• The Gay Black Jew I seem to be stealing a lot from Jenn of the Jungle recently, but this was an interesting site she discovered, the Gay Black Jew.

    The Gay Black Jew is not gay, black or Jewish. However, he monikers himself as such to position his essay on why religion is bad.

    Organised religion has a lot to answer for, I'll admit. But Gay Black Jew's final conclusions are all wrong and he finished off by playing that God-awful, overrated, overplayed John Lennon monstrosity: "Imagine."

    According to Gay Black Jew, if religion was abolished:

    1) Terrorism would NEVER happen
    2) Iraq would quickly stabilize and troops would go home, leaving a democracy
    3) The Middle East would be at peace!
    4) Poor and elderly people would not give money to churches or televangelists that they cannot afford
    5) Churches could be used 7 days/week as homeless shelters instead of a couple days a week for mass
    6) Billions would not suffer psychological damage from unnecessary guilt about human behavior that is natural: masturbation, premarital sex, etc.
    7) Abortion would not be the divisive issue that warps American politics
    8) People could live in the moment instead of worrying about prospects for an after-life...think John Lennon's classic, "Imagine," which contains the lyric, "And no religion too..."
    9) Homophobia would become rare and anti-Semitism as well
    10) Considering that most black people go to black churches and white people to white churches, race relations would likely improve
    12) Stem cell research wouldn't even be an issue and scientists would be closer to medical breakthroughs
    13) I could go on and on...but John Lennon says it best in his song Imagine.

    Well, Gay Black Jew. Here's what I say in response:

    1) Terrorism would NEVER happen

    Utter rubbish. Did you really buy the 'Catholics versus Protestant' explanation for the 'troubles' in Northern Ireland? Or was it actually a territorial dispute for ownership of the province? How about the Basque seperatist movement? That's not religiously inspired, either. In fact, religion is generally a smokescreen for terrorism, not it's root cause.

    2) Iraq would quickly stabilize and troops would go home, leaving a democracy

    Please. Are you delusional? Dictatorship is not a religious issue. Castro is dictator over in Cuba and he's a communist. If there was no religion... It would be the ethnicity of the various factions that caused the to fight, rather than their religion. Again, utter, utter rubbish.

    3) The Middle East would be at peace!

    Again, territorial disputes, fight for control of oil reserves and ethnic conflict would ensure that the Middle East would always be a war zone. You can't have such a divide between poverty and wealth and not expect friction. Utter, utter rubbish.

    4) Poor and elderly people would not give money to churches or televangelists that they cannot afford

    Instead, as is proven every single day, they'd be conned out of their money by unscrupulous roofing merchants, time share salesmen and people selling hockey, quack medical treatments. The poor and elderly are vulnerable to exploitation, not religion. Utter, utter rubbish.

    5) Churches could be used 7 days/week as homeless shelters instead of a couple days a week for mass

    It depends who owns them. They could equally become schools, offices, factories... Warehouses... Or pulled down to build car parks. Ending religion doesn't mean everybody suddenly becomes a community minded socialist. Total, utter rubbish.

    6) Billions would not suffer psychological damage from unnecessary guilt about human behavior that is natural: masturbation, premarital sex, etc.

    What about the billions who are permanently drugged on unnecessary mood altering prescriptions? Or the people who are forced to go experience fictional 'recovered memory' by unscrupulous quacks and lawyers in order to give evidence in court? It's the nature of humanity to manipulate and misinform - not religion.

    7) Abortion would not be the divisive issue that warps American politics

    I personally believe that life starts the moment a child is conceived. However, I am pro-choice and think that a woman has the right to have that child or not - but if she does decide to abort, she should be in no doubt that she is killing her child. That's the dilemma - life and death. Not religion. In fact, Christians who oppose abortion sometimes paradoxically support the death penalty (which possibly indicates that they're just stupid.) It's nothing to do with religion and if religion disappeared, people would still fight against the right to abort unborn children.

