Policing and Celtic

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I spoke to Celtic today about various questions surrounding stewarding and policing in and around the stadium.

The club would not be specific on any particular incident but I got a run down on various instances (alleged assault, vandalism) when Celtic have responded to police requests for identifying information on fans.  Celtic said the police can only ask for identifying information if they allege a crime has been committed and Celtic’s safety certificate, allowing them to open the stadium, depends on the club complying with police requests if they allege a crime has been committed.

The club were clear that complying with police requests on such instances is not a matter of choice for Celtic, “It happens, it has always happened, and it happens at every other club in the UK”.

I asked if the club target fans and ask the police to arrest them.  I was told this is ludicrous to suggest the police do the bidding of the club (I was also laughed at for making the suggestion).  Celtic can revoke tickets and stadium access without recourse to the police.

My conversation happened before anyone at Celtic heard last night’s podcast from the HomeBhoys but I asked specific questions about the red haired fan discussed who was allegedly brandishing a seat and was told no police request had been received in connection to him and that his details had therefore not been passed to the police.

I understand the club have met with various supporters’ groups and clarified these issues, as well as more general stadium safety matters, and that they will issue a statement later today in response to questions asked by the Celtic Trust, who I believe put many of these points in writing.

After speaking to Celtic I spoke to a police officer who is a regular Match Commander at SPL games (not Celtic games) who confirmed clubs would lose their safety certificate if they failed to cooperate with the police.

Having had the chance to put questions to Celtic I asked them give others the same opportunity and to unconditionally meet with any fans’ group with concerns on any of these matters. They assured me they would.

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  1. macjay1 for Neil Lennon on

    Doctor Whatfor

     

    00:01 on

     

    27 March, 2013

     

     

    Wow.

     

    Courtesy.

     

    Onya,Doc.

  2. A Ceiler Gonof Rust on

    Fred C. Dobbs 23:58 on 26 March, 2013

     

     

     

    “Sevco fans have the Polis at their homes and place of work too”

     

    …………………………………………………………………………….

     

     

     

    They should all be locked up in a big huge prison complex that looks like a red brick victorian lavy.

  3. The police do not need a warrant to request personal information from an employer about an employee or a club about a member. The employer or club can refuse to supply the information, but in the case of football clubs, they would do so under pain of having the stadium closed. Whether or not one agrees with such a sanction is entirely irrelevant.

     

     

    The police do not need to prove that the subject of the request for information has committed a crime. That is for the courts to decide. It is enough that he/she is suspected of having committed a crime, or is about to commit a crime. The employer or club owner does not even need to know the nature of the crime.

     

     

    If the police come to your door and start asking questions about whether or not you heard anything when your neighbour was kicking the shit out of his wife during the night, would you ask for proof that your neighbour had indeed committed the assault before giving any information?

  4. Margaret McGill on

    Tom McLaughlin

     

     

    00:49 on 27 March, 2013

     

    I would if she’d already been dead 10 years

  5. If Celtic and her family mean anything, we will highlight the destitute immigrants plight. Those whom are living within the shadow of our stadium in abject poverty and without hope.

     

    Hope CQN and the Green Brigade take notice. Hope I’m wrong but I doubt Celtic PLC will want to have any political truck with Celtic’s raison d’ etre.

     

    Sad times indeed.

     

     

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-21835432

  6. A Ceiler Gonof Rust on

    Tom, if my neighbor was kicking the shit out of his missus I’d give him a hand. I’d probably change into ma steelies in fact. She’s a fat poisonous rotten cow.

     

     

    I do take your point, though it may not have been the best way to portray it.

     

     

     

    HH

  7. A Ceiler Gonof Rust on

    Foxy, I heard you on the radio tonight. HAW HAW HAW!!!

     

     

     

    10/10, the clueless bumpkins had no idea where you were going. I admire your work bruv.

     

     

    Lots of paper shuffling and pmff pmmf a but, awe naw Ffs going on in the studio.

     

     

    Well done foxter:-)

  8. A Ceiler Gonof Rust

     

    01:04 on 27 March, 2013

     

    ——————————————-

     

    Mo chara, thank you. The trick is not to know where you’re going either :-)

  9. .

     

     

    Foxy1888..

