Michael Shields, a Liverpool football fan who was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment for attacking a Bulgarian barman has finally been released from jail today after receiving an official royal pardon from the UK government. Not only was Mr Shields innocent (morally and technically innocent according to Justice Secretary Jack Straw) but as he said in his own words his life had been “shattered by the failures of two legal systems, one here in the UK and one in Bulgaria….I am a free man, yes, but it should not have come to this.” Quite right. Any system has its faults, legal or otherwise and justice is far from perfect but in this case (as in many others) a little bit of common sense could have been deployed instead of the prejudices that seem to have dominated the proceedings (in this case the stereotype of an English football hooligan).

First of all another man confessed to the attack, but the evidence was ruled inadmissible at Mr Shields’ trial in Bulgaria. However, in April 2006 his sentence was reduced to ten years and then in November of the same year he was allowed to be transferred to a prison in the UK; would this have happened if the Bulgarian authorities had been so convinced of his guilt? A year later Mr Shields passed a lie detector test and in 2008 two senior High Court judges ruled that Mr Straw (who claimed he did not have the power to overrule the courts) did have the “power and jurisdiction” to exercise the ancient royal prerogative of mercy in this case.
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Nardwuar the Human Serviette (who is a very eccentric but thorough and prolific interviewer) conducted this interview with Afrika Bambaataa (aka the “Grandfather” and “Godfather” and The Amen Ra of Universal Hip Hop Culture as well as The Father of The Electro Funk Sound). Who is widely credited as being one of the Deejays that created the vinyl record looping technique that birthed Hip Hop songs. In this interview Afrika Bambaataa details the evolutionof Hip Hop music and culture from diverse influences as he sees it. The interview also reveals the relationship between Hip Hop and the Punk Rock sub-cultures.

The next recording artist mentioned was King Tim III who is credited by some with releasing the first rap recording on 12” vinyl with the Fat Back Band in 1979.
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“The British National Party represents the collective national, environmental, political, racial, folkish, social, cultural, religious and economic interests of the indigenous Anglo-Saxon, Celtic and Norse folk communities of Britain and those we regard as closely related and ethnically assimilated or assimilable aboriginal members of the European race also resident in Britain.” (quoted from Section 2 (1) on membership of the BNP constitution).

The UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) recently issued county court proceedings against the British National Party (BNP) concerning its constitution and membership criteria. This is not (as the BNP argue) a politically motivated move simply because the BNP won two seats in the European Parliament at the last elections (in fact right-leaning parties gained significantly more seats in June in many European countries). The Commission believes that the party’s constitution is in violation of the Race Relations Act as it excludes ethnic groups and ironically the court case was adjourned because BNP leader Nick Griffin had to be in Brussels for his first week of work since being elected. The travesty is that this man was elected in the first place, after all the reason the EHRC is seeking an injunction against the BNP is that the party’s constitution only allows white British people to become members. Stories have also emerged recently of a BNP campaign inspiring violence after a Muslim councillor was kidnapped in an attempt to intimidate him into not standing for election. As we can see from the Guardian article, the party’s response (“kidnapping is not British”) was far from endearing…

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