more difficult to do their work, partly because victims and their relatives have become more frightened than in the past about reporting abuses.

“The kidnapping goes on without fear,” said Mr. Sadykov, who is here on his fourth tour. “They do it openly. They show that they are with law enforcement, and law enforcement leaves them alone.”

He added: “It’s simple work, no investigation, no documents, no legal steps. Just seize someone and take him away.”

The Joint Mobile Group, with its main office in Nizhny Novgorod, recruits lawyers and investigators from human rights organizations around the country to work in teams of three in Chechnya for a month or more.

In May, the group was recognized with the annual Front Line Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk, awarded in Dublin by the Mary Robinson Foundation — Climate Justice, for its work in bringing human rights abuses to light.

“We work like investigators, looking at pictures, talking to witnesses,” Mr. Sadykov said. “We do all this the way it should be done, though we have no official standing. We get evidence and then we ask official organs to make their own investigation.”

The team’s work sometimes bears fruit, he said, and charges have been brought against some law enforcement officers.

The Joint Mobile Group was founded in 2009 after the abduction and killing of Natalya Estemirova, a local researcher for Memorial who was one of the most persistent and best-known activists in Chechnya.

Two of Ms. Estemirova’s colleagues at Memorial were evacuated and one who worked closely with her moved to Norway.

Since Ms. Estemirova’s death, human rights advocates here have mostly stepped back from confronting the authorities directly with reports of abuses, Mr. Sadykov said. Memorial has at times withdrawn its monitors from Chechnya for periods of several weeks or several months.

In a way, the Joint Mobile Group is carrying on Ms. Estemirova’s work.

“They had the idea that she was causing problems and without her there would be fewer problems,” Mr. Sadykov said. “But who am I? We rotate. They know there are people behind us and that if they kill me someone else will come.”

Among the half-dozen cases the group is currently pursuing is one of Ms. Estemirova’s final ones, the disappearance of a former rebel named Apti Zainalov, 23 at the time, who had turned himself in and served a year in prison. After his release, he disappeared in 2009, reappeared briefly under armed guard in a hospital and then vanished again.

In the days before she was killed, Ms. Estemirova had been demanding information about him from the hospital and the police, and the Joint Mobile Group has continued the pressure.

But Mr. Zainalov’s mother, Aima Makayeva, said she was weary of the pursuit and was ready to abandon the legal case if the authorities would just hand back her son.

“The only thing left is to go to Kadyrov,” she said. It is a view that is often expressed in Chechnya, where Mr. Kadyrov is in firm control of both the government and the security forces.

The tactic might work, Mr. Sadykov said. It would relieve the authorities of the constant pressure being brought by the investigators, and of the possibility that someone might actually be arrested and charged.

But, Mr. Sadykov said, it would run counter to the aim of the advocates to foster the rule of law and would instead demonstrate that it is still the men with guns who have the power to seize and release.

“The system is like a swamp,” Mr. Laptev said. “You throw in a stone and you make some ripples, and then it quiets down and the stone sinks to the bottom.”

Mr. Sadykov had an inside look at the system last year when he was part of a three-person team held overnight in a police station while investigating a report of a human rights violation. The group was released unharmed and has filed its own case charging illegal detention.

In a late-night discussion, he said, the police defended their methods, saying a harsh environment demands harsh tactics. “You have to torture,” he said one officer told him. “Without torture how can you fight terrorism?”

But Mr. Sadykov also observed that the work of human rights monitors seemed at least to be making an impression. When the three were released, he said, an officer asked him to sign a statement confirming that they had not been mistreated.

“Otherwise,” the officer said, “you will say we tortured you.”

No Words Needed

Yes I Do

Fascinating 10 Days

The Fallen Ones






The Question Marks




The Hero Of The Saga

Gay Free Zone?

It's late afternoon on Bethnal Green Road, in east London, and I am rushing from the tube for a meeting. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye I catch something that brings me to a stop: a rainbow flag turned into a no entry sign, with the words "gay free zone" written across. Above are the words "Arise and warn" and below "And fear Allah. Verily Allah is severe in punishment". Both with a Koranic reference. I shiver, and am reminded of the words "Juden raus" (Jews out) that my mother would have seen in Berlin in the 1930s. It is not something I thought I would ever witness 70 years on in one of the most diverse neighbourhoods in Britain, where gay pubs share the same streets as synagogues and Halal butchers.

The previous December, at a meeting of Rainbow Hamlets – the Tower Hamlets lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) forum, which I co-chair with Rebecca Shaw, the police had told us about two reported anti-gay sticker sightings in the borough. They linked them to a sighting in neighbouring Hackney, one across the capital in Twickenham, and another in Nottingham.