     

     

    I Posted that Link Earlier without description as You so Elegantly did..Truly Shocking..

     

     

    Worth a Full text Post..

     

     

    Glasgow’s destitute asylum seekers: The people who ‘don’t exist’

     

     

    By Catrin Nye

     

    BBC Newsnight and Asian Network

     

     

    Glasgow’s asylum seekers who officially ‘don’t exist’

     

    Continue reading the main story

     

    Related Stories

     

    Asylum seekers lead Glasgow city tour

     

    Anger over no asylum deaths probe

     

    Asylum seekers ‘will be homeless’

     

    They have been described as “invisible people” – asylum seekers who have been refused refugee status, but who have not returned home. The Home Office says it wants them “to experience an increasingly uncomfortable environment” so they will leave, but critics say that they are just being forced into destitution. Glasgow is the first city in the UK to criticise this policy officially.

     

     

    “I feel humiliated. I am a human being and that should mean I’m allowed to work. I have a right to pay for my food, so why am I not allowed?” asks Ali Arshain, a 35-year-old originally from Darfur in Sudan.

     

     

     

    Two million people, including Ali Arshain, have been driven from their homes by the Darfur conflict

     

    “I’m told that it’s not safe for me to go back home and at the same time I don’t deserve help and support. I don’t want to beg, I don’t want to steal food,” he adds.

     

     

    Ali speaks to me sitting on a bench on the banks of the River Clyde in Glasgow, and although it is freezing cold and pouring with rain, the weather does not seem to faze him at all.

     

     

    He is very smartly dressed and in fact the only thing indicating that he passes much of the day just sitting in this spot is the rucksack on his back containing food which someone has given him.

     

     

    Ali says that in Darfur he was part of the opposition Justice and Equality Movement and that he would be in danger if he returned. He has been in the UK for six years and during that time has been detained and released.

     

     

    He stays overnight with anyone who can offer him a room and has to check in with the Home Office every two weeks. And he says he would rather be sent to another country than remain in this situation.

     

     

    ‘Extreme poverty’

     

    “Put me anywhere in the world. I will be happy as long as I am going to be safe and am allowed my human rights… Living like this is like being a child again – and I’m a grown man.”

     

     

     

    There are approximately 10,000 refugees and asylum seekers in the city of Glasgow alone

     

    I meet 28-year-old Aras Ali in a backroom of a church in central Glasgow which he will share overnight with around 20 other destitute asylum seekers. If they do not get a space they sleep on the street.

     

     

    “I spend my days living very rough, it’s horrible,” he says. “What do you think my days are like spending time just sitting in a library or the street? It’s very tough. You feel unsafe.”

     

     

    Aras is Kurdish, originally from Kirkuk in Iraq. He has been in the UK for five years and during that time has had his asylum claim rejected three times. This means he is not allowed to work, but is also not entitled to help from the state.

     

     

    “I feel I am not a human being in this country because you are banned from everything,” Aras tells me. “I would go back on the next plane if I could, if Iraq was safe, but unfortunately it’s getting worse day by day. If I go back I will be killed.”

     

     

    UK government policy dictates that people like Aras “should be denied the privileges of life in the UK and experience an increasingly uncomfortable environment” which is meant to make them leave the country.

     

     

    But every year thousands of rejected asylum seekers remain. Estimates for how many people are in this situation range from 100,000 to 500,000 people, though no-one knows what the true number is.

     

     

    Continue reading the main story

     

     

    Start Quote

     

     

     

    There are hundreds of people in our city who have nowhere to sleep and rely on charity to feed themselves”

     

     

    Matt Kerrr

     

    Councillor

     

    The government says these people should not exist and therefore has no figures for them.

     

     

    Morag Gillespie, a Senior Research Fellow at Glasgow Caledonian University, has conducted a study of Glasgow’s destitute asylum seekers for the Scottish Refugee Council.

     

     

    “After researching poverty for 10 years this was by a considerable margin the most extreme poverty that I have come across,” she told me.

     

     

    ‘Deliberate destitution’

     

    “I think something that people don’t understand is that destitution – if you are a refused asylum seeker – means you don’t have a penny, nothing. A woman might have to go to services and ask for sanitary wear every month. They have to go around churches and other groups to get a loaf of bread or some milk and that’s how they live their lives for months and sometimes years.

