Tsarnaev’s Finger

by Mary W Maxwell, PhD, LLB

As stated in yesterday’s Sydney Morning Herald online, the mother of the MIT security guard who was reportedly killed by Tsarnaev has post traumatic stress disorder from seeing her son’s dead body. Well, you would, wouldn’t you?

The mention of the suffering of various Marathon victims came along with a report whose headline is: “Lawyer’s Trying To Explain Rude Gesture.”

Unbelievably, they are referring to the fact that the 19-year-old prisoner gave the finger to the lens of a camera.

One of the newspapers actually said that the jurors were  was “stunned” when they saw it. That is not humanly possible in the Year of Our Lord Twenty-fifteen. I suggest that the people of Boston would be stunned if a lad of that age did NOT give somebody the finger after being (totally illegally) bullet-wounded by a veritable army of cops.

Were they actually cops? Perhaps soldiers? mercenaries? Nobody seems to know or care. Certainly the media would not present us with that interesting information. (I’d like to know the makeup of the law-enforcers at Martin Place on the Ides of December, too. Just curious.)

In case no one remembers: Tsarnaev was “wanted.” This means he can be apprehended, not killed. He wasn’t a “fugitive from justice” at the time he was found on the boat, 18 April, 2013.  He had not been charged with anything.

But even fugitives deserve to be apprehended alive. They also deserve a chance to tell their side of the story. I’d love to hear Jahar’s side. The photo of him is dated 10 July, 2013. He ain’t lookin’ too good. (Seems to be in a room that looks like a large enamel loo.)

The spin, or the pitch, or whatever they call it in Media-land was that the finger “episode” was being used in Court to suggest that Jahar is “defiant towards the US.”

So, the defense lawyers – and believe me I am using the word ‘defense’ here only pro forma – wanted to show that he may simply have been having a quarrel with someone.

If it is a CCTV camera, they presumably saw what happened before the finger came up. I mean there is a Jeremy Bentham pan-opticon at all times, isn’t there?

Just wondering: if I had walked into the prison, representing Gumshoenews, would I even have been given access to Jahar? But MSM can go in and then tell us their interpretation of events?

Please don’t call me a convict-sympathizer. I want all properly convicted persons to get what they deserve. That is, a loss of liberty.

As far as I am aware in the Western world, the law lays down specific punishments for crimes and these always consist of fines or prison terms (with a sort of substitute punishment called ‘community service,’ or perhaps a mandate to take a corrective course, such as regards drink driving).

Since we have rule-of-law, there can be no punishments other than what the law specifies. I understand that if a prisoner be unruly, she might lose some “privileges,” such as phone calls or exercise time in the yard. But other than loss of liberty, no punishing of the person is legal. Which is to say it is illegal.

Which is to say it is criminal on the part of the person who is doing it. Let me know if you disagree; I may have missed something. By the way, putting on the front page of newspapers, and the worldwide web, a picture taken of someone in their prison cell is quite the violation of privacy. Are we all losing our grip?

I have a friend from China who did not really know what goes on in the prisons there, until he got off the mainland and was able to watch Youtube.  He called my attention to the video shown below (it has English subtitles): “The Women of Masanjia Labor Camp.”

In fact, though, wickedness goes on in Western prisons, too. Abuse of prisoners, including sexual abuse, is becoming commonplace, isn’t it? I’ve heard that male-male rape is ‘policy.’ We know from the Abu Ghraib photos that it was policy at least on some occasions.

Naturally our prisons will become sadist territory if no one speaks up.

What ho! Someone with the handle “SGT Report” wrote a comment under that Chinese Labor Camp video, saying:

“May God forgive us for our complacency.  The same system which has enslaved these women is now actively pursuing the enslavement of the rest of the world.  The people must EXPOSE and DEFEAT Obama’s SECRET TPP agreement which he intends to ‘Fast Track’.”

Well, that helps. Dee McLachlan has been writing to Trade Minister Andrew Robb about his unwillingness to tell us what he plans to do about Australia signing the TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership, aka Sovereignty-Bye-bye).

Apparently only the nosey inquire. Dee is sooo nosey.

Here is the video. Made by a courageous ex-prisoner, a Chinese woman, who asks at the beginning “What has happened to our country?”

— Mary W Maxwell can be found at the website that bears her name plus dot com.