“Videoopptaket er angivelig gjort den 21. mai 2013, gjennom et vindu mot gaten der sivilt politi pågrep to personer, tilsynelatende for å sikre narkotikabesittelse. Stor vekt ble under pågripelsen lagt på å få de anholdte til å spytte ut noe de var mistenkt for å ha i munnhulen.”
OSLO, NORGE – Klokka 09:45 21. mai 2013 ble Circus Bazaar den usannsynlige innehaver av dette nedslående materialet. Med min nyfødte sønn i armene stod jeg, redaktøren i sjokk og filmet mens jeg bevitnet en forstyrrende virkelighet utfolde seg framfor meg. En virkelighet som avslører en så ubehagelig sannhet at de fleste knapt kan innse at den i hele tatt eksisterer i Norge.
Samtidig, på andre siden av grensen var Sverige midt i opptøyer som hadde havnet i internasjonale mediers søkelys, hvis omtrentlige årsak var et tilfelle av bevitnet politivold, og som ble utbredt av misnøyen med en klasseløs ikke-realitet. Dette miljøet og det nylig anskaffede materialets åpenbart relaterte art ga oss en grunn til å avvente utgivelse av det. Den norske sommeren og dens tilhørende periode av ikke-oppmerksomhet fra mediene gjorde det også upassende å utgi noe vi anser som så viktig.
[pullquote] “Politiets handlinger reiser etter vår oppfatning spørsmål om forholdet til forbudet mot umenneskelig og nedverdigende behandling som følger av Den europeiske menneskerettighetskonvensjon (EMK) artikkel 3
-Norsk senter for menneskerettigheter”[/pullquote]
Circus Bazaar har tatt på seg i de siste par månedene å søke etter å avdekke historien bak dette. Det store hinderet har vært identifiseringen av den ansiktsløse mannen som ble utsatt for denne spesialbehandlingen. Vi kan kun spekulere, men det kan være at denne mannen ikke engang har en offisiell identitet i Norge, og heller ikke noen mulighet til å klage selv. Det virker også, ut i fra vår egen erfaring med å forsøke å identifisere ham, at han har ekstremt begrensede muligheter til å få andre til å sikre at hans rettigheter blir beskyttet.
Circus Bazaar snakket nylig med Politihøgkolen for å forsøke å avdekke metodene det undervises i når det gjelder å gjennomføre munnsøk i forbindelse med skjuling av narkotika, og å undersøke hvilke omstendigheter som kanskje kan rettferdiggjøre en slik behandling. Under vår samtale informerte de meg også om at de har mottatt en mengde med etterspørsler fra Oslo-politiet i det siste om å komme med fullstendige forklaringer på hvordan slike saker skal håndteres.
Er det mulig at Circus Bazaars veldig offentlige og åpne undersøkelse av denne saken, som startet i mai, allerede har bidratt til et forsøk på forbedring av politiprosedyrer? Hvis det er tilfelle kunne ikke Circus Bazaar vært mer fornøyd.
Politihøgskolen forsynte åpent Circus Bazaar det følgende;
“Politihøgskolen underviser ikke i teknikker for å få åpnet munn eller ta ut narkotika fra munn. Studentene får følgende informasjon:
Hvis det ikke er fare for liv må politibetjenten vurdere å la personen gå eller ta ham med i arresten og sette ham på potte.
Hvis man mistenker at det kan være fare for liv, skal personen fraktes til lege umiddelbart.
Hvis det er fare for liv og man ikke har tid til å ta personen til lege trer nødretten inn og det er opp til politibetjenten selv å velge en metode for å prøve å få ut stoffet.
Det regnes som et uforholdsmessig inngrep å tvinge munnen åpen ved å ta strupegrep eller ved å benytte seg av et redskap for å gjøre dette, og dette vil være et brudd på politilovens.Unntaket er altså ved nødrett der politibetjenten mener at det vil være umiddelbar fare for livet til personen hvis man ikke klarer å hindre svelging av stoffet.”