Between 11 February and the end of March, more than 65 similar stickers were displayed around London, with over 50 in Tower Hamlets. This was turning out to be the most intense homophobic hate literature campaign since the 1980s battle over section 28.

Coverage of the sticker campaign, particularly online, often seemed ill-informed. Comment pieces from both sides tended towards a rabble-rousing tone, inspiring a torrent of racist and Islamaphobic abuse. I experienced more back-to-my-roots shivers, this time thinking about my grandparents' fight against Oswald Mosley's blackshirts.

Acting on Rainbow Hamlets's advice, a joint statement was issued by Tower Hamlets' mayor Lutfur Rahman, the Inter-faith Forum, and the East London Mosque & London Muslim Centre (ELM). This represented the first public condemnation of homophobia by both Rahman and the ELM.

The local authority, Tower Hamlets Homes (the largest social housing provider in the borough), and the Metropolitan police also issued directives to ensure that within a further 48 hours hundreds of public servants were on the lookout to report the stickers and remove them.

A series of specially convened meetings at the town hall drew representatives from council departments, education, housing, the police and community organisations. At these meetings, the sticker campaign, homophobic hate preachers, racism among some members of the LGBT community and the infiltration by the far right of East End Gay Pride were placed firmly on the agenda, each with equal vigour. And here, the ELM first admitted there had been homophobic incidents in the mosque in the past and that it had adopted new policies and procedures to ensure it would not happen again.

Add in regular community consultation and the police operation, and these joint actions represented a rapid and timely response to events.

At informal meetings involving the Council of Mosques, the ELM, and the Inter-faith Forum, chaired by a Christian minister, we looked at how to address homophobia in faith communities. We argued that no hatred, harassment or bullying of any LGBT person is ever justified by faith, even when scripture forbids same-gender sexual relations. Whatever any community's teaching, this is entirely separate from its duty to respect human life and to develop good relations with its neighbours and other communities of culture and belief.

Out of these meetings came the idea for a major interfaith conference on the International Day Against Homophobia on 17 May. A multifaith LGBT steering group was assembled and Rahman and the cohesion minister, Andrew Stunell, agreed to join more than 80 LGBT and straight people from Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Buddhist and secular backgrounds.

But in April, it suddenly became hard to get a response from the Council of Mosques and the ELM. We realised that neither would talk publicly about their new stance on hate speech, or even, despite our strenuous efforts, send any formal representatives to the conference. A couple of community members were sent along to participate in their own right, but a chance was missed, goodwill dissipated and the trust that had been built up sorely tested.

All too often, these issues are dealt with in ways that create enormous tensions and hurt, reinforce ignorance and disrespect, and build anger and hatred. At the same time, whatever good words are said to us in meetings in private, they are only of value if they lead to public action. Otherwise, what use are they in building understanding between communities when tensions exist?

Meanwhile, it soon became clear that the law does not deal with anti-gay hate material in the same way as it does racist, antisemitic or anti-faith literature.

The relevant Public Order Act section depends on whether the material displayed is: threatening, abusive or insulting (section 5); whether there was also an intent to cause harassment, alarm or distress (section 4a); and if the conduct or material is threatening and is intended to stir up hatred (section 29).

If the offending material is racist, antisemitic or anti-faith, there is a special aggravated status given to the section 4a offence which means it becomes a serious criminal charge that can be dealt with in the crown court, with more extensive powers of sentencing and greater police powers of investigation. This does not apply to homophobic hate material.

Whereas the case law for racist and antisemitic material is well established, many of the provisions relating to homophobia only came into effect last year. There is no case law directing police or the Crown Prosecution Service towards the appropriate charging level or identifying what constitutes threatening homophobic material.

Neither Metropolitan police nor British Transport police (BTP) investigating officers would accept that the stickers were threatening. The BTP, which had CCTV footage, charged Mohammed Hasnath under section 5. He was convicted last month after admitting to displaying and disseminating the stickers to others, but not to intending to cause distress. Hasnath claimed he was merely promoting his faith. However, District Judge Jeremy Coleman said when passing sentence: "I think you used these stickers deliberately to offend and distress people, you certainly succeeded in doing that. You have upset people and they deserve an apology, you are not entitled to behave in this way." Hasnath received a £100 fine.

In June, we obtained a month-by-month analysis of homophobic crime figures in the borough. It reveals that incidents in Tower Hamlets have risen by a third (33%) between April 2009-March 2010 and April 2010-March 2011, much more than the 21% widely reported in the media. The increase is of even more concern because the data counted all the reports of stickers in the borough as one linked incident.