    8) People could live in the moment instead of worrying about prospects for an after-life...think John Lennon's classic, "Imagine," which contains the lyric, "And no religion too..."

    If there was no religion, do you think people would suddenly be any more accepting of death? Probably not. The opposite, in fact. They'd be fighting and clamouring to prevent the blackness and oblivion. If it all just 'ends' then surely the point of life is to hold off that moment as long as possible.

    9) Homophobia would become rare and anti-Semitism as well

    How can somebody be anti-Semitic if there's no religion? You can't suggest that abolishing religion is a solution to a problem if it's the very problem in the first place. But being Jewish is a race as well as a religion and if religion wasn't the reason for hatred, ethnicity might be.

    10) Considering that most black people go to black churches and white people to white churches, race relations would likely improve.

    What came first? Segregation or race? People live in 'black' parts of town or 'white' parts of town. Part of it's socio-economic. Part of it's just the desire to live with people 'like you.' I think you overestimate the influence church has on people's lives.

    12) Stem cell research wouldn't even be an issue and scientists would be closer to medical breakthroughs

    See what I said about abortion. It's an issue of life or death, not religion. You don't need to be religious to object to scientists 'playing God.' If you abolished God, wouldn't a scientist's desire to 'ct like one' be even more offensive.

    13) I could go on and on...but John Lennon says it best...

    When he shuts the hell up?

    Gay Black Jew is a site ripe with contradictions. However, it's well written and amusing and many of the experiences that caused the author to create this site do show up the intolerance in modern society. I just think he's missing the point. It's not religion that causes the world's problems. It's people.

    People are just horrible, horrible people.

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  • Iraqi Soldiers Eat Rabbits and Frogs at Handover Ceremony Iraqi soldiers eat frogs, rabbit at handover ceremony
    Wed Dec 20, 2006 3:06pm ET

    By Claudia Parsons

    NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi soldiers bit the heads off frogs and ate the heart of a rabbit as signs of courage on Wednesday at a ceremony to transfer Najaf province, home to one of Shi'ite Islam's holiest shrines, from U.S. to Iraqi control. Full Article Here.

    Jenn of the Jungle blogged about this and I didn't quite believe it at first.

    Apparently killing and eating the animals is a "sign of courage" - because everybody knows how dangerous rabbits can be. Didn't you see The Holy Grail?

    I think this is pretty good evidence that, when it comes to the Middle East, we ain't in Kansas any more, Toto. These are different people with different customs and a totally different way of doing things. They may have cars and RPG's and helicopters (none of which work, if you'll read the article) but these are essentially tribal people still living to tribal rules.

    And that's how they'll remain if America and Britain pull the troops out of Iraq. We toppled Saddam, which is great. But unless we do what George Dubya says and 'stay the course,' there'll just be another dictator to take his place soon enough. Iraq is still a land ruled by the gun... Strength isn't measured in opinion polls. It's measured in the ability to command and to rule. And that's a process that has nothing to do with democracy.

    I'll agree that bringing democracy and peace to Iraq isn't the job of our soldiers - but what they're doing will eventually benefit all of us. So we should all think about the challenges our soldiers are facing while they serve out there.

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  • Open Border Murder suspect may have fled in veil
    Wednesday December 20, 09:59 AM

    LONDON (Reuters) - Detectives said on Wednesday that a man wanted for questioning over the murder of a female police officer could have fled the country disguised as a Muslim woman wearing a full veil. Full article here.


    Wait a second? Did I read this right?

    A man dressed in a full burhka, took his sister's passport and walked straight through Airport Security? And he didn't get checked? At all?

    Oh my God! What a complete joke! This is appauling!

    There are certain bits I like especially about this article:

    Asked whether Mustaf Jama had used a full Muslim veil to evade checks, a spokesman for West Yorkshire police said: "It's a possibility. He could have been wearing a pantomime horse outfit as well. But until we get him, we won't know for sure."

