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RICHARD DAWKINS, the atheist campaigner, is planning a legal ambush to have the Pope arrested during his state visit to Britain “for crimes against humanity”.Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, the atheist author, have asked human rights lawyers to produce a case for charging Pope Benedict XVI over his alleged cover-up of sexual abuse in the Catholic church.The pair believe they can exploit the same legal principle used to arrest Augusto Pinochet, the late Chilean dictator, when he visited Britain in 1998.The Pope was embroiled in new controversy this weekend over a letter he signed arguing that the “good of the universal church” should be considered against the defrocking of an American priest who committed sex offences against two boys. It was dated 1985, when he was in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which deals with sex abuse cases.Benedict will be in Britain between September 16 and 19, visiting London, Glasgow and Coventry, where he will beatify Cardinal John Henry Newman, the 19th-century theologian.Dawkins and Hitchens believe the Pope would be unable to claim diplomatic immunity from arrest because, although his tour is categorised as a state visit, he is not the head of a state recognised by the United Nations.They have commissioned the barrister Geoffrey Robertson and Mark Stephens, a solicitor, to present a justification for legal action.The lawyers believe they can ask the Crown Prosecution Service to initiate criminal proceedings against the Pope, launch their own civil action against him or refer his case to the International Criminal Court.Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, said: “This is a man whose first instinct when his priests are caught with their pants down is to cover up the scandal and damn the young victims to silence.”Hitchens, author of God Is Not Great, said: “This man is not above or outside the law. The institutionalised concealment of child rape is a crime under any law and demands not private ceremonies of repentance or church-funded payoffs, but justice and punishment."Last year pro-Palestinian activists persuaded a British judge to issue an arrest warrant for Tzipi Livni, the Israeli politician, for offences allegedly committed during the 2008-09 conflict in Gaza. The warrant was withdrawn after Livni cancelled her planned trip to the UK.“There is every possibility of legal action against the Pope occurring,” said Stephens. “Geoffrey and I have both come to the view that the Vatican is not actually a state in international law. It is not recognised by the UN, it does not have borders that are policed and its relations are not of a full diplomatic nature.”
Would make for a very interesting case though...
Quote from: Epsilon on April 11, 2010, 01:45:25 PMWould make for a very interesting case though...It would top Micheal Jackson's trial as the most watched and most controversial.
That 'touch you on your studio' pic is very funny and creepy, creepy in a bride of Chuckie kind of way.
I am under the impression that Dawkins is not enormously involved in this actually.
Comment #478580 by Richard Dawkins on April 11, 2010 at 8:48 am Needless to say, I did NOT say "I will arrest Pope Benedict XVI" or anything so personally grandiloquent. You have to remember that The Sunday Times is a Murdoch newspaper, and that all newspapers follow the odd custom of entrusting headlines to a sub-editor, not the author of the article itself. What I DID say to Marc Horne when he telephoned me out of the blue, and I repeat it here, is that I am whole-heartedly behind the initiative by Geoffrey Robertson and Mark Stephens to mount a legal challenge to the Pope's proposed visit to Britain. Beyond that, I declined to comment to Marc Horme, other than to refer him to my 'Ratzinger is the Perfect Pope' article here: http://richarddawkins.net/articles/5341 Here is what really happened. Christopher Hitchens first proposed the legal challenge idea to me on March 14th. I responded enthusiastically, and suggested the name of a high profile human rights lawyer whom I know. I had lost her address, however, and set about tracking her down. Meanwhile, Christopher made the brilliant suggestion of Geoffrey Robertson. He approached him, and Mr Robertson's subsequent 'Put the Pope in the Dock' article in The Guardian shows him to be ideal: http://richarddawkins.net/articles/5366 The case is obviously in good hands, with him and Mark Stephens. I am especially intrigued by the proposed challenge to the legality of the Vatican as a sovereign state whose head can claim diplomatic immunity. Even if the Pope doesn't end up in the dock, and even if the Vatican doesn't cancel the visit, I am optimistic that we shall raise public consciousness to the point where the British government will find it very awkward indeed to go ahead with the Pope's visit, let alone pay for it. Richard
Pope: Scandal scars not hidden2010-05-28 07:43Vatican City - Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday told Italian bishops that the Church's scars from the predator priest scandal could not be hidden, as abuse cases begin to come under the spotlight in the country.The bishops' evangelical mission "does not hide the wounds that scar the Church community because of the weakness and the sin of some of its members," the pope said.Italy seemed to be spared by the series of sex abuse revelations rocking European and American churches in past months, but since last week cases have been coming under the national spotlight.On Tuesday, a top bishop gave the first official figure on cases in Italy saying the Church had carried out about 100 canonical investigations of priests suspected of abuse in the country over the past 10 years.The bishops' conference did not say how many priests were found guilty.A 73-year-old priest in northern Italy was arrested on Monday over allegations that he sexually abused an alleged victim from the age of 13 to 16, while last week for the first time a bishop testified in a trial against a priest accused of abuse."This humble and hurtful acknowledgement should not make us forget the free and passionate service of so many believers, starting with priests," the pope said.The Catholic Church has for months been embroiled in a series of sex abuse scandals amid allegations that the Vatican had shielded predator priests from prosecution in several European countries and the United States.- AFP