     

     

    “Destitute people disappear from statistics and as soon as people disappear from statistics people forget they are there, they become invisible, which is a tragedy.”

     

     

    The Immigration Minister Mark Harper declined to be interviewed for this report. In a statement the UK Border Agency (UKBA) said that “no failed asylum seeker need face destitution if they comply with the law and the decisions of our courts and go home when required and able to do so”.

     

     

    Glasgow has always taken more than its share of asylum seekers – it was the first city to sign up to a scheme dispersing asylum seekers around the UK.

     

     

    The city council used to get money direct from government for housing them and often kept them on after they had been refused asylum status.

     

     

    Continue reading the main story

     

     

    Start Quote

     

     

    Some of these cases seem to border on the absurd or the Kafkaesque”

     

     

    Dr Scott Blinder

     

    Independent Migration Observatory

     

    But private contractors are now in charge of that work, and it does not make financial sense to house anyone longer than you have to.

     

     

    Glasgow City Council recently passed a motion criticising the Home Office policy of making life sufficiently uncomfortable for failed asylum seekers that they choose to leave.

     

     

    The local authority is legally not able to support destitute asylum seekers but wants to. Bristol City Council has just done the same, and next month Leeds will be petitioned by campaigners to follow suit.

     

     

    ‘Black economy’

     

    “It has got to a point where there are hundreds of people in our city who have nowhere to sleep and rely on charity to feed themselves,” Glasgow councillor Matt Kerr says.

     

     

    “We as a local authority are powerless to do anything about that. UKBA appears to have had a policy of deliberate destitution for a number of years and this is the result of it.”

     

     

    Mr Kerr argues that this is not simply a matter of sympathy for these people, but of the wider implications that this policy has for the city.

     

     

    “We understand that some people will have a decision go against them and they will have to go home. What we need to think about is how we do that,” he says.

     

     

    “The reality is if we make them destitute they are not going to go home, they will disappear in to the black economy and they are open to exploitation and all the horrors that can go with it. Not only is it morally reprehensible, but it is also not fulfilling their [UKBA’s] purpose, which is to return someone to their country of origin.”

     

     

    A key problem with these cases is that the Home Office will not discuss them because technically the people concerned should have gone home, so the Home Office says they should not exist. But this is not the reality on the street.

     

     

    Dr Scott Blinder, director of the independent Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, says there is a sense of absurdity when talking about the situation:

     

     

    “Some of these cases seem to border on the absurd or the Kafkaesque,” Dr Blinder says.

     

     

    “It’s what exposes the real difficulty in running this sort of system because there are always going to be cases where, for a variety of reasons, the determination is made that a person doesn’t have a right to stay – but as a practical matter it is difficult to remove them.”

     

     

    “You could call it the reductio ad absurdum [reduction to absurdity] of the system,” he says.

     

     

    Meanwhile, in the back room of the Glasgow church, Aras prepares to bed down for the night.

     

     

    “I want to live like a human being. I never expected life like this, but unfortunately, here I am.”

     

     

    Summa

     

     

    Ps..As One of the First People in the UK to have Permanent Residency Act 1994 used on them..Jeezo that is Nothing to what these people are being put through..

  10. Summa of Sammi….

     

     

    I hope all the Celtic family unite and highlighlight this social injustice. Most of the Celtic family come from immigrant roots so lets see what we’re made of.

     

     

    It will take effort but if this situation doesnt help us all unite and bring us back to our roots nothing will.

     

     

    Hopefully Paul and CQN will help

  11. Margaret McGill on

    WULLIE

     

     

    He waxes desperate with imagination.

     

     

    STEVIE

     

     

    Let’s follow; ’tis not fit thus to obey him.

     

     

    WULLIE

     

     

    Have after. To what issue will this come?

     

     

    STEVIE

     

     

    Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

     

     

    WULLIE

     

     

    Heaven will direct it.

     

     

    STEVIE

     

     

    Nay, let’s follow him.

  12. Margaret McGill

     

     

    STEVIE

     

     

    Something is rotten in the state of Denmark

     

    ————————————————————-

     

     

    the suspense is killing me!

     

     

    what happens next?