The ELM is a leader of the Muslim community, with a responsibility to set an example. It has accepted it has hosted at least one homophobic speaker, Abdul Karim Hattin, in 2007, whose Spot the Fag lecture was featured on Channel 4's Dispatches programme. Last month, the ELM contacted Rainbow Hamlets after accusations of culpability for the rise in homophobic crime in Tower Hamlets appeared in the national press. It asked what could be done.

We are now engaged in intense dialogue. Our approach is to treat the ELM like any other body in which homophobia has occurred. So we have made clear that we intend to compile an evidenced-based report. We have asked the ELM for a clear statement of its policy towards homophobic speakers. On its website it does say "those hate preachers who circumvented our bookings policy in the past are now barred; our vetting procedures for speakers and guests appearing at our mosque and centre have been significantly tightened over the past year". But to date no one has seen its policy. We have also asked how it will enforce the policy and, crucially, for a clear response about which preachers are barred. We intend to report progress next month.

Today, moderate communities have a simple unequivocal duty: to be seen to show all their neighbours respect – whether or not they agree or approve of their beliefs or lifestyle. What is needed is a paradigm shift among LGBT and Muslim opinion formers, one that enables the leaders to find a rhetoric that can speak of respect and joint-working publicly, and which addresses patterns of prejudice on all sides without fear.

Twenty years ago this month, I was secretary of the Jewish Lesbian and Gay Helpline when it was banned from a cross-community charity walk organised by the chief rabbi, Lord Sacks, because it was an event for families. Clerics, like all of us, can change. Nowadays, Sacks says: "Jews cannot fight antisemitism alone, Muslims cannot fight Islamaphobia alone, gays cannot fight homophobia alone. The victim cannot cure the crime, the hated cannot cure the hater. We are as big or as small as the space we make for others who are not like us."

We should all take note.

Brian Haw (RIP)

WHEN Brian Haw sat in his old canvas chair in front of his banner-hung tent in Parliament Square, people kept coming by. Tourists with their cameras. Teenagers drinking beer. Commuters on their way to work. Taxis, vans, bicycles. Bloody big black cars with lying politicians in them. Buses with passengers all on their phones or buried in their papers. Drivers who wound down the car window, not stopping, and shouted “Get a job!”

Wasn’t that nice. But he had a job. He had it for ten years in sun, rain, sleet, snow. Never left the square. And his job was this. Get the people to wake up. Get them to realise that the USA and the UK were killing babies. Hundreds were dying every day in this place called Iraq and this place called Afghanistan. He had their photographs on his wall of shame. Bloated, pathetic, missing limbs. Sanctions were killing them. Sanctions and bombs. And especially, check out depleted uranium munitions. That poison was everywhere, in the air, in the water, even between the grains of sand. There wasn’t a Hoover in the world big enough to suck up all that shit. And everyone was responsible. Everyone. Raping and pillaging and murdering the world. Just to get that stuff called oil. FOOD YES, BOMBS NO, his banners said. COLAT DAMAGE, NO. A GENOCIDE TOO FAR. STOP KILLING MY KIDS.

People from the whole wide world filmed him on a regular basis. They liked to photograph his old corduroy hat—more badges than hat—which said THE WAR IS THE ENEMY OF THE POOR and SUPPORT US TROOPS—BRING EM HOME! They asked him how he slept. (Badly. How would you sleep if 200 babies were dying every day?) They fussed over how he ate. (Mostly chips people brought him and coffee with five sugars. He was lean as a twig. But you know what? People in Calcutta would think he was a king to have so much pavement to live on.) They asked about the mice. They had nested in his sheepskin coat once. He was far more worried about the rats across the road.

Related topics

• Tony Blair
• Britain's Parliament

When he talked, he sounded tired. He was. Tired of the bollocks. Tired of people not taking responsibility for their inhumaneness to their fellow man. He probably smoked too much, too. Breathed in too much exhaust. Between sentences he would work his stubbly chin as if chewing on unpalatable facts. Then he’d sing:

Last night I had the strangest dream, I’d ever dreamed before;
I dreamed the world had all agreed, to put an end to war.

He spoke like an evangelist, because he was one. His parents were Christian, and he’d found Jesus too at Sunshine Corner beach school in Whitstable. After the merchant navy, he went missionising round Redditch in a minivan. He moved to Parliament Square in 2001 to express his Christian outrage about sanctions. Bush’s and Blair’s wars kept him there. He loved his neighbour’s kids as his own because he was a Christian. Other so-called Christians bombed them. Other “believers”, also in the square, didn’t care. (WESTMINSTER ABBEY, WAKE UP!) If the people who had marched in 2003 against the Iraq war had stayed, like him, the politicians would have thought again.

