Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 17:54:41 -0500 To: Oversharers Anonymous <---------------------> From: StarOwl <--------------------> Subject: [fwd] Spanner Case Lost in European Court [I got this off another mailing list, to which it had been forwarded by someone who had had it forwarded to him. I apologize if you've already seen it. Forwarded text has been altered to make line breaks more senisble, but is otherwise unchanged.] > Subject: Spanner Judgement > Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 10:29:56 GMT > From: "(Ragnorak)" <----------------> > To: ------------------- Dear Friends & Comrades, The European Court Judgement was faxed to me this morning at 7-45am and, I regret to inform you that, we have lost the spanner case. It was a unanimous evrdict by the court. They cited two main aspects. That they were concerned to protect people from being morally corrupted, and argued that the Spanner men had "recruited new members" and corrupted them in "specially created toture chambers". They argued that the government did have the right to intervene in a person private life in order to protect that persons health. Judge Pettiti, one of the court judges providing a summary of the judgement, translated the meaning and intention of court as follows: "The dangers of unrestrained permissiveness, which can lead to debauchery pedophilia and torture of others has been highlighted at the World Conference in Stockholm. The protection of private life means the protection of a persons intimacy and dignity not the protection of his baseness or the promotion of criminal immoralism" The prosecutions and convictions " were necessary in a democratic society for the protection of health" Worryingly, this judge argues that this ruling should lead to an expansion of Paragraph 43 of the European Charter such that other [sm] sexual acts, not only those currently criminalised by the spanner law, could be considered criminally immoral, and therefore be justifiably regulated by national government. The paragraph, he argues, should be expanded to allow national governments, in the interests of public health, " to regulate and punish practices of sexual abuse that are demeaning even if they do not involve the infliction of physical harm" What this means, in effect, is that from the point view of the european court, sexual acts that might be considered demeaning such as bootlicking or verbal abuse should be subject to regulation, prosecution and imprisonment. ****************************************************************** Thankyou to everyone who has ever leafletted, written a letter, attended a meeting, raised or donated a penny, performed any work for the campaign, or just been here, in spirit. But before we become despondent I would like to add a few notes on the decision. "What shall we do with an unjust law: shall we obey it; shall we obey and seek all the time to change it; or shall we transgress it all at once." --Thoreau In the five years since I began this campaign, the climate of opinion in Britain, regarding SM, has changed immeasurably. This decision may once have had a mandate in public opinion, but it does not now. From the recently updated Criminal Prosecution Service Guidelines to the editorials of The Times; we have seen a marked shift away from pure condemnation of SM and towards a laissez-faire attitude. What we do in private; and what we do with our own bodies is a matter for us to decide. Whatever the view of the European Court, In Britain we are a long way, politically, from the days when Judge Rant could argue that a role of courts was to make moral decisions about sexual practice. We must remember that it was never the business of the police or the courts to try and regulate our consensual activities or to make moral interventions into our lives - and it is still not their business. Not only that, but the genie is out of the bottle and it wont go back in. Thousands of people who would have been isolated and alienated by their private SM desires; are now able to directly access information about SM practices., organisations and clubs. And, I believe we have been successfully in showing to people that whilst many "beautiful" SM practices are now utterly criminal. SM is not illegal in britain - only those activities that cause pain or leave marks. SM can still be practicised - but we must take care not to take photographs; not to keep written records (diaries etc) of events; and to be extra careful in public (club etc) places. Whatever happens now, whether They ignore the law or whether they implement wholesale sweeps - we must not allow it self-censor our activities. We may have to be more circumspect about where we play but we must not allow them to decide how we play. We must not stop talking, writing or publicising consensual sm. We must be careful not to allow ourselves to be divided into those that use pain as part of play and those that do not; into the criminal and the respectable; the mild and the extreme. We must continue to stand, united, as SadoMasochists, strong in the knowledge that what we do IS consensual; it is a human expression of sexual Pleasure; and that we are not alone but part of an international community. Indeed, we must hold onto, add to and strengthen the networks that have been built both across Britain and internationally - no matter how disempowered we feel as a result of this decision - we must find and keep alive our anger that it happened at all And we must resist, not only this infringement of our civil liberties but any attempt to further extend the remit of this case to include other aspects of consensual sm practices. So lets us start now, as we MUST continue. We must make this an unpopular, unworkable law. We must make it an embarrassing law. We must ensure that every attempt to implement this law is met with a chorus of British and International disapproval. If you are able, please write to your local british embassy/consulate registering your disapproval. Laws are only successful, IF people consent to obey them. We must not give our consent to this law. Not now. Not ever kellan All Opinions expressed are by ME alone and are not necessarily the conclusions that would be made by the spanner campaign or the spanner trust. In the next couple of days i will put the WHOLE of judgement on my site at www.users.dircon.co.uk- but please give me 24 hours to let this all sink in Blind copies of this mail have been sent to a number of other people - but feel free to reproduce this post wherever you feel the information contained could be usefully distributed [all big smiley mails will be appreciated ==:-) ] %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% -- ___ <*,*> Old actuaries never die; they just get broken down by age and sex. [`-'] -------------------- ---------------------------- -"-"-