The chief constable of South Wales Police is facing mounting pressure to resign or be sacked following a string of human rights abuses in the police force area against equality activists.
In the last two months a Cardiff woman had her house raided by police for criticising the IT firm ATOS and the UK Government on Facebook over disability discrimination, and a Pontypridd man has been threatened with being charged with harassment if he did not remove pictures from articles on his website that promoted racial equality, which were of his former partner, who is a well known and well publicised singer-songwriter.
Alun Michael with Chief Constable, Peter Vaughan. Vaughan has come under fire for human rights abuses against South Wales equality activists.
A petition has been set up calling for the newly elected Police Crime Commissioner, Alun Michael, to sack Peter Vaughan for these and other abuses that have happened under his leadership. A freedom of information request found that in the last year over 1,700 harassment warnings had been issued by South Wales Police. It is unclear how many of these related to bribes or unethical inducements, like those threatened against the equality activist from Pontypridd.
Sergeant Simon Morgan, who was responsible for the two officers who threatened the Pontypridd man, said he would not be investigating their actions following the equality activist making a complaint. He also said he did not care about the impact of his actions on Peter Vaughan, “I will not be investigating the criminal complaint against my officers,” he said, “I will wait to see what the IPCC says about my officers before doing anything.”
Challenged whether his actions were having a chilling effect on free speech when the person complaining against the activist is a public figure with hundreds of photographs of her online he said, “A complaint of harassment has been made and I will be building a case to give to the Crown Prosecution Service if the photographs and videos are not removed.”
People who want action to be taken against Peter Vaughan for the human rights abuses he has presided over are being invited to sign the petition.
The petition is viewable at: http://www.louder.org.uk/sackpetervaughan
