Showing posts with label whistle-blower. Show all posts
Showing posts with label whistle-blower. Show all posts

Thursday 1 August 2013

Deafening silence on Copland victimisation allegations

Guest post by Mistleflower

According to the  Brent and Kilburn Times website last Friday,  teachers union president Hank Roberts has accused the new management at Copland School of victimisation of union members who  have opposed  the forced academisation  of Copland School and the privatisation of English education in general.   As the man who brought to an end (with no help from Brent or the DfE)  the  financial corruption at Copland which resulted in the upcoming trial on fraud charges of  Alan Davies and five others, Mr Roberts knows a thing or two about blowing the whistle on  unlawful activity by school managements and the victimisation of union members which results. He and his union colleagues acted, at great risk to their present jobs and their career futures, to stop the haemorrhaging  of  Brent taxpayers’ money into the pockets of their chiselling bosses. His observations, therefore, carry some weight in Brent and beyond. Despite this, the only response from the new Copland management to appear in the BKT article are these words  from Mr Nick John, one of the two new men hired by Brent and responsible for the alleged victimisation:
Teachers and students at Copland Community School are preparing for the new school year, we are looking forward to working with parents and families to improve standards and secure good lessons for all children.
While this is nice to know and possibly entirely accurate it has nothing whatever to do with the serious allegation made by Mr Roberts, which is  that  Copland’s Humanities faculty has been singled out for ‘special measures’ as a result of its containing  4 union officers and a Teacher Governor  each of whom have a high profile in opposing forced academisation, workplace bullying and the recent blatant misuse of capability procedures connected with this . It’s possible, of course, that the words quoted were uttered by Mr John on some completely different occasion about an entirely unrelated matter and that Mr John had, in fact, gone off on his holidays before Mr Roberts made his allegations. Whatever the circumstances though, you would expect that the new management of a school with a well-known history of unlawful management activity (allegedly) would wish to ensure that its conduct now and in future would be  squeaky-clean in such matters and perceived to be so by the public. Further, the default position of kneejerk defence of the school management by the governing body and by Brent council is already beginning to remind some observers of the bad old days of Alan Davies and I.P.Patel.

The management’s red herring concerning the English department (that it needs to improve and must therefore be relocated to the remotest and most isolated part of the school)  has already been laughed out of court, not least by the English department itself. But there must surely be one member of Copland’s new leadership, or of the newly imposed IEB governing body, or of Mr Pavey’s Children and Families department, who is not yet on holiday and is capable of making at least  a partly convincing rebuttal of Mr Roberts’s  specific allegations.

 On his arrival at Copland, new Head Richard Marshall apparently promised the staff he would not be a ‘Hero Head’ but that he would be ‘transparent’,  and transparency is a quality that Mr John, the IEB and Mr Pavey would all presumably  like to lay claim to. 

However, in the absence of any demonstration of such transparency,  staff, students and parents will have  to come to their own conclusions as to why the Humanities Faculty at Copland is being selected for special treatment by the new management. Below are 5 points any or all of  which currently have wide credence among the staff.  

1.       Humanities is being targeted as a punishment and a warning to others of the consequences  of  legitimately exercising legal democratic rights to dissent.

2.       Humanities is being targeted as a warning to other staff of the consequences of trade union activity under the new regime.

3.       Humanities subjects such as Economics, Law, Psychology, Sociology and Politics are being scrapped in a bid to limit the range of subjects at Copland to the sort of narrow Secondary Modern School curriculum dreamed of by Michael Gove in his Back-to-the-Fifties fantasies.

4.       Copland is being set up ultimately to be a  ‘Grade B’  (or ‘Secondary Modern’)  Academy, catering for those who, in Gove’s plans for a return to selection by national tests ranking children at age 11, come in the lower deciles (10% bands) of ability.  A narrow curriculum will be good enough for these kinds of students.

5.       Achieving the above at Copland (and also the ‘voluntary’ erosion of conditions of service already suggested by the new head) requires that dissent is neutralised and this requires the creation of a climate of fear among  staff.  The interviews Mr John  conducted with Heads of Faculty shortly after arriving ( in which he demanded they name 2 members of their faculty who they would like to see go, and then threatened that they would be the ones  going if they refused) set the tone.  Concocted capability procedures against a large number of staff came next. Refusal to communicate with staff through existing and long-established procedures was there from the start and continues.