– Politihøgskolen, Avdeling Oslo
The continued Oral Cavity search – 15 minutes later
Det fullstendige og uredigerte opptaket varer i totalt 18 minutter. Mot slutten fortsetter politiet å lete gjennom ryggsekkene, klærne, lommebøkene, skoene og munnene til personene på nytt. Det er ingen synlig bekymring for den ”umiddelbare fare” som er nødvendig for å rettferdiggjøre en slik handling. Arrestasjonen foregikk også kun 3km fra Norges største sykehus. Likevel ble det ikke gjort noe forsøk på å ringe etter en ambulanse eller å frakte personene dit.
Dette er kanskje å spekulere, men den bedagelige måten disse politimennene opererer på reiser et åpenbart spørsmål om dette er en del av hverdagsprosedyren i Oslo-politiet?
Selvfølgelig er ikke Circus Bazaar den eneste organisasjonen som stiller spørsmål ved denne hendelsen. Det internasjonal anerkjente Norsk senter for menneskerettigheter har gitt oss denne uttalelsen,
NCHR – Full Statement
“Nasjonal institusjon avgir denne uttalelsen etter å ha fått oss forelagt et privat videoopptak som viser politiets opptreden under en pågripelse i Oslo. Videopptaket oppgis å være tatt 21. mai 2013 kl. 9.30-10.00. Med forbehold om at vi ikke kjenner til alle enkeltheter i saken, avdekker videoopptaket noe som fremstår som alvorlig og uforholdsmessig maktbruk fra to polititjenestemenn i sivil. Ut fra konteksten er det vanskelig å forstå hvordan de sivile tjenestemennenes bruk av batonger i den pågrepnes munn kan rettferdiggjøres som et proporsjonalt inngrep.
Politiets handlinger reiser etter vår oppfatning spørsmål 0m forholdet til forbudet mot umenneskelig 0g nedverdigende behandling som følger av Den europeiske menneskerettighetskonvensjon (EMK) artikkel 3 og forbudet mot uforholdsmessige inngrep i privatlivet etter EMK artikkel 8. Handlingene fremstår dessuten som et brudd på de rammer politiet er underlagt gjennom norsk lovgivning.
På denne bakgrunn forventer Nasjonal institusjon at det settes i gang en uavhengig granskning av omstendighetene ornkring denne hendelsen. Vi har anbefalt innehaveren av det aktuelle videoopptaket å kontakte Spesialenheten for politisaker. I forlengelsen av en slik granskning, bør de kompetente myndigheter foreta en gjennomgang av politiets generelle praksis knyttet til pågripelser der det er mistanke om at vedkommende har svelget narkotiske stoffer.”
– Norsk senter for menneskerettigheter
[pullquote] Det må være fortjenestefullt om politiets eget etterforskningsorgan vurderer og tar stilling til de menneskerettslige – og øvrige rettslige aspekter – ved den aktuelle pågripelsen.
– Aslak Syse ,Prof. Dr. Juris, MD[/pullquote]
Circus Bazaar har også vært heldig nok til å få diskutere denne saken med instituttleder for Institutt for offentlig rett ved Universitetet i Oslo. Aslak Syse har en bachelorgrad (1971), en mastergrad i medisin (1972), en mastergrad i jus (1988) og en Ph.D. i jus (1996). Han sitter også i Likestillings- og diskrimineringsnemda. Han har dette å si,
“Videoopptaket er angivelig gjort den 21. mai 2013, gjennom et vindu mot gaten der sivilt politi pågrep to personer, tilsynelatende for å sikre narkotikabesittelse. Stor vekt ble under pågripelsen lagt på å få de anholdte til å spytte ut noe de var mistenkt for å ha i munnhulen. Mistanken syntes tydeligvis å være at munnhulen var et oppbevaringssted som burde undersøkes ved utspytting, og om dette ikke var tilstrekkelig, gjennom en aktiv undersøkelse av munnhulen.Videoen synes å dokumentere at to sivile polititjenestemenn, ved bruk av politibatonger som ble presset inn i munnhulen, skulle sikre en utspytting, evnt. en brekning ved irritasjonen som slik køllebruk utvilsomt fører til.
Spørsmålet fra en menneskerettLig side er om politiets opptreden ikke er proporsjonalt i forhold til det som ble ønsket oppnådd. Den ene anholdte ble, i følge videoen, lagt i bakken, med håndjern, mens denne hardhendte behandlingen av munnhulen fant sted.
