My political defence against "criminal tweets" charge

[Peter Dow]

I'm a Scottish scientist and I'm in big trouble!

I'm on trial for my @ peterdow tweets

Trial date - Aberdeen Sheriff Court, 4th November 2015

The tweets I posted on my @ peterdow Twitter account in July 2014, two months before the Scottish independence referendum, employed republican political rhetoric to try to express in the strongest possible terms my political support -

• for a republic to replace the kingdom and
• for an elected president to replace the monarch as head of state.

I link from my @ peterdow Twitter account to my Scottish National Standard Bearer website at SCOT.TK where I dutifully explain the reasons why the people of Scotland would do better, be safer and be more prosperous, if we exercise our political right to establish a Scottish republic.

None of my tweets were literal "threats" or literally "threatening" that I or anyone else could, would or should "threaten" the Queen.

My tweets were no more "a threat" to the Queen than Alex Salmond's "hold Westminster's feet to the fire" was a "threat" to anyone in Westminster. The police didn't arrest Salmond for making criminal "threats" for the same reason as the police shouldn't have arrested me.

Politicians and political authors alike sometimes use rhetorical language. In my tweets I have employed rhetoric such as figures of speech, hyperbole, brevitas and synecdoche and such tweets cannot reasonably be interpreted literally.



Peter Dow with his school, college and university degree certificates

I'm a scientist with many qualifications and a science degree from Edinburgh University. I am an intelligent and educated man and I know the difference between "intelligence and education" and "stupidity and ignorance".

My scientific opinion is that it was stupidity and ignorance on the part of police detectives, prosecutors and sheriffs who read my tweets and quoted them as their poor excuse -

• to seek a sheriff's warrant to incite police officers to force entry to my home, search it and take my property
• to break my front door down, as the police did, on 27th July 2014
• to arrest me, to charge me and to hold me in a police cell overnight,
• to ransack my flat from top to bottom, damaging my property in the process,
• to seize my computer and my memory devices holding my irreplaceable science research and development data
• to refuse to return my property even when it is not needed as "evidence" to "prove" anything because I admit the @peterdow tweets were mine
• to impose in Aberdeen Sheriff Court oppressive bail conditions requiring me not to access the website of scot.tk or social media, with the threat that bail would be withdrawn and I would be imprisoned until trial - and that's a real threat of police and prison officer violence against me
• to terrorize me from posting about my political views on social media, which at that time would have been increasingly about the campaign for the Scottish independence referendum, supporting a "YES" vote
• to trump up a criminal charge in respect of my social media posts
• to proceed to a unfair trial in Aberdeen Sheriff Court on 4th of November

I frankly and openly admit to owning the @ peterdow Twitter account and I've offered to delete any of the complained-about tweets which the police or prosecutors would otherwise take action over because no tweet is worth the loss of liberty and property which the police and prosecutors have terrorized me with.

I would note in passing that gagging YES-campaigners, banning any of us from social media, rigged the indy-ref campaign in favour of a "NO" result.

Banning those like me who disagree with the so-called "Edinburgh Agreement" (which, unlike Salmond & Sturgeon, I would not have signed) - rigged the unjust outcome of Scotland still firmly stuck in the UK, ignoring the legitimate demand for a 2-state solution, which would mean establishing an independent Scottish state now, as is the democratic right of the 1.6 million people and the 4 council areas who voted "YES".

Although I am not a lawyer, it seems to me that all this unjustified police state violence and threats which I have suffered is in violation of my human rights in law under these articles of the European Convention of Human Rights -

• Article 5 - liberty and security
• Article 6 - fair trial
• Article 8 - privacy
• Article 9 - conscience and religion
• Article 10 - expression
• Article 11 - association
• Article 13 - effective remedy
• Article 14 - discrimination

All of those ECHR articles, except 13, have been incorporated into UK and Scottish law. So if anyone should be on trial for breaking the law, it is those police and law officers of the state who have violated their duty and violated my legal human rights.

I propose that

• stupid and ignorant police officers and prosecutors should be dismissed from their employment
• everyone should exercise their viewer discretion whether or not to read the strong language which is to be found on Twitter and
• police and prosecutors should leave people like me posting harmless posts on social media well alone.

Sadly, the reality is that "stupid and ignorant police officers and prosecutors who insist on arresting and prosecuting people for their harmless tweets" is what Scotland is cursed with now thanks to the dreadfully incompetent leadership of -

• Chief Constable Sir Stephen House and
• Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland

who should both be sacked.

Aberdeen is doubly cursed with a dreadfully incompetent area Procurator Fiscal, Andrew Shanks who should also be sacked.