  13. Margaret McGill on

    Green Brigade

     

     

    Where wilt thou lead me? speak; I’ll go no further.

     

     

    Ghost of Celtic

     

     

    Mark me.

     

     

    Green Brigade

     

     

    I will.

     

     

    Ghost of Celtic

     

     

    My hour is almost come,

     

    When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames

     

    Must render up myself.

     

     

    Green Brigade

     

     

    Alas, poor ghost of Celtic!

     

    What did thae bastars dae tae ye?

     

     

    Ghost of Celtic

     

     

    Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing

     

    To what I shall unfold.

     

     

    Green Brigade

     

     

    Speak; I am bound to hear.

     

     

    Ghost of Celtic

     

     

    So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.

     

     

    Green Brigade

     

     

    Wtf? you kiddin? Lawwell?

  14. macjay1 for Neil Lennon on

    Hope “Citibhoy Shoulder to Shoulder with Neil Lennon” won`t mind me re-posting his contribution.

     

    13:16 on

     

    26 March, 2013

     

    From last Article ………….

     

     

    The Climate Change Industry …

     

    Hal Lewis letter of resignation to the American Physical Society….

     

    http://heartland.org/policy-documents/hal-lewis-resignation-letter-american-physical-society.

     

     

    Undoubtedly, could also apply to the drug companies.

     

    Pure science?There`s a laugh.

     

    Follow the money.

  15. Margaret McGill on

    Anyone who trawls for the 0.1% of physicists who think global warming is a scam because its f%#$$%#% freezing outside is deluding themselves. All part of the physics of heat capacity. And as for follow the money ..follow Exxons.

  16. Margaret McGill

     

     

     

    02:45 on 27 March, 201

     

     

    The Green Brigade need to practice what they preach. Way too much rhetoric not enough action.

     

    Hopefully they’re not too self absorbed. The past seems more important to them than the present. Hence it’s too easy for the Police to guess their next move.

     

    Republicans, Scots or Irish, seize the initative and keep their enemy on the back foot:

     

     

    Cause celebre? Now here’s something worth getting kettled for:

     

     

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-21835432

  17. Margaret McGill on

    Foxy_1888

     

     

    02:57 on 27 March, 2013

     

    Why do the Green Brigade have to explain anything to anyone of who or what they are? They are Celtic supporters.

  18. macjay1 for Neil Lennon on

    Peter : Et tu,Brute.

     

     

    Maggie: Damn right.

     

     

    Peter: The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain………

  19. Margaret McGill

     

     

     

    03:00 on 27 March, 2013

     

     

    Why do the Green Brigade have to explain anything to anyone of who or what they are? They are Celtic supporters

     

     

    ————————————————————————

     

     

    I would hope they have to explain their strategy to themselves. it would be naive in the extreeme to think as a group they dont organize.

  20. .

     

     

    001: Sheena for where’t Art Thou Under Garments of Thyn 9-5 Lady of this Shire..?

     

     

    Sheena: Thyn Colour of Purple Master wears then as we Doth Speak for it is Written in the Stars that he shall be Named.. Prince..

     

     

    001: Feck Off then Ya Cow..

     

     

    Summa of ModernGirlsArePantsCSC

  21. The Green Brigade:

     

    Bless them. The only Celtic/ Human expression of in a sea of poltical apathy. A youthful spark in a world of consumption, status and corporate dictates. Let us cut to the chase… If the World At War was to be screened 20 years from now… We would all be passive/bad Germans…who said nothing….. Or argued over irrelevant titbits like what the MSM are saying….about a feckin Fitba team???

     

     

    Roll on the Zeal of Youth… Do not inhibit it, or criticize it..

     

    Might just save the rest of us or our children from being lifeless, passive pawns, safe and cosy in our lack of compassion and truth about who we are, who claim to represent us…and what those reprentatives actually do in our name. Unfortunate as it sounds…. It seems the PLC rule, and tradition & history is as dead as RFC.

     

     

    FrancisFukuyamaCSC

     

     

    Or…

     

     

    TheMarketRulesOnlyIfYouLetIt. CSC

     

     

    Or…

     

    To be Succinct

     

     

    ProgramOrBeProgrammed CSC

     

     

    Rant Over!!