Aslak Syse – Photo property of https://www.jus.uio.no
Det kan virke som om både EMK om forbudet mot nedverdigende og inhuman behandling er overtrådt (EMK art. 3), og forbudet mot inngrep i personers privatliv, der EMK krever at politiets handlinger er proporsjonale i forhold til det som kan oppnås (“necessary in a democratic society”).
Jeg vurderer ikke inngrepenes legitimitet ut fra politiloven, idet krenkelser av friheter og rettigheter sikret gjennom EMK, her EMK artikkel 3 og 8, etter menneskerettsloven vil gå foran inngrepshjemlene i politiloven.
Det må være fortjenestefullt om politiets eget etterforskningsorgan vurderer og tar stilling til de menneskerettslige – og øvrige rettslige aspekter – ved den aktuelle pågripelsen.
Oslo 4. september 2013″
– Aslak Syse ,Prof. Dr. Juris, MD
Instituttleder – Institutt for offentlig rett Det juridiske fakultet Universitet i Oslo”
I en tid da digitale medier og myndigheters overvåkningsprogrammer over hele verden potensielt kan true individets frihet, er det verdt å notere seg at dette er et tveegget sverd. Individet har også tilgang på den samme teknologien for å overvåke dem som styrer oss. Det faktum at denne hendelsen tilfeldigvis foregikk rett utenfor vinduet til en liten men etablert uavhengig publikasjon sier mye om håpet om at en vedvarende kritikk og fremtvunget offentlig rettferdiggjøring av makt kan eksistere inn i fremtiden.
Mens de overvåker oss, overvåker vi dem.
Circus Bazaar vil også gjøre det klart at til tross for at å operere som en liten og uavhengig publikasjon med en åpenbart kontroversiell reportasje er ekstremt utfordrende, har vi aldri følt oss truet eller presset av noen institusjon. Det har ikke vært uten skuffelser, men vi har kunnet operere fritt og trygt, uten frykt for juridiske eller voldelige represalier.
Circus Bazaar vil utgi det fullstendige opptaket av denne hendelsen på et senere tidspunkt.
Circus Bazaar vil også gladelig gi de aktuelle myndighetene i Norge en fullstendig og uredigert kopi av materialet til etterforskningsformål slik det ble omtalt i uttalelsene ovenfor.
Denne reportasjen kunne ikke ha blitt gjort ferdig uten hjelp fra,
Norsk senter for menneskerettigheter
Politihøgskolen
Universitetet i Oslo og Institutt for offentlig rett
Circus Bazaar has now established its channel on Youtube.
Youtube will act as our archive for material that we first exclusively host on Circus Bazaar. Below is our fantabulously branded introduction produced by our digital media specialist “Nathan Andrews” of Rapid Shutter Films. So don´t forget to subscribe to our Youtube channel and not miss any updates.
Want to go somewhere different? Perhaps a colourful, country based, peace loving and Earth friendly destination? Go to Nimbin, Australia!
Nimbin Australia
Nimbin and the surrounding region tells a unique and hopeful story. Needless to say it leaves an impression as soon as you step into the village. My first impression? It’s like a jar of mixed lollies. Dip your hand in and you might pick up a red raspberry, a black jellybean or maybe a cookie? In short it’s a world of all-sorts. Naturally, a place like this attracts people from all walks of life and from all colours of the rainbow.
Nimbin has been noted as the ‘drug capital of Australia’ but don’t be fooled by this description. Like I said, you get all-sorts. What Nimbin really stands for is environmentalism. Eco-friendly initiatives within Nimbin are permaculture projects, an interest in deep ecology, sustainability, renewable energy and of course the cannabis counterculture.
History
The region once was filled with red cedar forests but by the 1900′s most of that was cleared. It was replaced with banana plantations and the dairy farming industry which collapsed due to recession in the 1960´s. It was not until 1973 that the village of Nimbin was put on the map by a group of university students and ‘hippies’ who held the Aquarius Festival, which is a counter-cultural arts and music festival celebrating alternative thinking and sustainable lifestyle.