I'm innocent of any crime and no miscarriage of justice can accurately paint me as "a common criminal", because I could only ever be a political prisoner - unjustly arrested, unjustly prosecuted and perhaps unjustly convicted and unjustly punished for lawfully expressing my democratic political views.

The tyranny of the police, prosecutors and courts in this bad kingdom is one of the reasons I am a republican. I believe that we, the people, would serve ourselves more fairly by electing a president as a helpful head of state, not only a figurehead - someone with a duty to hold the officers of the state to account for their abuses.

Save my science

Scientists must be allowed to get on with our scientific duties in the public interest and in the service of humanity.

I have published new scientific and engineering concepts and proposals regarding -

• making renewable energy more competitive, efficient and practical
• mathematics to maximise energy generated from wind turbines 'farms'
• designs for super-sized hydro-electric pumped-storage schemes
• an approach towards a cure for cancer
• a prototype of a cheap cryo-surgical instrument - my 'freezerbaton'
• H-shaped super-bricks for assembling stronger, lighter structures
• other published ideas in various scientific fields

My irreplaceable science research and development data was held on the computer and memory devices seized by the police. I need that data returned to me urgently to allow me to continue with my scientific duties, as I requested of First Minister Nicola Sturgeon when she appeared with her cabinet secretary colleagues, here in Aberdeen, in February 2015.



VIDEO of Peter Dow asking First Minister Sturgeon this question -

"Good evening to you First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and to your ministerial colleagues. My name is Peter Dow and I thank you for this opportunity to ask you a question.

Please may I have my computer equipment returned to me from the police who seized it when they raided my home in July 2014?

They've taken my scientific research data which is irreplaceable.

The police say they won't return my property unless and until they are instructed to do so by the procurator fiscal service.

My lawyer has written to them, I've written to them but the Procurator Fiscal Service have not replied to state any outstanding reason for still holding on to my computer equipment - and after six months, I'm still waiting.

Isn't it time for the Scottish government's law officers to look into this and then to order the return of my computer equipment?

Also, I noticed that our new First Minister did not appoint new law officers or a new Chief Constable of Police Scotland, and shouldn't ANY First Minister be allowed to pick a new team of colleagues and not be stuck with those from the previous administration?

THANK YOU!"

VIDEO - First Minister Sturgeon replies to Peter Dow

Later that evening in February 2015, I spoke to Justice Minister Matheson, as First Minister Sturgeon had suggested and I passed to him a copy of my document explaining the circumstances and demolishing the flimsy case against me and requesting that the charges be dropped and that my computer equipment be returned to me.

Mr Matheson agreed to pass on my document to the law officers and I have anyway emailed the law officers directly myself. In all the 8 months since February 2015, the law officers have neither ensured that the Procurator Fiscal Service drop all charges against me nor have the law officers seen to it that the police return my computer equipment and irreplaceable science research data.

So I've long since run out of patience with the Scottish government's law officers, who are the failing Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland and the failing Solicitor General Lesley Thomson.

My opinion now is that the Scottish government's law officers should be summarily sacked and replaced by the First Minister because these law officers have violated their duty to ensure that the Procurator Fiscal Service should not prosecute citizens for our political viewpoints and should not violate citizens' legal human rights to freedom of expression.

These failing law officers cannot be trusted with independence from government, nor from the people's elected representatives. I therefore recommend that these law officers be held accountable for their failings and be summarily dismissed from their offices.

A crime against humanity

To interrupt my scientific duties and service to humanity with a police raid and court action amounts to the state harming the public interest and committing a crime against humanity.

No state and no officer of the state should ever dare to obstruct what even one scientist can do for the prosperity of the people and for the benefit of humanity because there can be no "state immunity" for crimes against humanity, as the Nuremberg Trials demonstrated.

No justice for republicans in Queen's courts

I have been victimized, traumatised and offended against in this case and in other cases before this one, by what the sadistic and vindictive police, prosecutors, courts and prisons have unjustly and illegally done to me when, as a good man with a keen social conscience, I have bravely tried to do my duty to my neighbours, my community, my home city of Aberdeen and my country of Scotland and suffered arrests and imprisonment for my good deeds.

There is a saying "no good deed goes unpunished". Indeed, it does seem to be true anyway that no good deed by a republican goes unpunished by a Queen's court.

So I admit no "previous convictions". I admit only previous miscarriages of justice and wrongs done to me at the heavy hands of the Queen's courts' officials.

So I don't expect that there will be a fair trial for me, nor for any republican, in any unjust royalist kangaroo court of this kingdom, where judges, who serve the Queen but not the people, will be sitting in judgement on republicans, who serve the people but not the Queen.