  22. Margaret McGill on

    Foxy_1888

     

     

    03:08 on 27 March, 2013

     

    I would hope they have to explain their strategy to themselves. it would be naive in the extreeme to think as a group they dont organize.

     

    +++++++++++++++++++++++

     

    Of course they organize. That’s why they are loathed both internally and externally. Every time I hear GB I think….http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJ9r8LMU9bQ

  23. macjay1 for Neil Lennon on

    PJBhoynyc

     

    04:18 on

     

    27 March, 2013

     

     

    Let us cut to the chase… If the World At War was to be screened 20 years from now… We would all be passive/bad Germans…who said nothing…..

     

    Roll on the Zeal of Youth… Do not inhibit it, or criticize it.

     

     

    Can`t you see the irony in that?

  24. Macjay….

     

     

    The Irony?

     

    Of course I do… Do you?

     

     

    Let me make the Irony simple….

     

    In WW2 the Nazis lost… But…

     

    The Fascists won.

     

     

    Now do you see the irony in that?

  25. macjay1 for Neil Lennon on

    P.J.

     

    I do see the irony.

     

    Germany and the Hitler youth.

     

    Above criticism?

  26. I hope you are not equating the Hitler Youth with the GB? That would be… Erm… Ludicrous???

     

     

    You are talking about early twentieth century Nazis. I am talking about sophisticated 21st Century fascism, the countries you and I live in. If you do not equate our countries with fascism… Then you cannot see the Big Picture, and whatever I say to you is irrelevant.

     

    Nevertheless, I will try…

     

    Do you consider sending UK military to Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Pakistan et al to be a ‘just & noble causes”? Do you think your political representives represent you, or other interests? Do you think you live in a Fascist state? Any answers will do as long as they are not Dalglishesque.

  27. macjay1 for Neil Lennon on

    You introduced the combo of WW11,Germany and youth,not me.

     

     

    Q. Do you consider sending UK military to Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Pakistan et al to be a ‘just & noble causes”?

     

    A. Absolutely not.Stupid and counter-productive moves motivated principally by the protection of Israel.

     

    Q.Do you think your political representives represent you, or other interests?

     

    A.Julia Gillard represents sectional interests and is ergo divisive.

     

    Q. Do you think you live in a Fascist state?

     

    A.No.I live in a democracy,unlike the poor Cubans.

     

     

    My question for you:

     

    Would you support the G.B. if they espoused political positions with which you disagreed?

  28. Morning all from a snowy but still West Lothian.

     

     

    Scotland’s problem last night , nae Celtic players and too many Deidco zombies.

     

     

    WGS will realise his error soon enough!

     

     

    I wish him well

  29. macjay1 for Neil Lennon on

    Summa 6.02

     

    I get the distinct impression that you have.

     

    Lucky burger.

  30. Just dropped in to say..

     

     

    Please don’t be falling for any of the(I predict a series) of statement’s from the bored / board that amount to – hee haw.

     

     

    If I was an artist like some of the gifted one’s in the GB…I would be working on a banner right now that would send out the message…to the bored / board / PL.

     

     

    BRINKSMANSHIP will be the order of the day !

     

     

    The board & PL – NO SB’s will be bought

     

    until – U2 are gone !!!

     

    Bono – the Edge – Adam – Larry – UR OK :o)

     

     

    Hail Hail n God Bless

     

    Off oot

  31. Good mornin from a still chilled Chilterns with a blanket of lying snow and a frosty dew…

     

     

    Watched the Scotland match last evening.

     

     

    Poor fair again, but I was pleased that Gordon was prepared to give some young players a chance.

     

     

    Poor as it was I thought the system, shape and application was the best I’ve seen for a long time.

     

     

    No surprise it was the old guard and not the new guys who let us down.

     

     

    Thought those young guys equiped themselves very well, can think of half a dozen more that could do a job and with some quality, experienced players missing through injury etc Commons, Mulgrew, Broonie and the Fletchers.

     

     

    Lots of challenging games with nothing to lose coming up for the Scotland team, plenty of time to test some prospects and get a squad together for the 2016 Euro qualifiers.

     

     

    Good Luck with that Gordon.

     

     

    Highlight for me SOAL’s comment – Throw the snow back on…