The Aquarius Festival
It was also the first event in Australia that sought permission for the use of land from its Traditional Owners, the Indigenous Bundjalung people. After the festival, hundreds of people settled in Nimbin, many of which formed alternative lifestyle communities. Since the festival and a new wave of community the region has attracted backpackers, writers, artists, dreamers, musicians, environmentalists and people interested in permaculture and living the ‘off-the-grid’ lifestyle.
Aquarius festival
“The only limitation on reality is our imagination. It is up to us to choose whether the dream is to be lost until a more courageous generation is ready for it, or whether we ourselves can participate in the dream.”
“Festivals are about dreaming”
– Johnny Allen, Director, Aquarius Foundation (Australian Union of Students, 1973)
The Rainbow Region
The name Nimbin comes from the local native Whiyabul (Widgibal) clan, whose Dreamtimetradition speaks of the Nimbinjee Spirit people protecting the area. The area is known as the Rainbow Region and it is known to be a place of healing and is said to be the resting place of Warrajum, the Rainbow Serpent. See this short film below to see the myth of the creation of the Rainbow Serpent.
Along the main street is the Nimbin Museum. It looks like, well, something else…
“Don’t be put off by the feral rabble often outside, this is the end of the road, the last bus stop – the plug hole. And they are the search party that we send in after you if you haven’t reappeared in a couple of hours!”
– Museum attendant
Nimbin Museum Australia
You may find the oldest thing you ever threw away, there to haunt you. It is a bit spooky and full of old artefacts, boots, ties, tins, wires, sticks, stuff, paintings, drawings, stories, bits n bobs and everything which seems a little dusty but it is so much more than that.
The Nimbin Museum was created by local artists who each decorated one of the 8 rooms of Magic in an effort to show what the village of Nimbin is all about. It’s a kaleidoscope of art, words and images stuck to every surface available and all led by the Rainbow Serpent. The Nimbin Museum is a journey through eight rooms all detailing the local Aboriginal, pioneer and hippy eras as you follow the rainbow serpent path.
The River Story Bundjalung Lore
This is what happened.
One time an old Weeyan man (seer) was walking through the bush with two young men when he fell down as if dead. The young men became frightened and ran back to tell the camp. Two older men were sent out to perform the burial ritual, but, as they approached, the old man sat up. He told them that he had been asleep and had gone up into the sky but wasn’t to tell them what he saw until the whole camp was present. Back at the camp this is the story he told;
The River Story Bundjalung Lore
The sky opened up. I went into it and came upon a river, a huge wide river, the biggest I’ve ever seen, that never runs dry. There were people on the banks of the river, doing things that people do, playing, talking and so on. There was a white man with long hair walking by the river. I approached him and he told me his name was Birrigan (the Southern Cross) and that he had three laws for me to take back to my people for the hard times that were to come.
The three laws are:
Wana bomalay (Don’t kill)
Wana wergahly (Don’t steal)
Wana gubanunu (Don’t be greedy)
– Eric Walker, Bundjalung elder, Tabulam, New South Wales (Excerpt above taken fromwww.rainbowdreaming.org)
My experience at the museum was intense. First, my eyes hungrily took it all in as my ego mind tried to make sense of the visual information. The story sank directly into my psyche bypassing the conscious mind and I left the place, changed and it’s not from the smoke that dutched the cafe. Rather from the conscious shift/ scramble/ download/ sync that good art is meant to bring. In essence I have just experienced the dream from the point of creation, then to the ‘original’ people, to the Christian pioneer days, the hippies and back to the beginning again. Similar to rebirthing and that’s powerful stuff!
The randoms, the lost souls and the dealers might distract you initially as everyone is attracted to the light (especially the shady characters) but to get the most out of this place one must look deeper and allow curiosity to lead rather than the judgemental mind. The idea is to let that all go and just ride the rainbow.
If you ever make it down to the Nimbin Museum please leave a donation to help out the locals who keep it going. It’s quite remarkable and it would be a shame for it to ever close down.
How on earth the two subjects could be related is not immediately clear though the poor quality of some of today’s news publications might suggest otherwise. First let’s get a handle on what the most recent kerfuffle in biological science is about and how it reflects deeply on the often limited science literacy found in our publications.
It starts with Junk DNA. The phrase alone seems to be disparaging as if ‘nature’ somehow carelessly left us with a baggage train of useless material in our genes. Which apparently it did and as such has been used as the flagship of empirical evidence for the sometimes messy process of evolution in living biology.