    So does that mean I'd be allowed through airport security unchecked if I wore a pantomime horse outfit? That they wouldn't even ask me to take the head off to check that I was who I was claiming to be?

    I mean, bloody hell. This means anybody - ANYBODY - could come and go through British borders dressed in a burhka. Osama Bin Laden could don the veil, borrow anybody's passport (since they don't check, he doesn't even need to superficially resemble the owner) and come and go to his heart's content.

    For Christ's sake, Osama's probably hopping over here to do his Christmas shopping - I mean, after all the sale's on at Harrods.

    "The idea that under any circumstances you could be let through passport control wearing a veil is barely credible," said David Davis, the Conservative's Home Affairs spokesman. "Doing so when an All Persons Bulletin for murder has been issued demonstrates that our borders are not just porous but non-existent."

    Aside from winning the award for Most Blatantly Obvious Statement of the Week, David Davis has just secured my conservative vote in the next general election. Because it is CRAZY that people can go through the ENTIRE SECURITY process and not have ANYBODY peek under their veil.

    Hey, when I go to America I have to get stopped at the border and fingerprinted EVERY TIME to ensure that I am the same Roland Hulme they have on their immense security database. So if somebody who looked like me (that bugger Chris Evans, for example) nabbed my passport and tried to blag his way past security at J.F.K., he'd be found out immediately and get the full cavity search he so richly deserves.

    Why on earth don't we have the same security in England?


    "However BAA denied it was responsible and said individual airlines should be checking passengers' passport details."


    Wait? The British Airport Authority doesn't feel it's responsible for checking passports? Then what are they responsible for? Making sure there are no peanuts on the airplane? I thought the whole reason we had a British Airport Authority was to keep our airports secure.


    But it's this bit I like most of all:

    "It is like open season against Muslims in this country," Ahmed Versi, editor of the Muslim News newspaper told Reuters.

    How utterly disgusting.

    Because the truth is actually the opposite. If anybody Jewish, Hindi or Christian demanded to be allowed through customs while wearing a full body covering - which obscured their face to the extent that their identity and gender couldn't be determined - they would be stopped and the covering removed. Immediately. With no arguement.

    But because we Brits are pandering wildly to the demands of the muslim community - bending over backwards to comply with whatever batshit crazy requests they insist on. We're so worried about not being rascist or politically incorrect that we are willing to bypass basic security measures simply so as not to offend. But since it's muslims who are behind the terror attacks in New York, Madrid and London, it's pure insanity to give them less security screening when - at the risk of sounding politically incorrect - they should be subjected to more.

    And Ahmed Versi's comments disgust me even more so because the crazy rants the muslim community make are getting more and more ridiculous. How can a simple observation - that the suspect excaped in a veil - be seen as an attack on the muslim community?

    If the muslim community demand that we start censoring TRUTH and FACT from the media then we're in trouble. The suspect used a veil to escape capture. Saying that is not an attack on muslims. That would be like somebody saying Nazi allegations of a POW using a wooden horse as cover to dig an escape tunnel is an attack on the British community.

    But the sad truth is, Ahmed Versi and the muslim community quickly get the attention and capitulation they demand when they 'cry out' against alleged injustice. Just like a two year old throwing a tantrum, the more we give in to the muslim community, the more they'll see how effective their rants and riots can be.

    We need the political equivilant of a 'naughty step.' Ahmed Versi needs to be sent to his room without any supper to think VERY HARD about what his community has done.

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  • Blame the West... Libya court to deliver nurses' HIV case verdict
    Sunday December 17, 03:17 PM

    TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor could face the firing squad if a Libyan court convicts them on Tuesday on charges of deliberately infecting hundreds of Libyan children with the virus that causes AIDS.

    Concluding a re-trial regarded by the outside world as a test of justice in Libya, the court will make a decision that, either way, is likely to have repercussions on the north African country's gradual rapprochement with the West.

    The six are accused of intentionally infecting 426 Libyan children with HIV at a hospital in Benghazi in the late 1990s. The prosecution has demanded the death penalty.

