How far the Leveson Inquiry could prejudice the ongoing police investigation into phone hacking, raised last week in a joint submission by the Metropolitan Police and the Crown Prosecution Service, took up much of the morning’s hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice.
The session was held to discuss the issue raised at last week’s hearing, namely concerns that an individual who is later charged may claim the Inquiry breached their right to a fair trial, as evidence will be heard before criminal trials have occurred. The hearing also debated journalists testifying anonymously, as well as further applications for core participant status.
Neil Garnham QC, representing the Met and CPS, told the Inquiry his concern was not only a risk of prejudicing criminal proceedings, but also the prospect that, in reporting the Inquiry, the media might “go beyond fair reporting” and damage the investigation.
Lord Justice Leveson replied that part one of the Inquiry, which will examine culture, practices, and ethics of the press, must create a “narrative” on which he will base any recommendations. Otherwise, he added, the Inquiry would “not be grounded in reality”.
He also questioned the practicalities of filtering information and evidence through the Met and CPS, which might then be subject to a judicial review. Were either the Met or CPS to raise any “red flags”, Leveson said, “the Inquiry could go on for a lifetime.”
Meanwhile, a legal representative for Surrey Police argued the force should be granted core participant status — which would allow them full accesses to documents produced during the inquiry and entitle them to give evidence either in person or through a lawyer.
He expressed concern that the Inquiry might trigger further bad press for the force, which has been criticised for not pursuing evidence that murdered teenager Milly Dowler’s phone was hacked by the News of the World in 2002. He added that several Surrey Police officers had been victims of phone hacking during the investigation into Dowler’s disappearance.
Leveson said that everyone had to “grin and bear” criticism in the public domain, including himself. “It is what a free press is all about,” he argued.
He also refuted Surrey Police’s argument that not granting them core participant status would severely limit their involvement in the Inquiry. He said the issue was “not contentious”, later adding that if there is anything the force could do to provide him with an accurate narrative, they would be given the opportunity to do so.
Leveson did, however, grant the National Union of Journalists core participant status, adding that one way for journalists to give evidence anonymously — an interest expressed by several reporters, the hearing was told — might be to do so through the union. Leveson stressed that the names of any journalists who had approached the Inquiry team will not be put into the public domain.
He also cautioned against identifying the newspaper with which anonymous witnesses are affiliated, arguing it might lead to the release of material that the paper “would feel obliged to deal with”.
Returning to the issue of the police investigation, Garnham expressed his concern that secret evidence kept by the inquiry and not revealed to the public could raise issues of fairness in criminal proceedings, namely that the evidence may be used in favour of defendant on trial.
Telegraph Media Group and Trinity Mirror were also granted core participant status.
The first hearing of the Inquiry will take place on 14 November, with victims’ evidence to be heard at the high court from 21 November. The Inquiry is likely to hear evidence from witnesses until February 2012.
Follow Index on Censorship’s coverage of the Leveson Inquiry on Twitter – @IndexLeveson.
A 30 October report concerning the work of a Russian human rights group working in Chechnya was pulled off of the air on NTV, one of the nation’s largest federal channels. The segment covering the work of Joint Mobile Group with the case of Islam Umarpashaev, a Chechen allegedly kidnapped and tortured by state forces, was broadcast in Eastern Russia, but blocked in the rest of the country.The Joint Mobile Group has been campaigning for justice and a fair investigation of the kidnapping and torture of Umarpashaev by Chechen law enforcement officials in 2009.
Little Black Fish: Last week, a video entitledRunway In Subway caught my eye. Filmed on the Tehran Metro, it shows a young girl named Shirin Abedinirad boldly entering a train carriage and asking passengers for their rubbish, in order to pin it to her dress.
She says: “Hello, I’m Shirin, a fashion student. I’m hoping for your collaboration. It’s the first time we’re doing this. You could call it ‘fashion design on the metro’. If you have any rubbish, I will pin it on my dress.”
In the clip, Abedinirad and friends — one filming, another collecting items and carrying a box of safety pins — meet people and their discarded items on the train. A woman is heard asking “What kind of rubbish? Do you mean ‘anything’?”
I enjoyed watching Shirin’s interaction with the people on their every day journeys, and was quite moved by their response to her. The people were charmed by Shirin but they also showed an openness and willingness and humour. Living in Tehran is not without its challenges yet the intimate atmosphere and unity she generated and nurtured would be difficult to achieve on the Tube here.
What was most powerful about Shirin’s simple video is that she was able to create a moment to engage with other passengers candidly, in a place where free expression is not encouraged or tolerated. At one point, a woman writes “I can” on a piece of paper, hands it back to Shirin and says: “This is my slogan, and you can do it too.”
Another man challenges her project, and asks her “What is the link to design? I don’t see any design.” Shirin attempts to explain performance art to the man, and ends the debate by saying “we’ll see the relevance at the end.”
Many people on the carriage gave Shirin items that were not necessarily rubbish, and I imagine that they did so in order to support and encourage Shirin’s bravery and unusual vision. I had the chance to interview to Shirin about her work. Here’s what she told me.