Therefore in the unfair show trial on 4th November I will be appearing before another royalist court which can so easily do a wrong to me, especially if such court-wrong-doing is thought by wrong-doing royalists to serve their Queen.

I believe that there can be -

• courts which serve the people and do what is right and just, or,
• courts which serve the Queen and do what is wrong and unjust

but, in my republican opinion, there cannot be such a thing as "a court which serves the Queen and the people and does what is right and just, all at the same time".

In serving the Queen, royalist judges often

• follow misleading evidence lead by "the Crown" - the prosecutors
• defer to the kingdom's fallible authorities
• have contempt for human rights law
• dish out cruel punishments for trivial or minor offences

and so do wrong to the accused and a disservice to the people and therefore it is time to end the status quo of royalist courts, pretending to be "courts of justice" which royalist courts realistically can never be.

No doubt my lawyer will do his best on the day but I believe that my best political defence can only be published by myself, in my blog, in emails, in press releases and in this Political Forum post.

Scientists for Freedom of Expression in Scotland



Peter Dow


Peter Dow on Indy-Ref day, 18th September 2014

Peter Dow, B.Sc. Hons. (Edinburgh)
Former lecturer in Computing and Mathematics, Glasgow College of Nautical Studies.
Independent research in applied science.

• Author - political, economic & social science
• Politics - Internationalist. Republican Socialist.
• Websites -
  "Scottish National Standard Bearer" SCOT.TK
  "For Freedom Forums" FIGH.TK
  Twitter @ peterdow
• Police quote political tweets as pretext for raid of Peter Dow's Aberdeen home in July 2014.
• Computer with irreplaceable science data seized
• "not like Gestapo" claims a detective constable
• Prosecutor trumps-up ridiculous charge of "threatening communication" and court grants bail conditions limiting Dow's access to websites
• Flimsy case demolished in 8000-word email reply

Jon Godwin


Jon Godwin

Professor Jon Godwin, MSc DPhil (Oxon) CPhys MInstP FRAS FRSS
Reader in Statistics, Institute for Society and Social Justice Research, Glasgow Caledonian University.

In emails to Peter Dow, Professor Godwin writes -

"I should of course share your deep upset at having my research and the "tools of my trade" seized from me by the powers that be. ...
what I might be able to do to help?"
"... commiserating with you over what seems a quite extraordinarily high-handed reaction to it, in particular considering the sometimes very colourful conversations one encounters daily on internet bulletin boards, etc etc. In particular, seizing your property in "evidence", rather than perhaps just copying whatever might be relevant to the possible case and then returning it, seems almost wilfully obstructive and I can only imagine your consternation as to what might become of it later. ..."
"the implications for "freedom of expression" are potentially serious. Meanwhile, I wish you well and hope that this matter ends happily."
- Professor Jon Godwin, Glasgow Caledonian University, January 2015


Contact - Peter Dow, 21 Hollybank Place, Aberdeen,
Tel. 01224 583906

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Thank you very much!

[fiveworlds]

You need to calm down and apologize. You aren't likeable. Your website is crap and makes you look bad. Also what the *** is with your page about looking for a woman who's at least 13 years younger?? With you being what 54 now??

Edited October 28, 2015 by fiveworlds

[Strange]

I'm a Scottish scientist

 

Yeah, right.

 

 

I'm on trial for my @ peterdow tweets

 

Good.

[Peter Dow]

You need to calm down and apologize.

I'm calm but not complacent. I'm in trouble and I need a good defence.

 

I did apologise. To quote from one of my emails to the prosecutor, court etc.

 

I hope to enquire whether some alternative to prosecution, another way of dealing with the matter of the complained about tweets of mine can be explored - such as an apology from me to all concerned explaining that my tweets were not meant literally as a threat but were merely republican political rhetoric - and an undertaking from me to delete the complained about tweets.

 

You aren't likeable.

No shit Sherlock.

 

Your website is crap and makes you look bad.

Don't judge a book by its cover.

 

Also what the *** is with your page about looking for a woman who's at least 13 years younger?? With you being what 54 now??

I want a family, to become a father but have had no success with women as a younger man, or screwed up my chances, so now child-bearing age women are that much younger than I am.

[ACG52]

Oh god, not this crackpot again.

[Phi for All]

!

Moderator Note

As a science discussion forum, rather than a legal action forum, this type of thread is inconsistent with our purpose. Staff recommends the same advice we would for a medical problem, seek a professional who can help, nobody here is qualified to make internet diagnoses.

 

Do NOT post it again.

 

Thread closed.