Monday, January 5, 2015

Who is being deprived of their human rights? The victims or the criminals? The answer to that question, according to the modern West:

Somali pirate. Photo credit: AFP

By: Y.K. Cherson

In 2008, a group of Somali pirates attacked and captured both a French cruise ship and a yacht, holding hostage the French citizens on board. In order to save their lives, the French government paid ransom: $2.1m and $2m respectively. Then the French military captured the pirates responsible on the Somali coast in two operations – and instead of shooting them on the spot and feeding their corpses to sharks, they took them to France.

Before doing so, the authorities held one group for four days and the others for six days and 16 hours. Remarkably, the extra 48 hours of custody before being brought before a judge somehow violated the pirates’ right to liberty and security, and the European Court on Human Rights has now ordered “compensation for them over judicial delays.”

Nine Somali pirates should get thousands of euros because they were not immediately brought before a French judge, the court ruled.

France was ordered to pay between €5,000 and €2,000 ($6,100 and $2,500) to each pirate for “moral damages”, plus amounts varying from €3,000 to €9,000 ($3,700 and $11,200) to cover the legal costs of the “victimized” pirate criminals.

There have been less Somali pirate attacks recently as a result of shipping companies employing armed guards and an increase in foreign navies on patrol. It just isn’t that easy for poor dinghy owners on the Somali coast to make a living anymore! But the European Court on Human Rights decided to help them. With the money these guys will get as compensation from the French government paid by French tax payers including the families of those whom they captured, they will be able to buy bigger and faster boats and equip them with better machine guns and even- who knows- mortars, which will make their risky and strenuous work more rewarding and less dangerous.

After reading this, I was already going to drive to the airport, buy a flight to Somalia and join the pirates. But then I recalled Anders Breivik, who on July 22, 2011, bombed government buildings in Oslo, killing eight people then moved to the island of Utoya, where he killed 69 more people, mostly teenagers – and now is serving his life term (maximum 21 years, by Norwegian laws) in a maximum security prison, so strict, that the killer is forced to endure a Playstation 2 rather than a Playstation 3, which “has more suitable games,” according to the “tortured” Breivik. He also laments that he is not able to choose his own video games.

If this is maximum security in Norway for a dangerous mass murderer, where do other murderers spend their prison sentence? Some, in Halden, the most luxurious prison ever built, also claiming to be one of the highest security prisons in Norway.

This is how Amelia Gentleman, writing for The Guardian, describes it:

“Halden prison smells of freshly brewed coffee. It hits you in the workshop areas, lingers in the games rooms and in the communal apartment-style areas where prisoners live together in groups of eight. This much coffee makes you hungry, so a couple of hours after lunch the guards on Unit A (a quiet, separated wing where sex offenders are held for their own protection) bring inmates a tall stack of steaming, heart-shaped waffles and pots of jam, which they set down on a checked tablecloth and eat together, whiling away the afternoon…

Dorm room or prison cell? Actually, most dormitories do not provide en suites.

“When Halden opened, it attracted attention globally for its design and its relative splendour. Set in a forest, the prison blocks are a model of minimalist chic. Høidal lifts down from his office wall a framed award for best interior design, a prize given in recognition of the stylishness of the white laminated tables, tangerine leather sofas and elegant, skinny chairs dotted all over the place. At times, the environment feels more Scandinavian boutique hotel than class A prison.

“The hotel comparison comes up frequently…”

No ball and chain here. This mural cost over $1.5 million.

“Every Halden cell has a flatscreen television, its own toilet (which, unlike standard UK prison cells, also has a door) and a shower, which comes with large, soft, white towels. Prisoners have their own fridges, cupboards and desks in bright new pine, white magnetic pinboards and huge, unbarred windows overlooking mossy forest scenery.”

“There’s also a recording studio with a professional mixing board. In-house music teachers — who refer to the inmates as ‘pupils,’ never ‘prisoners’ — work with their charges on piano, guitar, bongos and more.”

And this is a prison yard for rapists, pedophiles and murderers. It’s where they “suffer.”

halden_prison_yard

It was rumored that Breivik, the man who killed 77 people in cold blood, most of them kids, would be transferred to Halden. That remains to be seen, but like the prison where Breivik sits, whining that he can’t get decent Playstation games as well as a sofa or armchair instead of a “painful” chair, Halden is also a “maximum security” prison.

And as if the inhumane treatment of Breivik with poorly chosen and antiquated video games were not enough of a punishment, those ferocious Norwegians decided to torture the guy even more. They sang to him. Yup, 40,000 Norwegians, in public squares from Oslo to Narvik, sang a Pete Seeger song, “Children of the Rainbow” right into Breivik’s cell, as he writhed in his painful chair. You just imagine 40,000 thousand Norwegians singing! Can you think of some more cruel torture?

So, now I am at a loss: for what the gone-nuts Western democracy pays more: for being a pirate- or for being a mass murderer?