    "We are fully confident that the accused group is criminal and will be convicted," Ramadan Faitori, a spokesman for the HIV-infected children's families, told Reuters.

    Defence lawyer Othman Bizanti told Reuters: "No one can predict the verdict. A just verdict would represent the real and legal truth, which we presented to the court in our pleading."

    The medics were convicted in a 2004 trial and sentenced to death by firing squad. But the supreme court quashed the ruling last year and ordered the case be returned to a lower court.

    Rights groups the world over have rallied to the medics' defence to stop what they say may be a miscarriage of justice.

    But in Benghazi, where more than 50 of the infected children have died, there is profound public anger against the nurses and international efforts to free them.

    LIBYAN MEDIA WANTS GUILTY VERDICT

    State-controlled media want a guilty verdict for the six, who have been in detention since 1999.

    "We say to everyone: Our children's blood is precious," Aljamahirya newspaper wrote.
    Al-Shams newspaper wrote: "It's very difficult to understand the stance of those in solidarity with the accused."

    "Who deserves greater reason for solidarity -- The children who are dying without having committed any offence, or those in white coats who distributed death and wiped the smile from the lips of hundreds of families?"

    U.S. Assistant Secretary of State David Welch, who helped negotiate a full resumption of diplomatic relations between the United States and Libya, arrived in Tripoli on Friday and discussed "issues which hinder improvements in relations" with Libyan officials, the Libyan news agency Jana reported.

    It gave no details. Welch has previously said a way should be found for the nurses to return home.

    The case has hampered Tripoli's process of rapprochement with the West, which moved up a gear when it abandoned its pursuit of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons in 2003.

    But analysts say freeing the defendants would put the focus on alleged negligence and poor hygiene in Libyan hospitals, which western scientists say are the real culprits in the case.

    Bizanti has said that in 1997 -- a year before the nurses came to Libya -- about 207 cases of HIV infection had been found in Benghazi that had not resulted in any legal proceedings. He has questioned why the authorities have not followed them up.

    In June 2005 a Libyan court acquitted nine Libyan policemen and a doctor of torturing the medics.

    Washington backs Bulgaria and the European Union in saying the medics are innocent. Libya has proposed compensation which it says would open a way for a pardon and the medics' release.

    Sofia and its allies reject that proposal.

    It's just been confirmed that all 6 have been found guilty by the Libyan court.

    How utterly horrific. The accusation that these six medics deliberately infected nearly 500 children is ridiculous. Washington and the EU both confirm that and it's fairly obvious that the real culprit has to be the diabolical hygiene conditions in the Libyan hospitals. Over 200 similar infections occurred in the year before these medics arrived. Yet in the interest of political expediency and in order to stir up further mistrust between the first world and the middle east, Libya has 'found' these six people guilty.

    They've already been incarcerated in Libya since 1999 and tortured by the police for their alleged crimes. Shortly, they'll be executed by firing squad.

    I find it ironic that Libya can quantify such a disgusting abuse of justice, yet still remain vocal in it's accusations of human rights abuses by the west in Iraq.

    Unfortunately, though, this seems to be the state of fundamentalist Middle Eastern politics. There is no democracy. There is no truth. There can never be any peace. And while these countries wallow in the misery created by their fundamentalist Muslim dictatorships, we in the west berate ourselves introspectively for denying our enemies any of the rights we're lucky enough to enjoy ourselves.

    As much as a disagree with Gitmo and imprisoning suspected terrorists without trial, I think putting people into 'stress positions' and flushing korans down the toilet pales in comparison to deliberately fabricating criminal charges, painfully torturing prisoners for seven years and then lining them up against a brick wall. Bang.

    Over in the West, I think our prickling humanitarian conscience is symptomatic of our stronger moral convictions. I'm not suggesting that we should ever condone stepping on the basic human rights and priviledges we enjoy - but we should acknowledge that we will never be fighting on a level playing field while countries like Libya are still so willing to murder innocents to support this ideological jihad against freedom, democracy, justice and peace.