Police abuse

His megaphone helped spread the message. ARREST GEORGE BUSH, WAR CRIMINAL! HI TONY! 45 MINUTES, MR BLAIR. MR B-L-I-A-R. They could hear him even in the Commons chamber. At first Tony Blair said good old Brian, what a champion of free speech. Yes, he was. He defended the right to free expression in front of Parliament: 350 years of peaceful protest. Some rapper boys from South London came up and hugged him once. They said they totally supported him, fuck Parliament, fuck ’em all. But he wouldn’t have that. He just answered Love, Peace, Justice, stop killing my kids.

The authorities soon got tired of him, though. Westminster Council tried to remove him because he was a nuisance and “obstructing the pavement”. It failed. By 2005 Tony decided he’d had enough of the name-calling. The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act said Mr Haw had to give six days’ notice, if you please, of any demonstration within a kilometre of Parliament. How could he do that? The High Court ruled against it, and said he was legal. But the police never acted as though he was. Any morning they might wake him up with a siren, whoop, whoop, Are you there Brian, yank up his plastic, rifle through his private property right in front of Parliament. Who was abusing whom then? In 2006 78 of them came to tear down his wall of pictures, smashed it, trashed it, left it like a bomb site. Left him with one sign. He stayed, of course.

People asked him about his own kids, seven of them. An off-limits topic. Family was left behind when he came to the square. His wife had divorced him, he’d learned. It wasn’t his fault. He hadn’t wanted to stay eight bloody years away from them, with the pollution and the drunks who broke his nose and the thugs who shouted “Wanker!” at him. He stayed because he wasn’t finished yet. And you know what? It was never fundamentally about free speech and the rights of Englishmen and all that stuff. It was about the dead children. And not walking by.

The Welcome

4th of July - Independence is Good

In Praise Of...

The first name on the list is John Angus. The records say little about him. He was, they suspected, from London. In September 1938, he was reported "fighting in Spain". He was a communist. In longhand, someone has later added "Returned". Further than that, the record is silent. But Angus is caught in the spotlight today because he is on a remarkable list of more than 4,000 British people who volunteered on behalf of the Spanish Republic in the civil war of 1936-39, which has now been made public in the National Archives. To MI5, which compiled the list, John Angus and the others who fought for Spain were suspicious, perhaps with reason in some cases. To many reading the newly released list today, however, Angus and his companions are heroes, bathed in romance. A few – like the poet John Cornford, against whose name a clerk wrote "DEAD" in December 1936, and then underlined it – were famous in their time. Most were not. They were mainly working-class, often communists, Scots and Jewish. More than 500 people from these islands died for Spain in those three years – more than have died in Afghanistan in nearly a decade. The names of the dead have long been collected together on the International Brigade Memorial Trust website. Now, thanks to a liberal gesture by the security service, the dead and their comrades who survived have been reunited in this much longer list, an enduring roll call of a generation and a company who should be remembered in honour.

Muscular Liberalism

'Muscular liberalism," says Jack Gilbert. "I'm no Tory, but that's what we need here. A little muscular liberalism." He sighs. It has been a trying time.

The main problem is always the earthquake, causing fear and devastation. But thereafter come the aftershocks, continuing the damage, heightening the uncertainty. Jack is worried about the aftershocks in Tower Hamlets in east London.

What happened in the borough, where a population 36% Muslim shares space with one of the highest ratios of same-sex couples in the country, was nasty. Stickers began appearing, on the streets, near gay venues, on public transport, outside a school, declaring the borough to be a "gay free" zone. "Verily Allah is severe in punishment," they said.

Fair dos; the local police reacted quickly. A fortnight ago one local man, Mohammed Hasnath, was convicted.

But then came the aftershocks. The first was that Hasnath was fined just £100. "The charge brought by British Transport Police was too low," says Gilbert. "Even the judge seemed to think so, but they decided that the stickers themselves were not threatening." Jack's exasperated. "Not threatening? As a Jew I know that had the signs said 'No Jew zone', that would have been regarded as threatening. 'No blacks zone'? We wouldn't even be talking about it."

Gilbert had been expecting the influential East London Mosque to react with an unequivocal public statement denouncing all shades of homophobia. Despite several requests and private meetings with officials, he is still waiting for some clear indication that everyone is on the same page.

"The CPS didn't cover themselves in glory either," he says. "You could say everyone needs to reflect."

They do indeed. For while we were all digesting figures that suggest a 21% rise in gay hate crime incidents locally, Gilbert was doing some number crunching. "We fear the true position is substantially worse," he suggests.

That's why, for him, the future is muscular liberalism. "We have been conciliatory, but that's got to work both ways. Now's the time for mutual respect."

Church & State

Learned man that he is, when Rowan Williams attacked the coalition's economic policies he knew he was picking a scab on one of western society's deepest wounds: the struggle for supremacy between secular and spiritual authority that so often pits archbishops of Canterbury against the government of the day.

