SPCS

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTION OF COMMUNITY STANDARDS INC.

NZAF – a registered charity – may face legal action for alleged slander

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Legal action threat [against New Zealand Aids Foundation] in HIV child stouch

A Whangarei childcare centre is planning legal action against the a New Zealand Aids Foundation (NZAF) for slander.

[The NZAF lobby group, active in political advocacy, is a charity registered with the Charities Commission. NZAF had a total gross income of $4,659,689 in the financial year ended 30 June 2011, which including $4,112,376 in Government grants/contracts, $342,029 from other grants and $117,508 from donations. Its total expenditure for the year was $4,997,359]. [Read more…]

The Human Rights Foundation of Aoteoroa New Zealand and “advocacy”

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The Human Rights Foundation of Aoteoroa New Zealand [“HRF”] is a charity registered with the Charities Commission (registered on 14 April 2008 – Reg. No. CC22917). HRF is also a charitable trust incorporated on 23 October 2001 under The Charitable Trusts Act 1957 (Reg. AK/1171103) and it is heavily involved in “advocacy”. The Charities Commission website (www.charities.govt.nz)  records HRF as having 12 Board members.  HRF received  a total income of $45,486 in the financial year ended 30 June 2011, of which $22,062 came from a government grant and $20,953 from other grants. Its total expenditure was $42,542.

Upholding human rights is fundamental to the maintenance of good community standards and a functioning civil society, just as the upholding and promotion of the moral and spiritual welfare of its citizens is.

HRF’s Objects are succinctly stated on its website as: “We promote human rights through research, education and advocacy” (see www.humanrights.co.nz), and on its Trust Deed: “To promote human rights including by education, training and advocacy…” The high level of (political and representative) “advocacy” this registered charitable entity/lobby group engages in can be gauged from its involvement in the following examples of its activities: [Read more…]

SAFE sensible “animal rights activists” vow to continue protest against foie gras

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A SAFE (Save Animals from Exploitation) Board member, zoologist Dr Michael Morris, who is one of the leaders of the anti-foie gras campaign directed at the Wellington French restaurant Le Canard, is reported today by The Dominion Post (p. A21) as saying that his five fellow-campaigners, like himself, are “professionals with sensible jobs”. The group has vowed to carry on its protests outside Le Canard restaurant until its foie gras dish is taken off the menu.

SAFE is a registered charity with the Charities Commission headed by Mr Trevor Garrett. Its finanancial accounts (available on line on the Commission’s website www.charities.govt.nz), reveal that in the financial year ended 31 March 2011, it employed nine full-time charity workers and 5 part-timers; all presumably in sensible professional charity jobs funded from the charitable donations SAFE received from charitable New Zealanders, many holding down sensible professionsal jobs.

SAFE records a total annual salary and wages bill of $589,430, for the financial year ended 31 March 2011. This pay-out constituted 61% of the charity’s annual income of $917,315 – the latter derived no doubt from donations given by many New Zealanders employed in sensible professional jobs. [Read more…]

Website publisher to go to jail after losing his appeal

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A website publisher has lost his appeal against being jailed for contempt of court for publishing a suppressed judgment. Auckland Vincent Siemer was sentenced in the High Court at Wellington last September to six weeks’ jail after being found in contempt of court after a breach of court orders. The breach came after Siemer published a suppressed judgment relating to the Urewera police raids-accused on his website last year. The Supreme Court has dismissed his appeal and ordered him to start his prison sentence on May 25, 2012.

Source: The Dominion Post, 12 May, 2012. P. A3.

Social media sites ‘spur to suicide’ – finding of Otago University researchers

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Text messaging and social media sites such as Bebo contributed to the spread of suicide in a spate of teen deaths, a New Zealand study has found.

Otago University researchers found that communication via text message and Bebo were likely to have helped the spread of suicide in an area where eight teenagers killed themselves within a short time span.

The spread of inaccurate information and rumour, the “glorifying” of dead young people through online tribute pages, and the heightened anxiety felt in the community may have all contributed towards copycat suicides, the authors found.

They said suicide prevention guidelines needed to be reviewed to help prevent suicide contagion through social media.

Other suggestions included monitoring social network sites and removing Bebo and Facebook pages.

In the study Adolescent Suicide Cluster and Electronic Communications Technology published in international journal Crisis 2012, Dr Keren Skegg and fellow researchers investigated eight teenage suicides in an unnamed New Zealand city within a relatively large rural district in 2006.

Six of the suicides happened within a six-month period, while the two other suicides – one in a neighbouring district, and the other several months before – were included after the researchers found links.

They found while mainstream media was responsible in its coverage, rumour spread quickly on social networking sites. Inaccurate information about suicide, including the method, spread through Bebo and text messaging – sometimes only hours after the deaths. Fear and anxiety were heightened.

Online tribute pages became shrines to the dead, with overwhelmingly positive messages posted.

FOR FULL REPORT go to ….

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/6910338/Social-media-sites-spur-to-suicide

Sourced from The Dominion Post, 12 May, 2012. p. A11.