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  • French show which side they're on... French court sentences 3 in Real IRA trial
    Monday December 11, 04:55 PM

    PARIS (Reuters) - A French court on Monday sentenced two Irishmen and a Frenchman, all with suspected links to the Irish republican splinter group the Real IRA, in connection with the discovery of arms in France in 2003.

    All three were charged with "criminal association with a terrorist group".

    Irishman Gary Roche was arrested in Portugal last year before being turned over to France. He was sentenced to 4 years in prison and is forbidden from ever returning to French territory.

    Another Irishman, Kieron Doran, received the same sentence after being tried in absentia. An international arrest warrant has been issued for him.

    French sympathiser Bernard le Gac, who was arrested in November 2003 during a police operation in Brittany in western France, received a suspended two-year sentence.

    Police discovered the stash of two machine guns, an automatic pistol and two silencers buried in a forest near the town of Dieppe in northern France in November 2003.

    The Real IRA is a breakaway from the IRA, which fought a three-decade campaign against British rule in Northern Ireland during which 3,600 people died.

    The Real IRA was responsible for the single deadliest attack of the conflict when it detonated a bomb in the Northern Irish market town of Omagh in 1998, killing 29 people and injuring hundreds of others just months after a peace deal was signed.

    Since then, the bombings and shootings that marked 30 years of sectarian conflict in the province have largely come to a halt -- a shift underlined last year when the main IRA movement pledged to end violence for good.

    Northern Ireland's cease-fire watchdog has said it believes the IRA is keeping to that promise but issued a report in October saying it considers the much smaller Real IRA to be still active and dangerous.

    Now, anti-American sentiment in Europe has been annoying me for quite a while... But I remember, when I was in America, that anti-French sentiment annoyed me as well. Cheese eating surrender monkeys was one of their favourites. French fries became Freedom Fries. The jokes about suntanned armpits and the German army marching in the shade were rampant.

    But with this action, the French have firmly established that they won't tolerate terrorism. And despite the "war on terror" bravado, I'm sure that there are certain parts of the American community that won't like it one bit.

    This is because the IRA, despite blowing up bombs in city centres and stations, still manages to have some credibility in America. Especially amongst forth generation Irish barflies, who shove a fiver in the kitty when some drunken Irishman staggers about demanding "something for the boys back home?"

    The fact is, that Irishman is off to spend that money in the pub next door. And the fact is, the 'boys back home' - if you're referring to the IRA - are doing a roaring trade in arms and drugs and don't need any of American charity thank you very much.

    The IRA sell drugs. They sell weapons. They sell training-in-terrorism to America's enemies. They basically run a big mafia across Northern Ireland. They are real, old school terrorists. The people who blow women and children up via remote control because they're gutless cowards (rather than ranting psychos, like the suicide bombers.)

    There is nothing - NOTHING - noble or good about the IRA. And I hope some day that America realises this and treats them with the same murderous disdain that they do the bastards who knocked down the Twin Towers or blew themselves up in the London Underground.

    Today it seems the French have shown more backbone about something than the Americans. and if that doesn't spur them into action in this War on Terror, I don't know what will!

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  • THOSE BASTARDS! Spy Probe Continues
    18:34 LONDON

    In a separate development, traces of polonium-210 have been found at Arsenal's new stadium, in Highbury, north London.

    Golly, where's James Bond when you need him?

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  • God! No! Not my fried chicken!!!! NYC health board votes to ban trans fats
    By SARA KUGLER, Associated Press Writer 9 minutes ago

    NEW YORK - The Board of Health voted Tuesday to make New York the first city in the nation to ban artificial trans fats at restaurants — from the corner pizzeria to high-end bakeries.

    The board, which passed the ban by a unanimous vote, did give restaurants a slight break by relaxing what had been considered a tight deadline for compliance. Restaurants will be barred from using most frying oils containing artificial trans fats by July 1, and will have to eliminate the artificial trans fats from all of its foods by July 1, 2008.