Modern Geneticists consider the genes that regularly write to or regulate proteins (less than 10%) the main functional sequence of human DNA. The remaining 90 % is largely inactive or ‘junk’ DNA.
It is reflective of an attitude increasingly popularized through the last century of rapid scientific advance. One that says that evolution, much like some utilitarian toymaker, jury-rigs species over the eons to get the job done, but nothing more. According to conventional science most life on Earth is unknowingly left to carry an enormous load of genetic detritus.
But when you look at the astonishing complexity and mathematical elegance of DNA, fractal knots and super molecular structures, it’s understandable that you might wonder if there was perhaps a hidden genetic El Dorado secreted in the Junk DNA wilderness. Well in that case, you wouldn’t be the only one to consider this.
Late in 2012 Scientists with the international ENCODE (the Encyclopedia Of DNA Elements) consortium, launched by the National Genome Research Institute in 2003, announced what the authors said was a breakthrough in identifying all the functional elements in the human genome sequence. The claimed breakthrough in analysis of DNA functionality was published across 30 papers in Nature with the consortium claiming that vast lengths of DNA, previously dismissed as “junk”, were in fact vital to the way the genome works.
IE. Not Junk.
Dr. Ewan Birney, of the European Bioinformatics Institute near Cambridge, one of the project’s principal investigators was particularly effusive in support for ENCODE’s series of papers and their startling conclusions.
“We always knew that protein-coding genes were not the whole story,”
It was claimed the majority of the geneticists were wrong about all that useless Junk DNA and that NGR, made famous when it published the completed human genome in 2003, had in fact trumped other institutes with yet another piece of groundbreaking work in human genetics.
The response from NGR’s peers in biological science was scathing, critical and at times near vitriolic. In the meantime controversy built as religious authorities and Creationists waxed lyrical about this being evidence of Gods design in nature and proof that evolution was a flawed theory.
Confused? Not sure who to believe?
Well it seems most of the mainstream media weren’t.
Of course it started with the prestigious journal, Nature, marketing the story in true entrepreneurial fashion, with a number of firsts – cross-publication topic threads, a dedicated iPad/eBook App and web site and a virtual machine.
But the slavish uncritical merchandising of NGR’s claims by journalists, who for the most part were enchanted with the apparent breakthrough, made an already precipitous situation worse.
Journalists got very busy designing elaborate models, pages of articles and online tutorials to explain this apparent breakthrough.
“Far From ‘Junk’,” headlined Gina Kolata of The New York Times, credulously, with not a hint of doubt about the paradigm shaking conclusions. Robin McKie, The Guardian (UK)’s top-flight science editor raved that last September’s announcement was the scientific surprise of 2012.
Perhaps not surprisingly the response by NGR’s peers in the biological sciences community was far from an endorsement of their claims.
Dr. Graur and his co-authors are among the leading geneticists in the world today. They claim that the Encore group made a ‘noob’ Genetics mistake in confusing biological activity with actual functional importance in the cell. Graur said,
“They completely exaggerated the amount of human DNA that has a role to play inside our cells. Most of the human genome is devoid of function and these people are wrong to say otherwise.”
“This is not the work of scientists,”
He added, scathingly and perhaps a little savagely.
“This is the work of a group of badly trained technicians.”
Timmer went on to say how “activity” measured by the ENCODE tests doesn’t necessarily imply this DNA is doing anything for us.
“Many press reports that resulted painted an entirely fictitious history of biology’s past, along with a misleading picture of its present. As a result, the public that relied on those press reports now has a completely mistaken view of our current state of knowledge (this happens to be the exact opposite of what journalism is intended to accomplish). But you can’t entirely blame the press in this case. They were egged on by the journals and university press offices that promoted the work—and, in some cases, the scientists themselves.”
Timmer still thinks, despite the heavy critique inferred in his articles title, that NGR are doing important work and that not everything in the ENCODE papers was wrong.