Clergy no longer assert their superiority or pay for defiance with their lives. But within memory, archbishops have attacked foreign wars – in Iraq or Vietnam – urged more progressive social policies to help the poorest, and condemned indiscriminate bombing in the second world war. Winston Churchill was as annoyed by his clerical critics as Margaret Thatcher would be when Robert Runcie – holder of the Military Cross – insisted on prayers for the Argentinian war dead as well as Britain's after the Falklands war of 1982.

The Arab spring is only the latest demonstration that tensions between clerics and secular modernisers is not confined to western states, where the issue was largely resolved in favour of secular power long ago. Yet conflict between theocratical and temporal claims in Iran or Saudi Arabia that would be familiar to medieval Europeans, still flare up, not least in the United States, whose 1787 constitution explicitly separated religion from the state to avoid repeating Europe's bloody conflicts.

Each country's struggle has been different. The best-known clash in England culminated in four knights murdering Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170, after years of dispute between Henry II and his archbishop over the appointments of bishops and thus control of the wealth, taxes and power that they exercised. Becket had been Henry's secular lord chancellor and the king misjudged where his loyalties would lie as archbishop.

Their feud echoed the 100-year-old "investiture crisis" between pope and German emperor – self-styled heir to the empire of Rome – over which appointed the other and ultimately called the shots. When Napoleon took the diadem from the pope's hands and crowned himself emperor of France in 1804 he was making the same ancient point.

Eastern religions like Hinduism largely avoided the problem. Even the eastern Roman empire – Byzantium – did so after it split with Rome when the Orthodox church ceded primacy to the emperor. The Russian Orthodox church was reduced to a department of state by Peter the Great long before Stalin. In Cyprus, Archbishop Makarios was head of church and state until his death in 1977.

But Caesaro-papism – where Caesar also plays pope – re-emerged in the west in different guise.

The German princes relished Martin Luther attacking the corrupt late medieval papacy – and the emperor – after 1517, but Lutheranism's early radicalism succumbed early to state power.

England's familiar version is better known than understood. Henry VIII was more interested in acquiring land, power and a new wife than the finer points of theology. But when he declared "this realm of England is an empire" he was cocking a snook at European claims to overlordship – by both pope and emperor – which would not seriously be revived until the Treaty of Rome (where else?) created the embryo EU in 1957.

Cardinal Wolsey, Henry's ecclesiastical first minister, had fallen after failing to square his pope and monarch. Lord Chancellor Thomas More went to the block for a similar failure. Henry's Catholic daughter, Queen Mary, burned his more obliging archbishop, Thomas Cranmer (1533-55) at the stake, but only after the cleric had been formally deposed by her pope and handed over for punishment. Her protestant sister Elizabeth did the same to Catholic dissidents; and her efforts to combine a degree of religious tolerance with political loyalty collapsed into half a century of civil strife after her death.

Another archbishop, William Laud (1633-45) was executed and another, William Sancroft (1678-90) deposed for refusing to take an oath of allegience to the protestant William and Mary who had just ousted the Catholic James II/VI.

Scottish Presbyterianism went its own way, as did Catholic Ireland. Wales would disestablish the official Anglican church in 1902. But the Anglican settlement of 1689 still stands with 26 senior bishops in the House of Lords and the Queen as head of the established church with few exceptions the church became what wits called "the Tory party at prayer". So Tory was Archbishop William Howley (1828-48), who crowned Queen Victoria in 1837, that he led opposition to the Great Reform Act and wider toleration, as well; as being one of the last men in England to wear a wig.

Things slowly changed. Christians became more involved in political and social reform. After the Catholic hierarchy was readmitted to England, Cardinal Manning mediated the great London dock strike of 1889. In 1909 Cosmo Lang, then at York but later (1928-42) Canterbury, defended Lloyd George's "People's Budget" in the reactionary House of Lords — and even spoke up for the kaiser when war broke out in 1914.

When Lang died, Churchill opposed the promotion of George Bell, bishop of Chichester ("Brother Bell" to the trade unions) to the vacancy for his outspoken criticism of the bombing in Germany.

But William Temple (1942-44) who got the job — his father had also been archbishop — was also a progressive, sometime member of the Labour party, who backed the 1944 Education Act and the Beveridge report a negotiated peace with, not unconditional surrender of, the Axis powers. As church attendance – and power – declined, the church became more radical. Of postwar archbishops, Geoffrey Fisher (1945-61) was a former flogging headmaster who blocked Princess Margaret's marriage to the divorced Peter Townsend, and George Carey (1991-2002), who ordained women priests but irritated his own flock, was Margaret Thatcher's less troublesome replacement for the outspoken Runcie (1980-91).