    For God's sake! If I want to eat fried chicken, I have a God given, constitutionally protected right to! First you ban smoking - I don't even smoke, but it pissed me off - and now you're banning delicious trans fat?

    Okay, so it's bad for you... But you use it in fried chicken! And cookies! And a ton of other stuff!

    Instead of banning everything, it's about time America AND the world faced up to people and said: You! Fatties! You're the ones who are responsible for your obesity. If you don't want to get fat, don't eat so much!

    Okay, so some people have glandular problems... Additictive personalities. There are exceptions - but for the most part people have free choice in what they eat. It's a slippery slope when you start to ban food that's bad for people. What's next? Banning alcohol?

    Seriously - I will launch a one man revolution if they try to pull that crap. Has NOBODY learnt anything from Prohibition?

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  • Dude, just lock him UP already!!! Rocker Pete Doherty is spared jail time
    By KATIE FRETLAND, Associated Press Writer 14 minutes ago

    LONDON - British rocker Pete Doherty smiled and hugged fans outside court on Monday after a judge ruled he will not serve jail time for possession of drugs including heroin and crack cocaine.

    District Judge Jane McIvor ordered the 27-year-old Babyshambles singer to pay $1,525 in fines and court costs and forbade him from driving for four months.

    "I feel relieved," Doherty told reporters outside Thames Magistrate Court in London.
    The singer from east London was arrested in April for possession of less than 2 grams each of heroin, cannabis and cocaine. just three hours after he was sentenced to two years of community service for previous drug offenses. The drugs were found in the vehicle he was in and at his home.

    Doherty was arrested again Aug. 7 with a crack pipe and a small amount of crack cocaine, and pleaded guilty Aug. 18 to all five counts.

    "He's not going to jail. It's amazing," said 16-year-old fan Georgina Raymond, who jumped up and down screaming into her cell phone, "I hugged him!"

    In September, McIvor told Doherty he would not serve jail time for the charges if he continued rehabilitation, stayed employed and did not commit any other offenses. She also complimented him for his song, "The Blinding." Doherty did not break any of the imposed restrictions, McIvor said.

    "Hitting your pocket is the way of punishing you in this case," McIvor said Monday. Doherty has been in and out of court on drug charges and spent time at the Priory rehabilitation clinic.

    His lawyer, Sean Curran, said there had been a "breakdown" in Doherty's rehabilitation. Curran gave no details, but said he hoped Doherty would continue to make an effort to break his drug habit.

    In November, Doherty, the on-off boyfriend of supermodel Kate Moss, was fined $1,485 for assaulting British Broadcasting Corp. reporter Trudi Barber outside the same court.

    His drug habit gained international attention after a British tabloid printed pictures of Moss allegedly using cocaine at a music studio where Doherty and his band were recording. Moss was not charged.

    Oh, for God's sake.

    It's just typical, isn't it? Poor little misunderstood Pete AGAIN ducks prison time because... Well, why? Basically because he's rich and famous.

    I think this is disgusting - I think he's disgusting. Pete plays up to the whole 'addict' thing because it's 'rock and roll.' He laughingly goes to rehab when and if the courts demand it. Then, days later, he's caught injecting heroin into passed out teenagers.

    If this was anybody else, they'd be banged up for a long time.

    But not old Pete. Because he's rich and famous and self destructive celebrity seems to be a get-out-of-jail-free card in this country.

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  • No more racial profiling? U.S. rates travelers for terror risk
    By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN, Associated Press Writer

    WASHINGTON - Without their knowledge, millions of Americans and foreigners crossing U.S. borders in the past four years have been assigned scores generated by U.S. government computers rating the risk that the travelers are terrorists or criminals.

    The travelers are not allowed to see or directly challenge these risk assessments, which the government intends to keep on file for 40 years.