ENCODE biologist John Stamatoyannopoulos (made popular by his quotes in initial press releases) claims that the skeptics hadn’t fully understood the papers, and that some of the activity measured in their tests does involve human genes and contributes something to our human physiology. But he did admit that the press conference was misleading by claiming that 80% of our genome was essential and useful. He puts that number at closer to 40%. And as an ENCODE stalwart otherwise he stands by all the ENCODE claims: Speaking to Faye Flam at Knight Science Journalism he said –
“What the ENCODE papers (not the main paper in Nature, but the other length papers that accompanied it) have to say about transposons is incredibly interesting. Essentially, large numbers of these elements come alive in an incredibly cell-specific fashion, and this activity is closely synchronized with cohorts of nearby regulatory DNA regions that are not in transposons, and with the activity of the genes that those regulatory elements control. All of which points squarely to the conclusion that such transposons have been co-opted for the regulation of human genes — that they have become regulatory DNA. This is the rule, not the exception….”
Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)
So if its Junk DNA, until we know what it does (if anything) we still have ENCODE concluding that 60% of our DNA is junk, and their majority of scientist critics holding that at the very least, 9% is functional, even though we still don’t know what most of that 9% actually does.
In summary it does seems that Encode had said that 40% of the genome is ‘functional’ in that 40% of the genome has genes that are capable of coding for proteins or do regularly code for proteins. The major dispute is over the fact that Encode initially claimed that this was synonymous with 40% of the genome being ‘vital for life’ as referenced in the article. Something which is at best a highly dubious claim if not just plain false.
So the evidence so far seems to indicate that ENCODE is not the silver bullet to a new DNA treasure trove, but its future utility and scope has not yet been fully explored. In the meantime, one of the prime virtues in science is in order, patience.
A quality that both NGR and the resulting media scramble might well have paid heed to; raising what I believe to be an equally important issue. That the need for rigorous integrity in the reporting of scientific breakthroughs and the relentless competition to release sensational headlines may not always be in sync. The trend of press popularization of new scientific discoveries has a dark side that makes it increasingly possible for misinformation to be released as fact. Particularly when the nature of such discoveries are increasingly highly technical and cannot be easily reduced to simple sound bites and news clips. The media requires an increasing sophistication in its understanding of the science behind such discoveries to keep up with the science itself. Otherwise they risk continuing to ‘drop the ball’ in relation to ENCODE-like discoveries.
The Commercial pressures are not only an extant factor with the media but with the developers themselves. NGR ran with the ball and released the ENCODE with claims that seem well beyond the parameters of the actual data they had collected. NGR was no doubt seeking to be yet again the first in another breakthrough and that is understandable. Ground floor developments lead to patents and future funding opportunities that trailing laboratories and research institutes can only dream of. But this practice in the long run hurts science and adds to the misunderstandings of public perception about science itself.
The inevitable backflips that result can damage public confidence in the scientific community and in turn harm future funding from both the public and private sector. Worse still, such gaffs by the media and hasty developers may also contribute to a consumerist perception of science where belief and subjective standards cloud what should be an evidentiary led empirical process.
After all science is the most rigorous of humanity’s exploratory and experimental systems and needs to remain so to continue to deliver real world results. Results which are vital in driving human progress encompassing both economic and social evolution.
When media and commercially competitive pressures prioritize market share and early commercial exploitation over adherence to the actual data and the quality of its dissemination – then that is when the rot sets in.
As the rapidly evolving science of the near future radically reshapes our world, it may well be vital for better public clarity and understanding that both the developers of new technology’s and our media do not race ahead of the data or their understanding of it in a precipitous race for fiscal and intellectual success.
My experience at the museum was intense. First, my eyes hungrily took it all in as my ego mind tried to make sense of the visual information. The story sank directly into my psyche bypassing the conscious mind and I left the place, changed and it’s not from the smoke that dutched the cafe. Rather from the conscious shift/ scramble/ download/ sync that good art is meant to bring. In essence I have just experienced the dream from the point of creation, then to the ‘original’ people, to the Christian pioneer days, the hippies and back to the beginning again. Similar to rebirthing and that’s powerful stuff!
It is reflective of an attitude increasingly popularized through the last century of rapid scientific advance. One that says that evolution, much like some utilitarian toymaker, jury-rigs species over the eons to get the job done, but nothing more. According to conventional science most life on Earth is unknowingly left to carry an enormous load of genetic detritus.
