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" he was Mark Kennedy, an undercover policeman who had been sent to spy on her circle of activist friends. For seven years, he had adopted a fake persona to infiltrate environmental groups. Their unmasking of him five years ago kickstarted a chain of events that has exposed one of the state's most deeply concealed secrets. Back then, the public knew little about a covert operation that had been running since 1968. Only a limited number of senior police officers knew about it. Kennedy was one of more than 100 undercover officers who, over the previous four decades, had transformed themselves into fake campaigners for years at a time, assimilating themselves into political groups and hoovering up information about protests that they had helped to organise. More than 10 women have discovered that they had relationships with undercover policemen, some lasting years, without being told their true identity. On Friday it was announced that police had agreed to give a full apology and pay compensation to Lisa and six other women for the trauma they suffered after being deceived into forming intimate relationships with police spies."

"Whether they are victims of crime, people who are lost, missing or confused, people hurt in road accidents, those with mental health conditions in crisis, the suicidal, the frightened, the defenceless. I joined the police because I had the character and desire to help people in need. I have been tested to my limit. I have seen more death and misery than is good for anyone in a lifetime. I have been verbally abused for doing nothing more than walking the street in my work clothes. I have had to run toward things that most sensible people would run away from. I have pressed the chest of a lifeless child following a road accident in the vain hope of it miraculously resurrecting them. I have talked people down from bridges. I have searched long into the night for the desperate and vulnerable. And I have gone home and I have wept, and wished I could do more. This is not a plea for sympathy. I chose this job, and it is what I expected. I have no regrets. But I do want to tell you that I am not the person the media and politicians would have you believe. You and I are not so different."

"It turns out that images matter, but so does power. Bentham's panopticon works because the warden of the prison has the power to punish you if he witnesses your misbehavior. But Bentham's other hope for the panopticon-that the behavior of the warden would be transparent and evaluated by all who saw him-has never come to pass. Over 10 years, from 2005 to 2014, only 48 officers were charged with murder or manslaughter for use of lethal force, though more than 1,000 people a year are killed by police in the United States."

"We have become a nation of victims, with officially protected victim groups adding up to 73% of the population (p.6). According to a new book by the independent think tank Civitas, victimhood today is a political status that is sought after because of the advantages it brings, including preferential treatment in the workplace, the possibility of using police power to silence unwelcome critics, and financial compensation. Some groups are claiming to be victims of multiple discrimination: if their claims are taken seriously, 109% of the population have victim status (p.7). According to David Green's book We're (Nearly) All Victims Now!, politicised victimhood undermines liberalism, weakens our democratic culture and subverts equality before the law, as well as police and judicial impartiality. From 2007, the government intends to establish a Commission for Equality and Human Rights (CEHR) that will protect six groups: women, ethnic groups and disabled people, plus those defined by sexual orientation, age, and religion or belief."

Though her past gives her credibility with trafficked women, Lazenko says getting them to walk away is difficult. "We're often working against years of abuse," she says. "When these girls buy into their lives, their minds are made up. The rescue mentality really doesn't work. They don't even consider themselves victims." It's sometimes hard, too, to convince the police the women are being coerced, Lazenko says. She maintains that the overwhelming majority of women working as prostitutes in the oil patch are controlled by pimps. She points to one woman she helped who, she says, was beaten by her pimp when she wasn't meeting her $1,000-a-day quota. "That's human trafficking," she says. "That's not prostitution." The police skepticism, Lazenko says, extends to her. "They think I'm some kind of wounded warrior who wants to come in and make peace with my past by doing this work," she says. "They don't understand I kind of know what I'm doing."

"About two in five of all victims of domestic violence are men, contradicting the widespread impression that it is almost always women who are left battered and bruised, a new report claims. Men assaulted by their partners are often ignored by police, see their attacker go free and have far fewer refuges to flee to than women, says a study by the men's rights campaign group Parity."

"The governments of most European states are eager for foreigners to enter their countries and often boast of their success in attracting people to come in as tourists… Foreigners are welcome, if they are of the right kind, come for the right reasons, and stay for the right length of time. The more the merrier. Provided everything is kept under control. But control-even attempted control-comes at a cost. One of those costs is the freedom of citizens and residents…. Regulating immigration is not just about how people arrive, but about what they do once they have entered a country. It is about controlling how long people stay, where they travel, and what they do. Most of all, it means controlling whether or not and for whom they work (paid or unpaid), what they accept in financial remuneration, and what they must do to remain in employment, for as long as that is permitted. Yet this is not possible without controlling citizens and existing residents, who must be regulated, monitored and policed to make sure that they comply with immigration laws…. Immigrants are not readily discernible from citizens, or from residents with 'Indefinite Leave to Remain', especially in a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society. So any effort to identify and exclude or penalize immigrants will generally require stopping or searching or questioning anyone…. Immigration controls are controls on people, and it is difficult to control some people without also controlling others. Sometimes it is because it is not easy to distinguish those over whom control is sought from those who are considered exempt. At other times it may be because it is not possible to restrict particular persons save by coopting others without whose cooperation success would be impossible. And on occasion it may be necessary in order to control a few to put the liberty of almost everyone into abeyance. Immigration controls are not unique in this respect-the logic of human control is everywhere the sa

But beyond that, not addressing a racially discriminatory status quo in policing is itself a choice. Indeed, it's a kind of identity group appeal - to white people, whose preferred means of striking the balance between liberty and security, in many contexts, is that security should be achieved by depriving other people of their civil liberties. This is where the at-times tiresome concept of privilege becomes very useful. The truth is that almost all politics is, on some level, about identity. But those with the right identities have the privilege of simply calling it politics while labeling other people's agendas "identity."