    The government calls the system critical to national security following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Some privacy advocates call it one of the most intrusive and risky schemes yet mounted in the name of anti-terrorism efforts.

    Virtually every person entering and leaving the United States by air, sea or land is scored by the Homeland Security Department's Automated Targeting System, or ATS. The scores are based on ATS' analysis of their travel records and other data, including items such as where they are from, how they paid for tickets, their motor vehicle records, past one-way travel, seating preference and what kind of meal they ordered.

    Now, as some of you might know, I am rather more intimately aquainted with the US Immigration officals than I'd like to be - although that is in my past now and I am a happy and proud Permanant Resident of the USA.

    But even though I feel like I've been treated fairly roughly by the Immigration boys, I applaud this machine.

    The problem is that anti-terrorism security and political correctness don't go well together. Practically all terrorists are muslim. Yet if you pick on muslims for security screenings, that's deemed 'rascist.' Now I don't want to sound insensitive, but I'm more comfortable with being called a rascist than getting onto a plane with possible suspects who have specifically NOT been searched in case it raised questions of political correctness.

    This system the US have implemented simply records travel information from the passengers - all information that's pretty much freely available - and cross references it with a risk assesser. It's totally immune to racism. It'll red flag, perhaps, passengers who fly from Pakistan or Saudi Arabia - but only on their travel history, not their race or religeon.

    It'll flag you, basically, if there's a reason you should be flagged. And that might been you have a couple of questions to answer. But if you've got nothing to hide, there's nothing to worry about.

    And I say that despite knowing I'll be questioned each and every time I arrive in America. But I'm okay with that, if it makes us safer. Instead of complaining about it, people should be celebrating it.

    Maybe these measures will soon mean I can get my missus onto an airplane without three large gin and tonics and a xanax!

    I feel safer already.

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  • Let the deportees out on bail. i'm sure they'll ALL come back to be deported when it's time... Immigration centre unrest contained
    Wednesday November 29, 07:41 PM

    Around 150 immigrants facing removal from Britain are to be released on bail as a result of a protest at the country's largest immigration detention centre.

    The news emerged as officials said that unrest at the Harmondsworth Immigration Detention Centre near Heathrow Airport was "contained" after a day of protests from detainees.

    Fires were lit inside and detainees gathered in a courtyard spelling out the words "SOS" and "Freedom" with what appeared to be sheets or clothing in a courtyard.

    The protest broke out on the day a report was released raising concerns about poor relations between staff and detainees at the centre near Heathrow.

    Chief Inspector of Prisons Anne Owers said her new report on Harmondsworth was the poorest she had yet issued on such a facility.

    It was not meeting any of her major tests and more than 60% of detainees said they felt unsafe, the report said.

    But Lin Homer, Director General of the Immigration Nationality Directorate (IND), described the unrest as a deliberate attempt to sabotage the removals process.

    As the disturbances were being brought under control, she said that some detainees would be moved from Harmondsworth to other IND or prison facilities.

    But around 150 other "immigration offenders" - failed asylum seekers or other illegal entrants due to be removed - would have to be be released to make room for them.

    In a statement she said: "The situation at Harmondsworth remains contained. The perimeter remains secure, and no-one has escaped. There has been no risk to the public."

    Now, is it just me, or is releasing 150 people who were about to be deported not exactly the smartest choice?

    I mean, maybe it's just me, but if I was going to be deported, but somebody let me out and said: "D'ya mind coming back on this date so we can deport you?" I would be out of there like a shot and off to wherever it is that illegal immigrants go. I would NEVER go back.

    It's ridiculous. This country has no controls over it's immigration at all. The only people who do get victimised and exploited are the legitimate immigrants, like my wife, who was forced to shell out £500 to live in England. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of illegal immigrants live here for free - some even claim benefits from the government!

    It strikes me that if the government had deemed this 150 naughty enough to lock up in the first place, perhaps letting them go is not the safest or smartest option. It's just another example of political expediancy getting in the way of the public interest.

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