14 Aug 2011

Collective Punishment of 'Rioters' Families and the Geneva Convention

An interesting exchange on Facebook is reproduced below regarding some Councils' determination to evict persons convicted of involvement in the recent UK riots. Wandsworth Council want to evict an entire family whose son was found guilty of involvement in the Clapham Junction looting.

cameron and hoodie

One wonders what long-term good such a local authority imagines will come from this. Will they make an underclass intimidated into passivity and obedience, however grudging?
Is satisfying the understandable cries for punitive action from shopkeepers and a rattled middle class wise if this action strays into the realms of collective punishment, a point Jim Murphy fairly raises below?
For myself, even if a convicted person is the only one evicted, this strategy makes no sense. Deprive the underclass of even a place to live? I can think of no better way of creating genuinely terrifying psychopaths.

evicted

Anyone paying attention to the crimes of the elite (and the cover-up of these crimes by parliament and the media) knows very well that the sickness at the bottom of society is a manifestation of a much greater sickness at the top.
Bearing in mind the unwillingness of our entire parliament, even the old icons of the left like Diane Abbott, who rose to prominence on the back of the Hackney riots, to see itself as part of (never mind the source of) the problem, might we not expect with absolute certainty that a similar sickness will manifest itself later....more than likely on a much larger scale. The middle classes, whose children cannot afford to get a mortgage on a place to live and who are being inducted into massive debt before they even start their working lives will become heavily involved.
When this time comes, and it will, more than sports and mobile phone shops will have cause to worry.

NO ONE TO VOTE FOR: Kev Boyle Blog

First riot-related eviction notice served – Yahoo news