There is evidence within the school itself and also in the wider political educational context, both in Brent and nationally, for all of these views.  In the absence of any contrary evidence, or of any specific denial, by the school management or by Brent, either of Mr Roberts’s allegations or of the 5 points set out above, staff can be excused for coming to their own conclusions.

Wednesday 31 July 2013

Peter Tatchell: 'Bradley Manning an honourable whistle-blower - not a thief or spy'

“Bradley Manning has been found guilty of theft and espionage after a biased, unfair trial in which he was not allowed to provide evidence of his motives and intentions when he released secret US files. These files included evidence of US war crimes, lies and cover-ups. Although he was found not guilty of aiding the enemy, the verdict is a travesty of justice. It mocks the honesty and idealism of a good soldier who sought to expose human rights abuses and defend international humanitarian law,” said Peter Tatchell, Director of the human rights organisation, the Peter Tatchell Foundation, which has campaigned in support of Manning’s right to expose wrong-doing.

Gay actor Kieron Richardson, from the TV soap opera Hollyoaks, has joined with Peter Tatchell to support Bradley Manning. PHOTO: http://bit.ly/13Wxy4C
For a print quality version, click here:
http://bit.ly/1aUH4qZ

“Manning is a LGBT equality supporter and has attended LGBT protests. He was subjected to homophobic abuse while in military detention awaiting trial. Some of his critics have tried to discredit him by falsely insinuating that anger and confusion over his sexuality and gender identity was a factor that led him to make his revelations. There has been an anti-gay sub-text to the way Manning has sometimes been portrayed by the media and his critics. 

“Bradley Manning is an honourable whistle-blower - not a thief or spy. He exposed the truth about US war crimes in Iraq.

“Manning is a true patriot, not a traitor. He reveres the founding ideals of the US: the notion of an open, honest government that is accountable to the people and that pursues its policies by lawful means with respect for human rights. At great personal sacrifice, he exposed grave crimes that were perpetrated and then hidden by the US government and military. These are the characteristics of a man of conscience, motivated by altruism. Thanks to Manning, the US people now know the truth.

“One of the war crimes he exposed was a US Apache helicopter attack that gunned down 11 Iraqi civilians in 2007, including two Reuters journalists and men who had gone to the aid of the wounded. Two children were also gravely injured when the US helicopter opened fire on their van. The video records US soldiers laughing and joking at the killings, and also insulting the victims.

“The video of the massacre can be seen at: www.collateralmurder.com

“This slaughter had previously been the subject of a cover-up by the US armed forces, which claimed dishonestly that the helicopter had been engaged in combat operations against armed enemy forces.

“It is only thanks to Bradley Manning that we now know the truth about this massacre of innocent civilians – and about the killings of hundreds of other civilians in unreported and undocumented incidents.

“The trial judge’s ruling that Manning was not allowed to use a ‘public interest’ defence during his trial was outrageous. Knowing that his motives were to tell the American people the truth and spark a public debate is an essential element to determine his guilt or innocence,” said Mr Tatchell.

Anne FitzGerald, Director of Research and Crisis Response at Amnesty International, agrees. She believes it was unfair that Bradley was unable to use a public interest defence, as "he reasonably believed he was exposing human rights and humanitarian law violations."

READ more on why Amnesty believe Bradley is entitled to use the ‘public interest’ defence: http://bit.ly/12muiRG

There is no evidence that Manning aided any enemy of the US, caused harm to US personnel or that he had any intention to do so. This view is shared by Amnesty International: http://bit.ly/12mv4hM

Amnesty said the “aiding the enemy” charge was a “travesty of justice”:
http://bit.ly/1bm251l

WATCH Peter Tatchell speak at Bradley Manning’s defence rally in London: http://bit.ly/12dzrup

READ Bradley Manning’s opening defence statement to the court in full:
http://bit.ly/XQUgoP