Runcie had been a tank-commanding chum of Willie Whitelaw's in the war, preferred by Thatcher over the more flamboyant Hugh Montefiore.. But he proved a thorn in her flesh, not least in publishing Faith in the City which criticised Tory social policy – a Marxist work, according to Norman Tebbit who has again attacked it on the airwaves. The days when archbishops' outbursts were politely received and condemned only privately by ministers are long gone. David Cameron said he "profoundly disagreed" with many of Williams' points. But this archbishop will not be sent to the Tower.

D’accord

An Algerian-born man living in France has been refused French nationality because of his "degrading attitude" towards women.

The man, who has not been named, is married to a Frenchwoman, but does not allow her to leave the family home freely, it was claimed.

In what is seen as a legal precedent, his application for French nationality was turned down because "his idea of sexual equality is not that of the republic", according to a high-ranking official quoted by French radio station Europe 1.

The French constitution states that the government can refuse nationality or strip nationality for a "lack of integration". The interior minister, Claude Guéant, has made it clear he expects candidates for nationality to not only integrate but "assimilate" into French society.

A spokesman for the minister told the Guardian that concerns were raised when police interviewed the man as part of the application process. The refusal, she added, had been confirmed by the State Council – the legal body that advises the government on legislation – and was awaiting signature by the minister.

"The man was eligible for French nationality as he had been married to a French citizen for more than four years. In such cases, however, it can be refused by a disrespect of or lack of assimilation into the French community or if the person practises polygamy.

"In this case, during the interview at the police station his behaviour showed a lack of assimilation into the French community; it was incompatible with the values of the French republic, notably in respect to the values of the equality of men and women. This justifies the decision for not giving him French nationality. The case was examined by the State Council, which agreed and a decision to that effect was given."

The case emerged a week after far-right leader Marine Le Pen wrote to French MPs asking them to support an end to dual nationality, claiming it "undermines republican values". Le Pen has made no secret that her demand is aimed at people from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. A delegation of 50 MPs from the ruling right-of-centre UMP party met President Nicolas Sarkozy recently to press for an end to dual nationality. Afterwards one of the MPs said Sarkozy was "very favourable" to the idea.

Henry Guaino, one of the president's closest advisers, told French radio: "It's an idea that merits debate. Whatever the National Front's position, it's not wrong to discuss this issue."

Socialist MP Manuel Valls, who chairs a parliamentary committee on nationality rights, said scrapping dual nationality would be counter-productive and that French expatriates with dual nationality acted as "ambassadors" for their country around the world.

Christophe Girard, the Socialist deputy mayor of Paris, wrote in Le Monde that the history of France and its mix of cultures was under threat. "This return to nationalism that locks and narrows pits citizens against each other in fear and hatred and is a proven risk," he wrote. "The atmosphere fostered by the current government is even more revolting given that the current head of state himself is the son of an immigrant father and his third wife is French-Italian.

"The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the backbone of France. We need to strengthen it. I would appeal to all those who are able to obtain a second citizenship to take the necessary steps now."

India & Kashmir

Many years ago, I met two journalists from India in London and we found ourselves talking about Kashmir. Mostly, they listened patiently to my impassioned tale of what goes on, but the moment I touched upon the brutal counter-insurgency methods employed by the Indian security apparatus in the disputed territory – among them notorious "catch-and-kill" operations to execute suspected militants – they looked incredulous, made a quick excuse and left. Later, I learned that at least one of them believed that Kashmiris liked to exaggerate the excesses of the Indian armed forces.

In the reaction of those two men, I had witnessed the frightening success of India's policy of denial and misrepresentation on Kashmir. India's decision to censor the Economist last week, following the publication of a map that shows the disputed borders of Kashmir, represents two unsurprising but ominous things: that the country's age-old intransigence over Kashmir still runs deep; and its willingness to curb freedom of speech over what it sees as sensitive matters of national interest. On Kashmir India continues to behave as a police state, not as the champion of democracy and freedom that it intends to be.

There is nothing astonishing or new in this. For decades, India has not only been unwilling to solve one of the world's most tragic conflicts but has scuttled any attempt at meaningful discourse on the issue, both internationally and within the country. The ultimately pointless attempt at censorship by asking the magazine to paste stickers on a representation of areas controlled by India, Pakistan and China is, sadly, in line with its inflexible and deeply flawed Kashmir policy. To come good on its insistence that "Kashmir is an integral part of India" – and it does lash out at any attempt to suggest otherwise – it maintains the world's largest military presence in a single region, to suppress the revolt that erupted against its rule in 1989. An uprising that continues in the form of a civilian resistance.