"Belonging to a victim group means the opportunity of financial gain and promotion at work, and the chance to denounce enemies to police or in the courts. The ranks of those given special rights because of their victimhood have now swelled so that they outnumber their alleged oppressors."

Gay rights campaigners have urged mosque leaders in east London to ban homophobic clerics from using their premises, following a 21% rise in gay hate crime in the area. Activists, including journalist Julie Bindel and Pride trustee Colm Howard-Lloyd, said some preachers at the East London Mosque and the London Muslim Centre had "created an atmosphere in which hate is socially acceptable; they have spread a message in which maiming and violence is the most dutiful, honourable, devout thing to do". Their concerns follow the £100 fine given to Mohammed Hasnath, who put up "Gay-Free Zone" stickers in the area; the case of Oliver Hemsley, who was paralysed from the neck down in August 2008 following a vicious attack; and Metropolitan police figures showing that gay hate crime had risen in the borough of Tower Hamlets - where the mosque and adjoining centre are located - from 67 attacks to 81 in a year.

"Of course, the phrasing of Jen's email was unfortunate, but really, if I wanted to sell bak kwa (pork jerky) in Geylang Serai, what would happen? The reality is that commercial establishments target specific demographics, or at least wish to project a certain image of those demographics all the time. Mustafa Centre targets Indians and South Asians. Their webpage notes that their traditional image is "tourists from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri-Lanka, and Asia" (note the order). If I were to try to open a Szechuan Hotpot restaurant there, there is a high chance that I would be turned down, and I can imagine a staff member telling me that "We are not so keen to have a Szechuan Hotpot Restaurant as our target audience are mainly of South Asian descent". Golden Mile has a Thai branding. A proposal to house a Szechuan Hotpot restaurant would probably be similarly rejected. Meanwhile, *Scape targets youth - if I wanted to set up a gout clinic there I would probably be turned away. Of course, one might be concerned if minorities were unable to find any place to sell their wares (or similar opportunities to be seen in the public domain) but this is assuredly not the case: Jen offered Century Square as an alternative venue for Ms Hairul. Interestingly, it has 10 Halal certified eating places versus Tampines 1's 2. Perhaps the saddest part of this whole episode is that, as someone observed, "This is going to set up a perverse incentive for people NOT to want to work with folks like this because they are too much drama.""

"The bottom line is, you go where the intensity is for you as a writer; you give birth to characters for deep, complex reasons. And this should never be politicized by anyone. Your challenge is to do a fine and honest and effective job. Don't ever let anyone insist you give up without even trying. Two of the greatest novels about women that I've ever read, Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary were written by men. One of the finest novels about men that I've ever read, The Last of the Wine, was written by a woman. That was Mary Renault. And her novel, The Persian Boy, about a Persian eunuch is a classic. The vital literature we possess today was created by men and women of immense imagination, personal courage and personal drive. Ignore all attempts to politicize or police your imagination and your literary ambition."

"when war broke out with China in 1962, India's President S Radhakrishnan signed the Defence of India Ordinance, allowing authorities to arrest people suspected "of being of hostile origin." Despite the years of living side by side, many angry Indians across the northeast had already begun thinking that their neighbors from Chinapatty who "looked Chinese" were of "hostile origin." Security forces then swung into action, knocking on Chinese-Indian doors in Darjeeling and Kalimpong, Tinsukia and Makum, telling bewildered families to pack a few essentials and report to the police station. They were then bundled onto a train for a weeklong journey across the country. Along the way, fellow-Indians threw stones and screamed, "Go back Chinese!" at the hapless travellers. The train finally stopped in Deoli, a dusty town on the edge of the desert in Rajasthan. There they filed into an old British camp that, among other things, had been used for German and Japanese POWs during World War II. The detainees were given numbers, identification cards, and an assignment to one of the camp barracks. Many Chinese-Indians spent up to five years in that camp. Some died there. Some were deported to China on ships-a bewilderingly cruel fate for people whose families had been Indian for generations, who spoke only Indian languages, and for whom China was just as foreign a country as Rwanda or Peru. Others who made their way home after the internment were reduced to poverty, finding their property stolen or vandalized. Effa Ma, for example, was pregnant when she went to camp and gave birth there. Months later, the family was released and sent home. In a recent short film (Rafeeq Ellias's Beyond Barbed Wire), she recalls her return to Calcutta: "It was July the first. It was raining. … Where [could] I go with these three kids and not a pie in my pocket? … I had nobody to come to receive me!" From these dire straits, the community had to rebuild. Some managed t