The metro is a service on which I spend short of two hours of every day of my life. People travelling on the metro sit alone with blank, indifferent, occasionally tired expressions on their faces, passing the time before reaching their destinations. I’m always busy doing something on the metro.
Sometimes I talk to people and communicate with them and I take great pleasure in this. I fell to thinking that maybe I could produce something artistic with these people I meet by chance every day. At the same time, I wanted to incorporate my field of work and study, fashion design. I liked the idea of merging the two somehow. Then there is the fact that we don’t officially have fashion shows in Iran and often people don’t even know that we study the field of fashion design at university, so with that the idea became more fascinating.
I didn’t have any particular experience in performance art but had done some projects in media art, for example one that coincided with the international artists’ residency in Rajasthan, India. That gave me the experience of the performative art process. We did pencil designs on pieces of traditional Indian fabric and bought some henna specially for drawing. We gave these to village girls under the age of 14 to draw whatever designs they wanted on the fabrics.
In a classic interpretation, performance art is a medium in which interaction with the audience has special importance. At the same time the link that this effect has to personal life and making explicit the individual economic reality of the artist makes this a special medium to me.
An aspect of every contemporary human being consists of fragments that attach from society to the individual. I think the main idea of this work can be understood simply by that concept. Here, performance art enabled a scenario where an accidental audience, in a location that is inherently not artistic, discovered the opportunity in real form, to add something to the cover — that is, the external shell — of a human, whatever that something may be!
Runway in Subway took place on one day, for one hour. We traveled through seven stops there and back, so 14 in total, but the distances are longer than what you would experience on the London Underground. Once the performing outfit had taken its final form, the performance group left the metro and continued outside at street level.
It was a fascinating experience. Something I’d wanted to do for ages. I wanted to get people’s attention and to surprise them. Surprise them with the contents of their pockets and bags. Some of them took photos of me, though that was mainly when we were outside, a lot of taxi drivers took photos. My feeling towards the feedback I got was positive. People believed in me and took me seriously. It opened dialogue. And I think people liked seeing street fashion. We don’t have Fashion TV or fashion shows. They’ve seen unusual clothes on television but never up close. People were involved and the things they gave me were personal.
I experienced a lot in one hour. One woman furtively gave me a lighter. She said “Don’t let my friends know I gave you this.” It turns out they didn’t know she smoked!
Things didn’t happen as I imagined. On the one hand, with the situation in Tehran, I expected the police to arrest me. I also thought that the resulting dress wouldn’t be aesthetically pleasing to the eye. But it turned out to be more homogenous than I envisaged. Most of the passengers wanted to communicate with me and participate in the project. And I enjoyed this attention and collaboration. The point wasn’t their understanding of the project. I didn’t want anything to be imposed on the audience or participants. I wanted ordinary people to encounter their own personalities without any preconceptions about contemporary art. More than anything, I wanted something to emerge that is shared — between me and everyday metro passengers. Something that is discovered through this relationship and not dependent on people getting my idea or not! I also met a film director among the passengers and also a professional voice dubber — one of the oldest well-known voices. Their accidental presence there was interesting to me.
To me, the dress was just an intermediary, the body of work that completed the performance, but the real strength of the work lay in the relationship between me and the commuters.
Twenty-five year old Shrin Abedinirad is a fashion student in year three of a four year degree course at the School of Fashion and Textiles of Dr Shariati University, Tehran
New reports indicate the murder of two female journalists in Mexico City in September was carried out by a group of Santeria followers, the voodoo-influenced religion.
Online magazine Reporte Indigo, which had access to the investigation, claims Marcela Yarce, 45, and Rocio Gonzalez, 48, were strangled to death after they sought to exchange pesos for dollars with Óscar Jair Quiñonez Emmert, alias “Ogún”, who worked in a parking establishment in downtown Mexico City, near the offices of the magazine Contralinea, where Yarce worked.
The men are reported to have beaten and killed the two women in order to steal one million pesos (5,700 GBP), which the pair wanted to exchange for US dollars. Exchange rates have been fluctuating in Mexico, and according to police reports, the two women wanted a better rate. Both bodies were found nude and there was evidence of sexual assault.
Contralinea replied angrily to the release of the police report, charging that it did double damage to the memory of the two murdered journalists because it implied they had engaged in illegal activities.
According to the magazine report Emmert confessed to the murder. He told the Public Ministry of the Attorney General of the Federal Distritct how he contacted a group of Santeria followers to help him round up the women. The group included his “godfather” or padrino, Lázaro Hernández, known in the world of Santeria as “El Padrino Laza” and his 16-year-old son. The crime was committed on 31 August, when the women contacted Emmert to complete the financial transaction. After the murders, the group of men had a spiritual bath with herbs to get rid of negative vibrations, according to the court records. The men divided the loot and spent it on cars, a sound system, mobile phones and a family vacation in the resort town of Mazatlan.
Santeria is on the rise in Mexico, in the last decade it has begun to overtake traditional shamanism that dates from ancient Mexico. While the rites appeal to Mexicans of all walks of life, many of its followers are youths from a low-income background who wear santeria beads as a necklace or a bracelet.