Last year, in what we now remember as Kashmir's bloody summer, its paramilitaries and police killed more than a hundred protesters, most of them young men and schoolchildren. Among those killed was Sameer Rah, a nine-year-old boy from Srinagar, who was bludgeoned to death and his body dumped by a kerb. The image of his bruised, purple body is now permanently etched in the collective consciousness of Kashmiris at home and across the world, and may haunt India's political and intellectual elites for a long time. In response to this brutalisation of a people – the Kashmir valley remained in virtual siege for weeks – a cogent narrative of what I call "new dissent" began to evolve in Kashmir and India, scripted by Kashmiris themselves and by some of India's bravest public intellectuals, writers and journalists.

However, both the central government and its clients in the state tried everything to suppress this new wave of dissent; they introduced draconian measures to silence the voice of Kashmiris and their supporters in Delhi. TV channels were forced off air, newspapers were not allowed to print for weeks, text messaging was banned, and later on, in India's capital, a lower court even charged Arundhati Roy with sedition. But the urge to report to the world what was unfolding in Kashmir was ultimately unstoppable. Kashmiri youth turned to social media to get the word out.

And it did get out, aided by India's fascinatingly diverse intelligentsia and those sections of the Indian media that have of late started to look at Kashmir with new understanding and empathy, and not through the disingenuous prism of national interest.

The Economist's map on Kashmir – which must have received many more page views than had it not been declared contraband – contains nothing that contests historical facts or misrepresents ground reality. Essentially, the magazine has produced a graphical account of geopolitical status in the region – namely, Kashmir is a disputed territory, with India and Pakistan as the main contestants, but Kashmiris as the central party as it is their future that has been a point of dispute. A dispute that the UN recognises as such in its charter of 1948 – and in its maps. I have found maps produced by the UN to be the most accurate and impartial.

When, and why, do states censor maps? Mostly when the operating principle seems to be denial and obfuscation. For years, the Indian state has attempted to delegitimise people's aspirations in Kashmir, either by raising the bogey of Islamism or lumping together the challenge to its authority in Kashmir with the US-led war on terror. For most of the 1990s and the early years of the new millennium it succeeded. Ironically, as a consequence of the emergence of "new India" and the burgeoning of the country's affluent middle classes, the Economist – a magazine previously considered the preserve of business elites – is now selling more copies in India. It is seen as influential, and capable of altering opinion – hence the kneejerk reaction to the map. The Indian government is doing a huge disservice to its democratic credentials by trying to confiscate the truth about one of the world's most tragic, intractable and dangerous conflicts.

Loser Of The Day

Winner Of The Day

California & Democracy

A Finger For Freedom

Barcelona Referendum

Reputation Management

PICTURE yourself as a big shot from an unpopular country—leader of an oil-rich bit of the Middle East, say, or a tycoon from a grungy bit of the former Communist world. You wish your family could shop, invest, socialise and study in the richest and nicest parts of the world (and flee there if needs be). But you don’t deserve it and won’t earn it: you will not stop torture, allow criticism, obey the law, or keep your fingers out of the public purse.

Luckily, respectability is on sale. You just have to know how to buy it. The place to start is London. Among its advantages are strict libel laws, which mean nosy journalists risk long, costly legal battles. And helpful banks, law firms, accountants and public relations people abound.

Laws on money-laundering have irritating requirements about scrutiny of new customers. This used to be merely an exercise in ticking boxes, but has got a bit tougher. Still, a well-connected and unscrupulous banker will be your best friend, for a fee. You cut him in on some lucrative transactions with your country or company. In return he will pilot you through the first stages, arming you with a lawyer (to scare rivals and critics) and an accountant (to keep your books opaque but legal).

Next comes a virtuous circle of socialising and do-gooding. Start with the cash-strapped upper reaches of the cultural world: a big art gallery, an opera house, or something to do with young musicians. Donations there will get you known and liked. Or try funding a prize at UNESCO or some other international do-gooding outfit. Support causes involving war veterans or sick children. Sponsoring sport works too. But don’t overdo it—the public is wiser than the glitterati, and will soon scent a crude attempt to buy popularity.

Send your children to posh English schools. Shower hospitality on their friends: they will be important one day. But invite the parents too: they are influential now. A discreet payment will tempt hard-up celebrities to come to your parties. Minor royals are an even bigger draw: British for choice, but continental will do. Even sensible people go weak at the knees at the thought of meeting a princeling, however charmless or dim-witted.

Many such titled folk like a lavish lifestyle but cannot earn or afford it. So offer a deal: you pay for their helicopters, hookers and hangers-on. In return, they bring you into their social circuit, and shower stardust on yours. You will need patience: the parties are dull and the guests vapid and greedy. Building your reputation as a charming and generous host may take a couple of years. But once people have met you socially they will find it hard to see you as a murderous monster or thieving thug. Useful props in this game are yachts, private jets, racehorses, ski chalets and mansions.

Armed with social and cultural clout, you can approach money-hungry academia and think-tanks. A good combination is a Washington, DC, think-tank and a London-based university (Oxford and Cambridge, being richer, are also choosier about whom they take money from). The package deal should involve a centre (perhaps with a professorial chair) and a suitable title: it should include words like global, sustainable, strategic and ethical.

I stink, you think

On the subject of titles, expect an honorary doctorate for yourself and a PhD for your favourite young relative. This need not be an onerous undertaking. A lobbying firm can help with the research. Think-tanks’ flimsier finances make them easy prey too—and they are more immediately influential than universities. Most of their experts are expected to raise all their own funds. A few million here or there is chicken feed for you but a career-saver for them and their programmes.

Sponsorship does not just make you look brainy and public spirited. It also skews the academic debate. If you are a pious Muslim, let it be known that a focus on uncontroversial subjects such as Islamic architecture, calligraphy and poetry will keep the money coming. Textual criticism of the mutually contradictory early versions of the Koran, by contrast, is a no-no. If you are from Russia, support cheerleaders for the “reset” in relations with America and pay for people to decry former Soviet satellites as irrelevant basket cases. If you are in oil or gas, pay for studies criticising the disruptive exercise of competition law on energy suppliers.

Then move on to the media. Generous advertising in the mainstream print dailies is a good way to make friends. Nobody will read the lavish supplements that trumpet your imaginary virtues and conceal your real flaws. But the newspaper’s managers will be happy. It may be too much to expect them to get the journalists to tweak their coverage (though that can happen) but you will find it easier to put your point across. Sumptuous fact-finding trips are an easy way of making hacks’ heads softer and hearts warmer. You can also hold conferences, with high fees for journalists who moderate sessions or sit on the panels. They will soon get the idea.

You are now in a position to approach politics. Most rich countries make it hard (or illegal) for foreigners to give money to politicians or parties. But you can oil the wheels. A non-executive directorship can be a mind-changing experience. Invite retired politicians and officials for lucrative speaking engagements and consultancy work: word will soon get around and the soon-to-retire will bear your interests in mind. Even better, set up an advisory council stuffed with influential foreigners. You need tell them nothing about what you do. Nor do you have to heed their advice.

Foreign respectability also makes you look good in the eyes of your own people. And it demoralises your critics, crushing their belief that Western media, politics, academia and public life are to be admired.

Your progress from villain to hero will not always go smoothly, especially if you have to start killing your opponents. But when the alarm is raised, your allies will rally to your defence. A tame academic can write an opinion piece; a newspaper grateful for your advertising will publish it. Your fans can always say that someone else is much worse and that you are at least a reforming, if not fully reformed, character. A few references to American robber-barons such as John Pierpont Morgan will bolster the case. So too will a gibe at less-than-perfect Western leaders such as Silvio Berlusconi. After all, nobody likes hypocrisy.

The King Is Naked!

Spain must compensate the radical Basque separatist leader Arnaldo Otegi after wrongly sentencing him to jail for insulting King Juan Carlos, the European court of human rights has decided.

The court in Strasbourg ruled on Tuesday that Spain must pay €23,000 (nearly £20,000) in compensation to Otegi for breaching his right to freedom of expression after he accused the Spanish monarch of protecting police torturers.

Otegi made his comments after police raided and closed down the Basque-language Egunkaria newspaper in February 2003. The editor, Martxelo Otamendi, and other executives, claimed they were tortured. When Juan Carlos visited the Basque country soon afterwards, Otegi said that as "supreme head of the civil guard police force", the monarch was effectively in command of those who had tortured Egunkaria staff.

Otegi claimed the king "protects torture and imposes his monarchical regime on our people through torture and violence". Three years later a Spanish court found him guilty of insulting the king, handing down a one-year suspended jail sentence and imposing costs.

But the Strasbourg court has decided Otegi was within his rights as a politician to air his grievances against the king, though the torture allegations were never proved.

Otegi's remarks were "made in his capacity as elected member of and spokesperson for a parliamentary group …in the context of the recent closure of the Egunkaria newspaper and the complaint alleging ill-treatment", the Strasbourg judges ruled.

They accepted that his words "could be understood as contributing to a wider public debate on the possible responsibility of the state security forces in cases of ill treatment".

Spanish judges last year threw out a case alleging that Otamendi and other Egunkaria executives had collaborated with Eta. The decision came too late to save Egunkaria.

Four civil guard police officers were found guilty last December of torturing members of an Eta unit that killed two people with a bomb at Madrid's Barajas airport in 2006.

Otegi is one of a group of separatist leaders now trying to persuade Eta to end four decades of terrorism.